19
THE GIRL’S NAME was Tiyu and we talked to her on the veranda. I told the cook to give her some food, which she refused initially, but then changed her mind.
While she ate, she told us that her father, her sister, her mother, mother’s sister and two cousins were all in the camp. She had never left Eighth Circle until she and her relatives got on a truck in the middle of the night and drove through the desert.
That made me suspect that they came from the part of the city closest to the valley, the part where the aquifers cut through the stone, where the mushroom farmers worked. This was not close to where Deyu came from.
She could only tell me the name of the district, which meant nothing to me, and I didn’t want to disturb Deyu, who had gone inside and was doing something in the hall
