27
THE EVENING turned very pleasant. After filing the necessary notes and reports, Thayu and I enjoyed a drink on our lovers’ seat on the veranda overlooking the silver marshland. A couple of punts heavily laden with lily bulbs came in from the fields. The bridge builders had gone home for the day, and the newest unfinished struts for the bridge stood uselessly in the middle of the water, awaiting the construction of the horizontal beam.
I thought of the relentless dry air at Asto, already much less dry than I’d even had the displeasure to experience.
“This place is beautiful,” I said.
“Asto is beautiful,” Thayu said, with a playful challenge in her tone.
“In a harsh kind of way. I don’t know how you live in a place where the oceans are toxic and the only natural water is under the gr
