All night we keep vigil from outside the chamber, monitoring every movement of her eyelids, every twitch of her limbs, praying that we will be given wisdom at the time of interpretation. In the morning more lamps are lit, the lamps of the waking and the remembering, and her father and I move in and sit beside her, speaking the words of asking in the manner prescribed by the ancient texts. Before she wakes she answers us, words floating to the surface of her mind and drifting off like smoke. We have to register them quickly before, like smoke, they fade and disappear. The interpretation of her dreams is given us by our god in answer to our prayers. She sees herself as a cormorant tied by a thread to the wrist of a fisherman... longing to be free. She sees herself as the fish caught in its b
