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read the funerary service over the body. I could see through the window that the violet cloud was rapidly smothering the Colony, so I wouldn’t run the risk of being seen. I shoved my Bible under my robes, wrapped Ali’s cape around my shoulders to camouflage myself and carefully ventured from the villa.
    By the time I’d reached the southern quarters, the fog had thickened and rendered the cape superfluous. In any case, no resident of Hesperides would ever be found in these dangerous, southern quarters, especially on such a foul night. I stood by the statue of the Happy Worker, waiting for a signal. The statue had remained headless since the carnival night when Lady Regina had dressed up as Salome and had demanded from the Governor the heads of all the statues in the Colony. Lacking a head, it was exceedingly difficult to tell whether the Happy Worker was indeed happy. Judging from the angle of his arms that drooped downwards (in anticipation of the welling up of the precious brine), it gave the impression that he was hoping the earth would swallow him up.
    A long time passed in the statue’s company, with me rendered sightless by the fog. I rarely venture forth without Ali, only when, as then, I am engaged in illegal activities and I have no wish for him to share the blame. A pair of yellow eyes was the first indication that someone was approaching. Then the salt miner led me by the hand and delivered me to a second, and he, likewise, to a third. I was content to have this relay guide me to my destination since, working in the bowels of the Colony like earthworms, their eyes could see through the fog. In the darkness of night they descend to their galleries and it’s night again when they emerge. Years pass without their getting exposed to the sun, and that’s why their skin is pale, in antithesis with ours, which is baked. In their homes they refrain from lighting lamps, not to injure their untutored eyes. They hang by ropes from the crater’s rim and descend kilometres under the surface of the earth to open channels with their shovels to help the salt-bearing water reach the drying pans. The channels clog up fast, as the salt crystallises and the shovels must work incessantly. There, in the throat of the underground maw, where the tremors are very strong and the rasping sound the salt produces is like a giant’s laboured breath, they’re tortured by hallucinations and the hungry mouth draws them in. If they’re not quickly hauled back to the surface, they abandon themselves to the belly of the beast, quite willingly it seems. They’re pushed over the edge of madness by the fumes. They part the rope by gnawing at it with their teeth and, having been liberated, they slip away into the abyss. Such deaths are not uncommon, but they are hushed up and are denied proper funerary rites. It is not permitted to bury a body in the Colony’s soil, only to incinerate it, because the chemicals of decay would corrupt the salt-bearing horizon. If the deceased had been religious, his workmates secretly called on me to say a few words. I sidestep the relevant rules and do it. This was one such occasion.
    I wrapped up the service as quickly as I could. The earthworms beside me, having removed their helmets in respect for my own exposed head rather than in deference to the deceased, shared my dread of drops from the ceiling that could sear into our scalps at any given moment. So don’t imagine anything fancy, just a couple of hurried lines since the galleries are guarded and we might be discovered. The assembled miners crossed themselves, murmured bon voyage to their liberated mate, and donned their helmets once more. Then they deployed in the reverse of the relay chain that had brought me here and thus delivered me back to the statue.
    The last link in the chain asked me slyly if I’d like to be delivered to the cyclist’s quarter as I could take advantage of the veil of fog that would hide me from Hesperides’ prying eyes. I