396
PARTISAN REVIEW
Then the girl rose from the ground in one fluid movement, and the
stone behind her lay revealed. There was a slaughtered ewe on its sleek
surface, its head hanging lifelessly over the side, its open throat dripping
its life onto the sand.
"What is this?" asked Constantine faintly, his knees turning into cot–
ton as a feeling much like relief surged through him.
"I am teaching Kadma to joint a sheep," said the woman serenely.
Dazed, he moved his eyes to the girl, saw her standing before him in
her short white dress, her bare arms glistening with blood to the elbows,
her face friendly and, for one single disorienting moment, hauntingly
familiar-and all at once something bright, blind, and furious exploded
inside him. Turning toward the woman, he began to shout.
"How, how can you do this to yourself and to her? You borrow your
name out of a mythology textbook, you live in a cave like a savage, and
now you teach this little girl how to skin animals? Don't you know what
year it is?! Do yourself a favor, wake up! Or are you proud of the life
you lead, hiding in the dark, wearing rags, selling trinkets to ignorant
fishermen?"
He stopped, choking on his anger. The waves crashed outside with a
steady, rising roar. The girl spoke first .
"Mama says the times are dark now, but they will change," she said
in a slow, dreamy voice. "The world must go through periods of disbe–
lief to purge itself, but in the end, light and understanding always come,
and one day she will be worshipped again just as she was, just as she
should be-"
"Kadma," the woman interrupted softly.
The girl fell silent. For a long minute Constantine was motionless, lis–
tening to the song of the sea outside, and his soul felt strangely light and
empty, soaring and diving like a mad swallow. The cand le danced fran–
tically as if the amphora was full of wind . From somewhere far, far
away the woman's lilting singsong reached him as she was telling him to
please ignore the child, Kadma had such a rich imagination, it was not
easy to lead such a simple life at her age ...
"Ino," he said abruptly, not recognizing his own voice. "lno, who are
you?"
The cave was so silent he imagined that he heard the drops of the
ewe's blood falling softly to the ground one after another, staining her
robe again and again . She smiled gently.
"I am a peasant woman living on the edge of the world, selling
wind," she said . "My mother lived here before me, and Kadma will live
here after me. That is what you believe, and therefore it is."
