Maytera Marble smiled to herself, lifting her head and cocking it to the
right. Her sheets were clean at last, and so was everything else--Maytera
Mint's things, a workskirt that had been badly soiled at the
knees, and the smelly cottons she had dropped into the hamper
before dying.
After strenuous pumping, she rinsed them in the sink and wrung
them out. Her dipper transferred most of the sink water to the wash
boiler before she took out the old wooden stopper and let the rest
drain away; when it had cooled, the water in the wash boiler could
be given to her suffering garden.
With her clever new fingers, she scooped the white bull's congealing
fat from the saucepan. A rag served for a strainer; a chipped cup
received the semiliquid grease. Wiping her hands on another rag,
she considered the tasks that still confronted her: grease the folding
steps first, or hang out this wash?
The wash, to be sure; it could be drying while she greased the steps.
Very likely, it would be dry or nearly dry by the time she finished.
Beyond the doorway, the garden was black with storm. That
wouldn't do! Rain (though Pas knew how badly they needed it)
would spot her clean sheets. Fuming, she put aside the wicker
clothes-basket and stepped out into the night. a hand extended to
catch the first drops.
At least it wasn't raining yet; and the wind (now that she came to
think of it, it had been windier earlier) had fallen. Peering up at the
storm cloud, she realized with a start that it was not a real cloud at
all--that what she had taken for a cloud was in fact the uncanny
flying thing she had glimpsed above the wall, and even stared at
from the roof.
A memory so remote that it seemed to have lain behind her
curved metal skull stirred at this, her third view. Dust flew, as dust
always does when something that has remained motionless for a
long time moves at last.
'_Why don't you dust it?' (Laughter.)_
She would have blinked had she been so built. She looked
down again, down at her dark garden, then up (but reasonably
and prudently up only) at the pale streaks of her clotheslines.
They were still in place, though sometimes the children took
them for drover's whips and jump ropes. Started upward thus
prudently and reasonably, her gaze continued to climb of its own
volition.
'_Why don't you dust it?_'
Laughter filled her as the summer sunshine of a year long past
descends gurgling to fill a wineglass, then died away.
Shaking her head, she went back inside. It was a trifle windy yet
to hang out wash, and still dark anyway. Sunshine always made the
wash smell better; she would wait till daylight and hang it out before
morning prayer. It would be dry after.
When had it been, that sun-drenched field? The jokes and the
laughter, and the overhanging, overawing shadow that had made
them fall silent?
Grease the steps now, and scrub them, too; then it would be light
out and time to hang the wash, the first thin thread of the long sun
cutting the skylands in two.
She mounted the stair to the second floor. Here was that
picture again, the old woman with her doves, blessed by Molpe.
A chubby postulant whose name she could not recall had admired
it; and she, thin, faceless, old Maytera Marble, flattered, had said
that she had posed for Molpe. It was almost the only lie she had
ever told, and she could still see the incredulity in that girl's eyes,
and the shock. Shriven of that lie again and again, she nevertheless
told Maytera Betel at each shriving--Maytera Betel, who was dead now.
She ought to have brought something, an old paintbrush, perhaps, to dab
on her grease with. Racking her brain, she recalled her
toothbrush, retained for decades after the last tooth had failed. (She
wouldn't be needing _that_ any more!) Opening the broken door to
her room... She should fix this, if she could. Should try to,
anyhow. They might not be able to afford a carpenter.
Yet it seemed tonight that she remembered the painter, the little
garden at the center of his house, and the stone bench upon which
the old woman (his mother, really) had sat earlier. Posing gowned
and jeweled as the goddess with a stephane, the dead butterfly
pinned in her hair.
It had been embarrassing, but the painter had wonderful brushes,
not in the least like this worn toothbrush of hers, whose wooden
handle had cracked so badly, whose genuine boar bristles, once so
proudly black, had faded to gray.
She pushed the old toothbrush down into the bull's soft, white fat,
then ran it energetically along the sliding track.
She could not have been a sibyl then, only the sibyls' maid; but
the artist had been a relative of the Senior Sibyl's, who had agreed
to let her pose. Chems could hold a pose much longer than bios. All
artists, he had said, used chems when they could, although he had
used his mother for the old woman because chems never looked
old...
She smiled at that, tilting her head far back and to the right. The
hinges, then the other track.
He had given them the picture when it was done.
She had a gray smear on one black sleeve. Dust from the steps,
most likely. Filthy. She beat the sleeve until the dust was gone, then
started downstairs to fetch her bucket and scrub brush. Had the
bull's grease done what it was supposed to? Perhaps she should have
paid for real oil. She lifted the folding steps tentatively. The grease
had certainly helped. All the way up!
Grafifyingly smooth, so she had saved three cardbits at least,
perhaps more. How had she gotten them down? With the crochet
hook, that was it. But if she did not push the ring up she would not
need it. The steps would have to come down again anyway when she
