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be quite impossible.
    Everything went very quickly. The woman, still holding onto the rim, allowed herself to slide slowly down into the tube. Even by the time she’d reached her thighs, it was hard to tell she had two separate legs. The flesh seemed to have melted together, like candle wax.
    The theatre was completely silent.
    Now, the upper part of the woman’s thighs and buttocks were sliding down. Then, after a brief pause, all of her upper body followed till she reached the shoulders and was propped up only by her elbows on the rim.
    Because of the paint on her face, she seemed quite impassive.
    All at once, she lifted her arms in the air above her head and began, spontaneously, to slide farther down, till her head, bracketed by her arms, was inside the tube. She slid down the last inches, till her feet touched bottom and only her hands protruded, her fingers waving like the tentacles of some flesh-coloured sea creature.
    The entire tube was now a column of pink marble.
    Along with the rest of the audience, Rachel applauded. But even while they were applauding, they could see the colour of the woman’s arms and legs slowly changing from pink to purple.
    Her assistant now grasped the sides of the tube like a roll of carpet and tilted it, leaning it on his shoulder. The shapeless flesh slowly began oozing out of the bottom, filling out the bodysuit as it emerged, till the woman’s entire length lay on the stage floor.
    The applause continued and became louder as the assistant extended his hand to the woman and helped her to her feet. He held out the blue robe for her and she put it on. The two of them bowed to the audience.
    As the applause died down, one of the veterans, who’d been drinking too much, wanted to be involved. “It’s just a trick! How do you do it?” he shouted.
    A woman near the back of the theatre had an answer. “How do you think you came out of your mother, eh?” she shouted at him.
    Another woman joined in. “That’s right! The men just stand watching!” she shouted.
    Everyone laughed at that and applauded even more loudly as the performers left the stage.
    Rachel, at the back of the theatre, was astonished. She wondered how any woman could be so malleable and still be able to breathe.
    – 3 –
    RACHEL VANDERLINDEN FELT SHE’D WAITED long enough for Webber, who must have been delayed at the hospital. She left the theatre and was going down the stairs when she almost bumped into a soldier carrying a tankard of beer. She stepped aside but he didn’t pass her by.
    “Mrs. Vanderlinden?” he said, taking off his cap.
    “Yes,” she said. He was vaguely familiar. He had a plump, shiny face—perhaps a benevolent face—but his green eyes were shrewd. He seemed to be about thirty, though the war had aged these men so much it was hard to tell.
    “I saw you at the parade today,” he said. “You were pointed out to me.”
    Ah! She remembered now. This was the soldier who’d stared at her as the parade went past the bleachers.
    “Could I talk to you for a few minutes?” he said.
    She was apprehensive. But what possible harm could there be in talking to a hero? “Of course,” she said.
    So the soldier, carrying his half-empty tankard, led her into a quiet part of the inn. He limped noticeably and she saw that his left boot was wrinkled and worn, his right highly polished and unwrinkled. He was breathing heavily as he sat down at a corner table. He sipped at his beer, licked the foam from his lips. Then he stuck out his hand across the table and shook hers. He had a loose, damp grip. “I was in the Highlanders—with Rowland,” he said.
    She was surprised; she should have been delighted. But instead she was full of dread. What should she expect from this man with his plump face and shrewd eyes? Was he nice or nasty?
    He sipped his beer once more, then began talking about his time at the Front, and in particular about three days of September rain. Each of those days, he said, the