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By Root 1116 0

made from a silken Runa fabric that Supaari provided. Manuzhai made the circlet of ribbons and flowers Sofia wore around her head, with streamers of many colors woven into the crown, falling to the ground all around her. D.W., not much heavier now than Sofia and very frail, gave the bride away. George was the best man. Anne was supposed to be the matron of honor, but decided to cry instead. Askama was the flower girl, of course, and the VaKashani loved this element of the ritual, so close to their own aesthetic. Marc Robichaux officiated at the ecumenical ceremony, working some rather lovely Ruanja poetry into the Nuptial Mass. Anne knew that the husband would stomp on a glass at the end of a Jewish ceremony, but the closest she could come to that tradition was to suggest that Jimmy break a Runa perfume flask. Then D.W. said that in view of Sofia’s dedication to the stuff, a coffee mug would be appropriately symbolic, so they used a pottery cup instead. And Marc ended the service with the Shehecheyanu, the Hebrew prayer for first fruits and new beginnings. Sofia stared, wide-eyed, when she recognized the French-accented words and then saw Marc concentrating on the lips of his language coach. When she turned to Emilio Sandoz, standing a little distance away, he smiled, and thus she received his wedding present.

There was a feast, with plenty of twigs and popcorn. And there were games and races, which had winners and losers but did not make anyone porai because there were no prizes. It was a good-hearted amalgam of Runa and human customs and cuisine. Afterward, Anne, who had done as much work on these arrangements as any Earthside mother of the bride, made it clear that Jimmy and Sofia were to be left strictly alone on their first night. Entering into the spirit of the thing, the VaKashani constructed a doorway for the apartment given to the new couple: a trellised screen of woven vines, decorated with flowers and ribbons. Escorted home, Jimmy and Sofia thanked everyone, laughing, for their very helpful instructions, and found themselves alone at last, the sounds of communal merriment receding and merging into somewhat more private celebrations as the third sun set.

Truths had been told, long before this night. In the delicious days of waiting that they gave themselves, as wedding plans went on around them, they spent hours in the shadowy filtered light of a hampiy shelter paved with cushions. There were many things to share: family legends, funny stories, simple biographical details. One afternoon Jimmy had lain next to Sofia, marveling at her small perfection and his good fortune. He had never assumed that she was coming to him an innocent and so, tracing the pure line of her profile with his finger, he looked down at her, his deep-set smiling eyes filled with erotic speculation, and asked in low tones of intimacy that left no doubt about his meaning, "What pleases you, Sofia?"

She burst into tears and said, "I don’t know," for it had never occurred to her that anyone might ask such a thing. Startled, Jimmy kissed away salty tears, saying, "Then we’ll just have to find that out together." But, puzzled by the strength of the reaction, he knew there was something behind this and looked at her, searching for it.

She had meant to keep this one region of her past behind its old defensive walls, but the last barrier between them came down. When he heard it all, Jimmy thought his heart would break for her but he only sat and held her, long arms and endless legs enfolding her like a nestling, and waited for her to quiet. Then he smiled into her eyes and asked, in the dry academic tones of an astronomer discussing a theoretical point with a colleague, "How long do you suppose I can go on loving you more every day?" And he devised for her a calculus of love, which approached infinity as a limit, and made her smile again.

So there were no more walls to be scaled, no more fortresses to defend by the fifth of Stan’ja, a month that marks the start of summer on Rakhat, when the nights are very short and full of stars and racing clouds