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“Oh, that,” Hector says. “Well, a death in the family puts you in the public eye, for the time being. People look at you, and notice what goes on. It doesn’t continue for very long, of course – that’s why Modified, see? But while it lasts, you got to consider it. Your average guy, now, will want his dear one to have a funeral about which people will pass some favourable comment. Everything went off well at the Dinglehoofer funeral, didn’t it? Floral arrangements looked very nice, didn’t you think? Stuff like that. So it’s got to be good taste, see, good taste all the way, with just that little extra something to distinguish one from another – like, let’s say, wreaths of all-white gladioli, in season. Just some feature which people can spot and make some remark upon. Depending on price range, too, natch.”

While Hector is talking, my eyes are searching the room, and yet this is senseless. Nothing is as it used to be, and there’s nothing left from then, nothing of him, not a clue.

“Did you know my father, Hector?”

“Sure, I knew him – you know that, Rachel. Not what you’d call well, but I knew him.”

“He didn’t know what he was selling, did he?”

Hector jumps down once more and scurries around, pouring us both more rye. I must go back upstairs. Yet I’m leaning forward, waiting for what Hector will say.

“I don’t guess he ever really was selling anything,” he answers uncomfortably. “Don’t get me wrong, Rachel. He was a good guy, your dad. I thought the world of him. But not so much of a business head, was my impression. I could be wrong.”

“No, you’re not wrong. Why do you think he stayed, Hector? Did he like them?”

My voice has gone high and attenuated with some hurt I didn’t know was there. The one long-tubed light burns with a harsh whiteness. Everything is the same as it was a moment ago, and yet the room looks all at once different, a room set nowhere, the stage-set of a drama that never was enacted. The steel is stainless, stained with the fingerprints of shadows, and behind a glass barrier the bottles and flasks bear legends which never could be read. I am sitting here, bound by my light wrists which touch the dark arms of this chair, bound as though by wires which may become live. And on the high altar squats a dwarf I’ve never seen before.

Rachel, Rachel. Get a grip on yourself. Hector is looking only mildly astounded.

“You mean – did he like the stiffs?”

I hope my face conveys my gratitude. Good for him, for me. Just what I needed, some astringency.

“Yes. The stiffs.”

“I wouldn’t have said that, exactly. It was a quiet life, though, and he liked being on his own. He wasn’t much of a man for company, was he, your dad?”

I set my glass firmly down on the cabinet.

“He drank because he was never happy.” I’m speaking aggressively, almost furiously. “That is why.”

Hector’s eyes are lynx eyes, cat’s eyes, the green slanted cat’s eyes of glass marbles. Why is he looking so?

“I don’t know that I’d entirely buy that one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing much. I never knew him well. I couldn’t really say. Look, don’t get me wrong. He probably did less harm than your average guy, I know that. But I would bet he had the kind of life he wanted most.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Yes.”

Hector Jonas, who has for so long plied his trade below while I tried to live above. Comic prophet, dwarf seer. The life he wanted most. If my father had wanted otherwise, it would have been otherwise. Not necessarily better, but at least different. Did he ever try to alter it? Did I, with mine? Was that what he needed most, after all, not ever to have to touch any living thing? Was that why she came to life after he died?

If it’s true he wanted that life the most, why mourn? Why ever cease from mourning?

Hector Jonas leaps elastically down from the table like a small stout athlete from a trampoline.

“I never showed you the new Chapel. C’mon. This way. Bring your glass along.”

He grasps my hand, and I’m tugged zig-zag along a corridor, into the depths.