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into the water, but it was at this point that Robbie, wanting to
make amends, tried to be helpful.
    “Let me
take that,” he said, stretching out a hand. “I’ll fill it for
you, and you take the flowers.”
    “I can
manage, thanks.” She was already holding the vase over the basin.
    But he said,
“Look, I’ve got it.” And he had, tightly between forefinger
and thumb. “Your cigarette will get wet. Take the flowers.”
    This was a
command on which he tried to confer urgent masculine authority. The effect on
Cecilia was to cause her to tighten her grip. She had no time, and certainly no
inclination, to explain that plunging vase and flowers into the water would
help with the natural look she wanted in the arrangement. She tightened her
hold and twisted her body away from him. He was not so easily shaken off. With
a sound like a dry twig snapping, a section of the lip of the vase came away in
his hand, and split into two triangular pieces which dropped into the water and
tumbled to the bottom in a synchronous, seesawing motion, and lay there,
several inches apart, writhing in the broken light.
    Cecilia and
Robbie froze in the attitude of their struggle. Their eyes met, and what she
saw in the bilious mélange of green and orange was not shock, or guilt,
but a form of challenge, or even triumph. She had the presence of mind to set
the ruined vase back down on the step before letting herself confront the
significance of the accident. It was irresistible, she knew, even delicious,
for the graver it was, the worse it would be for Robbie. Her dead uncle, her
father’s dear brother, the wasteful war, the treacherous crossing of the
river, the preciousness beyond money, the heroism and goodness, all the years
backed up behind the history of the vase reaching back to the genius of
Höroldt, and beyond him to the mastery of the arcanists who had reinvented
porcelain.
    “You
idiot! Look what you’ve done.”
    He looked
into the water, then he looked at back at her, and simply shook his head as he
raised a hand to cover his mouth. By this gesture he assumed full
responsibility, but at that moment, she hated him for the inadequacy of the
response. He glanced toward the basin and sighed. For a moment he thought she
was about to step backward onto the vase, and he raised his hand and pointed,
though he said nothing. Instead he began to unbutton his shirt. Immediately she
knew what he was about. Intolerable. He had come to the house and removed his
shoes and socks—well, she would show him then. She kicked off her sandals,
unbuttoned her blouse and removed it, unfastened her skirt and stepped out of
it and went to the basin wall. He stood with hands on his hips and stared as
she climbed into the water in her underwear. Denying his help, any possibility
of making amends, was his punishment. The unexpectedly freezing water that
caused her to gasp was his punishment. She held her breath, and sank, leaving
her hair fanned out across the surface. Drowning herself would be his
punishment.
    When she
emerged a few seconds later with a piece of pottery in each hand, he knew
better than to offer to help her out of the water. The frail white nymph, from
whom water cascaded far more successfully than it did from the beefy Triton,
carefully placed the pieces by the vase. She dressed quickly, turning her wet
arms with difficulty through her silk sleeves, and tucking the unfastened
blouse into the skirt. She picked up her sandals and thrust them under her arm,
put the fragments in the pocket of her skirt and took up the vase. Her
movements were savage, and she would not meet his eye. He did not exist, he was
banished, and this was also the punishment. He stood there dumbly as she walked
away from him, barefoot across the lawn, and he watched her darkened hair swing
heavily across her shoulders, drenching her blouse. Then he turned and looked
into the water in case there was a piece she had missed. It was difficult to
see because the roiling