The sun was setting behind the hills and the valley became dark and very chilly; a chill that gets into your bones. I went home with Luke and got to meet his mother. She was making food in a kitchen hastily put together in the yard. She was white and fat, moving around like a goose and also talking like one. She served us dinner, then retreated to her weaving loom, perhaps she was making Arinals dowry.
Luke kindled the lamp that was hanging from the ceiling, a lamp made from a musty pumpkin. We ate heartily and before we were about to finish the food in the pots, Arina got up from the table and went out, without saying a word. She was a bit shorter than I. I remained looking into nothing, staring at the black frame of the door through which the girl disappeared.
"There's full moon tonight," Luke said staring at the pumpkin. Then, he guided me to a small room and put sheets on a bed with a mattress made of grass.
I stretched with my arms under my head; through the low c’ay walls, full of bumps and cavities, a reddish light was penetrating. I was about to fall sound asleep, exhausted from the long journey and the dip in river, but I pulled myself out of bed and rushed out, to the edge of the precipice.
The rivers were sparkling white in the darkness of the valley and the village cows were walking on them, in a never-ending row - there was mooing and cowbell noise, and on one of the cows one could see Arinals silhouette. They were heading towards the flat plateau, beneath which the moon was rising, and the first cows were c’imbing one after the other, s’ender and black, haloed.
