“Yes.”

“But since God had put it into our hearts we couldn’t resist it, could we?”

“No.”

“And now He doesn’t seem to care, does He?”

“No! He doesn’t seem to care,” says Oskar. And then he goes off with head down.

FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

It is the Saturday before Easter.

Looking out of her bedroom window in the morning, Mona sees nothing but a desolate black waste where the crowded compounds have been. Four unborn springs and summers buried in the bosom of the blackened fields—when, oh when will they grow green again?