So he knew that as soon as the hamlet was emptied out, Jobo slipped along behind the houses till she came to the mayor’s house, and went in through the back door. She found the mayor waiting for her in his own upstairs bedroom—she seemed to know the way—and that was where all her buttons popped off in his eagerness. Afterward, she stayed to sew them all back on again, but there were only four. The mayor was all over that room, trying to find where the fifth button had bounced.
Rigg closed his eyes and slowed things down—or sped himself up—even more. Now they barely moved, but he could see the buttons pop off one by one. The ones they found easily. And that fifth one. It took a bounce under the wardrobe and must have lodged on some slat or in some corner because it didn’t hit the floor again. Looking under the wardrobe wouldn’t help. Even sliding it out, unless you tipped it or hit it to dislodge the button.
Well, Bak’s worst suspicions were certainly confirmed, and if Rigg found the button in the mayor’s house—well, that would only be possible if the mayor let him in.
But if I make for his house, he’ll bar me from it. That won’t help—Bak will only be all the more certain that his wife and the mayor were up to something.
Ram Odin must have guessed as much as Rigg now knew, because he was telling the story of a woman caught in adultery who had to wear a red letter on her clothing, always, the first letter of “adultery” in the language of the place, only when she died, the letter was also a scar on her chest, as if the letter had burned its way into her heart.
“Burning is right,” said Bak. “A woman who does that sin when she’s married and a mother, she’s burning down her own house.”
“It’s a terrible thing and nobody does it anymore,” said Jobo hotly.
“Only ten years since it was done.”
“In Stinkville, not here,” said Jobo.
“Well, that’s why they burned her up in her own house in Stinkville, and not here.”
“Is Stinkville really the name of the place?” asked Rigg. Thinking, meanwhile, That’s your punishment for adultery? To burn down the house with the woman inside?
“Well they don’t call it that,” said Jobo. “And they have a choice name for us, too, you may be sure.”
“What do you call this hamlet?” asked Rigg.
“Not everything has a name,” said Bak.
“We call it home,” said Jobo. “And I hate talk about evil old customs like house burning.”
“It always made a kind of sense to me,” said Bak. “His wife sleeps with another man, the husband’s house is already destroyed and his wife is already dead to him. Burning down the house just makes it real to everybody.”
“They don’t burn down the house around adulterous men.”
Bak merely looked puzzled. “Why would they? He’s not going to get pregnant with another bird’s egg!”
“You hear how he quotes foolish old sayings!” said Jobo hotly. “Everybody thinks he’s so nice, but he’s got a cold temper, cold but deep and it never stops till he’s satisfied.”
She was afraid of him. He bore her tongue well enough, but if he thought he had suffered real injury, he’d seek justice. That’s what she feared, and that was what she was trying to impress on Rigg. Just in case he actually was a finder.
Rigg knew he couldn’t find the button or the consequences would be terrible. Or at least he couldn’t openly find it where it was.
“After lunch, can I lie down and let the finding happen?” asked Rigg.
“He needs to be all alone, except for me,” said Ram Odin.
Including you, you old weasel, thought Rigg. But he didn’t dare to contradict him—if they ever disputed each other’s story, it would cast doubt upon all.
So a half hour later, they were shut up together in a room with a nice bed, by local standards, and Rigg explained in a soft voice where the button was.
“Don’t want to see this house burn down,” said Ram Odin.
“Not going to,” said Rigg. “I’ll get the button and find it somewhere else. Excuse me for a minute.”
He took off his sandals—they were noisy on the wood floors—and jumped back in time to the middle of the night. Sure enough, there was Jobo asleep in the bed, but not Bak. He must be sleeping somewhere else in the house.
Rigg crept softly from the room, out of the house—through an open window so he didn’t have to open the door—and along behind houses, following the same path that Jobo had used on haying day. He got up right behind the mayor’s house and then latched on to Jobo’s path as she left on that day. In an instant it was daytime, and Jobo was rushing away, the gap in her blouse showing skin between the bottom button and the three at the top. She had closed the door carefully, but Rigg knew the mayor would soon give up his continuing button search. Sure enough, the front door of the house soon opened and the mayor went out that way.
Now Rigg could go in and find the button. The house was empty and there was no one to hear him open the door and go up the stairs.
He felt around under the wardrobe. He could feel the slats underneath and knew that the button must be resting atop one of them. But he couldn’t twist his hand around to find it.
Can’t go tipping the wardrobe. What if it fell over? It’s a heavy piece of furniture.
So Rigg sighed and watched the scene from haying day four times, until he knew exactly where the button bounced. Then he positioned his hand to catch the button and jumped back about an hour to the exact moment—got it!—and shifted right back to when the house was empty. He was there so fleetingly, thanks to the quick reflexes that the facemask gave him, that even if the mayor’s mind hadn’t been on other things, he would only have seen him for an eyeblink. And Jobo’s back was to him.
Holding the button in his hand, Rigg wondered, not for the first time, if the reason the button never made a sound and came to rest on the floor under the wardrobe was that Rigg had caught it. But he hadn’t caught it until it already turned up missing.
That was where thinking about the changes they made always led—to the edge of paradoxical madness. They had long since agreed that nothing was circular. Things couldn’t cause themselves. So the button really had been lodged up there, setting in motion this entire dilemma, and now it wasn’t there, but only because Rigg, at the end of the chain of events, had gone back to fetch it.
He went out the back door, closed it carefully, and then jumped back to the night he arrived at the mayor’s house. Now, in dark of night, he walked to the main street and followed the many paths out beyond the town toward the hayfields. He knew that because that’s where everyone’s paths had gone on haying day. He picked a stone beside the track and pushed the button under it so it wasn’t visible at all, but still might believably have bounced there.
Then he walked back to Bak’s and Jobo’s house, climbed in the window, and went back up to Jobo’s room. On the way he saw that Bak was sleeping in one of the children’s bedrooms. His son’s bedroom. The door was closed; Rigg saw him only by his path. But he could see, with his path-sense, that Bak slept little. Could see him lying there staring at the ceiling. Maybe not right now, but for long hours of the night, tonight and the other nights since the button was missed and he left Jobo’s bed.
And there was Jobo, faithless woman. Rigg, with his knowledge of all people’s paths, knew well enough how common, and how uncommon, such actions were. More common in the city, less common in small villages, where everyone was known and it was hard to do anything unseen. It really took some ingenuity for Jobo and the mayor to betray their spouses here. And it had only happened twice, two months apart—Rigg knew that. Perhaps after this, never again.