She did not have time to wonder about his being late. He died bent over the sidewalk sign that stood out in front of the hardware store... He had not even had time to get into the store...

Doing this was likewading and then throwing yourself into the lake for the first icy swim, in June. A sickening shock at first, then amazement thatyou were still moving, lifted up on a stream of steely devotion—calm above the surface of your life, surviving, though the pain ofthe cold continued to wash into your body.

You know one reason I know he's not dead?' said Sonje. 'I don't dream about him.

But once in a while came a moment where everything seemed to have something to say to you. The rocking bushes, the bleaching light. All in a flash, in a rush, when you couldn't concentrate (...) so you get the wrong idea, surely the wrong idea. That somebody dead might be alive and in Jakarta.