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way to leave the country, and if I tried to hide, they'd find me eventually. Then it would be even worse.”
    “ But maybe...we could find someone at Dover who has a boat and...”
    Mara kissed her on the cheek. “It wouldn't do any good, sweetie. Let me see the doctor tomorrow. If that doesn't work...well, it's only one week out of my life, and then I can put the whole thing behind me.”
    They sat there silently, waiting for the food to arrive. It wasn't until Mara heard the doorbell that she realised they were both naked; she hurriedly pulled on her bathrobe before opening the door and paying the deliveryman. After eating the food, Mara suggested they watch something really depressing that would put her own problems in perspective, and eventually decided on Michael Haneke's The Seventh Continent , in which members of a family meticulously destroy all their possessions prior to committing suicide. The film made Mara recall her own parents' suicide, which also seemed to have been a protest against an intolerable situation. Would it have been better if they'd taken her with them? On the whole, she thought not. Despite the horrors that awaited her, she still loved life, and believed it worth fighting for. She felt strangely calm. She'd absorbed the bad news, and now experienced a sense almost of relief that the letter she'd been dreading for years had finally arrived. Despite having already slept for several hours, she was pleasantly tired. In bed, Yuke held her all night, and her presence kept away bad dreams.

    Chapter 4
     
    At least that was how it initially appeared to Mara. But just before dawn, she felt Yuke's grip tighten, and heard her moaning. That was when she realised Yuke had not kept away bad dreams, but rather absorbed them. Mara’s first encounter with this mysterious talent occurred the night before her punishment centre appointment. Yuke had lain alongside her then as well, enabling her to enjoy a deep and dreamless sleep. When Mara had awoke, she’d seen that Yuke was covered in sweat, her head moving rapidly from side to side as she fought off some hallucinated torment.
    Now the same thing seemed to be happening again. As Mara eased herself out of Yuke's arms and stroked her forehead, she heard her mumbling, “Please, don't. I beg you. I can't take it,” then a few words in Japanese, and finally something that sounded like, “I can't move. All I can do is watch.” Mara thought of Yuke as a dreamcatcher, but in a sense the process worked both ways.
    Three years ago, Yuke had been groped in the street by a drunken police officer. She'd endured the assault for as long as possible, but when the man undid her blouse, pulled up her bra, and began caressing her breasts, she spat in his face. She was immediately arrested, and ended up being prosecuted for assault. The officer claimed he'd been sober and conducting a random search, and since a policeman's word counted for a lot more than that of a mere female, the trial was a perfunctory affair which lasted only ten minutes. It concluded with the Judge sentencing Yuke to have the little finger on her left hand removed. Yuke was required to pay for the operation, which would be carried out without anaesthetic: it cost more than she earned in six months. She had medical insurance, but judicial amputations weren't covered by her policy, since her healthcare provider classified them as 'unnecessary surgery'. Mara insisted on selling some stocks she'd inherited to help raise the money. Other than that, there didn't seem to be anything she could do to alleviate Yuke's distress.
    When the day of the operation arrived, Mara accompanied Yuke to the hospital, but had to watch helplessly as her lover was taken into the operating theatre. While she sat in the waiting room, Mara noticed that the little finger on her left hand had begun to ache. She put this down to sympathy pains, and forget all about it when Yuke reappeared two hours later, her face streaked with tears