The bequest is safe until January. There are three months in which the school is paid for and three months in which to decide.

CorvinaI will not ring it again. Thirty-six times is enough and I am forty-one and I have a bad wrist and I am finished pretending that is a life.

MioneThen somebody rings it in January and we decide now who and how, and we do not decide it at eleven at night with a rope in our hands.

The rope is still hanging. The pin is still on the windowsill. The bell is silent and enormous and above everything.