The Cafe Table

Letter 34 of the Book of Forgetting

The plaza cafe was half full at ten in the morning. Dalia Shalev stood at the counter with her coffee, then carried it to the corner table where Miriam Segal sat with a newspaper folded to the notices page.

"Miriam, could I sit with you?" Dalia said. "The fever took three days out of me. Then I came to blows with Nathan at the mill, and I can't make that into something I'm proud of. I keep telling myself I'm doing all this for my family, but I don't want Jethro growing up with a mother who's always angry or somewhere else. How did you know when to put the notebook down?"

Miriam set the paper aside. "Sit, sit. I don't know that I ever put it down, not for good. You just decide what's worth keeping in it."

"That's what I'm asking. What's worth it? I used to think every fact was worth something. Now I'm not so sure."

"A fact you can hold is worth more than a fact you can't. The notebook's not the town. The town's the people."

Dalia wrapped both hands around her cup. "I know. I keep telling myself that. But when I'm not writing, I feel like I'm missing something. Like if I don't watch, something bad will happen."

"You're a mother first. The fog's been here a long time. It'll wait."

"I said that to myself before the second voice. Before the stone. Now I'm not sure it waits."

Miriam looked at her a long moment. "Maybe you've done enough for one week. Go home. Sleep. Jethro'll say something new tomorrow and you'll want to be there."

Dalia nodded slowly. "You're right. I've been up half the night with the well recordings. Lior's been good about it, but he's tired too."

"Then go. The plaza'll still be here. I'll keep an eye on things."

"Thanks, Miriam. I think I will. And maybe I'll bring you a slice of that lemon cake from the bakery."

"You do that. Now get."

Dalia stood, picked up her recorder from the table, and clipped it to her collar out of habit. Then she unclipped it and put it in her coat pocket. She walked off toward the east side of town, where her house stood two streets past the bakery.

Miriam watched her go. Then she picked up her newspaper and turned to the notices page, where the Council had posted the day's patrol schedule.

---

The old mill stood at the north edge of the plaza, its waterwheel still and mossy. Liesl Kfir had set up a small table near the door, a metronome on it, a microphone taped to her ear, a recorder in her hand.

Noa Hadar came up the path from the direction of the school, a phone in her hand.

"Liesl. Before we set up anything—I need to tell you what Dalia and I have actually been doing with that recording."

Liesl set the recorder down. "I figured you didn't walk all the way here to watch me tap earbuds. Go on."

"We've been comparing your spoken cue against the splash on the same track. Marking where each of us hears it. And there's a second sound you hear that I don't. I don't know if it's the well or your ears, but I don't want to run the solo test without you knowing that."

"You think I don't know my own recording? I heard that second splash the first time we played it back. What I didn't know is that you two were making a study of it and calling it a routine check."

"That's fair. That's exactly what Dalia said—she told me to be honest or lose the test. So here I am. If you don't want to run it, I'll understand."

"Losing the test isn't the question. I've had my own doubts about my hearing, that's why I'm at the mill—I want to know if the lag follows me away from the well. But if you're marking my cue against the splash, you've already got a number in your head. What is it?"

"Roughly a full second. Same as your timer reading at the well. And the second sound comes right after your cue, not after the splash."

Liesl's hand stopped on the metronome. "After my cue. That's different from what I thought I heard standing at the well—I thought it lagged the splash. Maybe I've been chasing the wrong thing."

"Which is why I'd rather give you the voice memo and let you mark it yourself before we do anything else."

"Give me the memo. I'll listen to it here, with the metronome clicks as a reference. If my cue lags on the same recording I've heard a dozen times, then it's not the well—it's me. And if it doesn't, you and Dalia owe me more than an apology."

"I'll hand it over now. And I'll stay for the clicks, but I won't watch your marks until you're done."

"Stay. But set the metronome at sixty—I don't want any guesswork about where the seconds start."

Noa set the metronome, wound it, and let the first click sound. Then she placed her phone on the table beside Liesl's recorder and stepped back.

Liesl put the earbuds in, started the recording, and listened.

The clicks came steady, one per second. The splash came clean. Then her own voice: "Now."

The clicks continued. Liesl's finger pressed the earbud at each click, then at the splash, then at her cue.

She listened to it three times. Then she pulled the earbuds out and sat still.

Noa waited.

"The second sound comes after my cue," Liesl said. "Not after the splash. Every time."

"That's what I marked."

"So the well isn't echoing anything. I'm hearing my own voice a second late, and I've been calling it a splash."

"Or you're hearing something else entirely," Noa said. "I don't know what it is. But I wanted you to have the marks before you made up your mind."

Liesl picked up the metronome and wound it again. The clicks filled the mill's quiet.

"Set it for the next test," she said. "I want to know if the lag follows clicks, too."

---

At the town hall, I stood before the Council table with a paper in my hand. Garrin Zohar sat at the head, his tablet closed in front of him.

"Council members," I said, "I've found another blue seed at the east fog line that matches nothing in our references, and Meir's seed was damp on a dry morning. I'd like permission to systematically collect any blue-tinged seeds along the east edge, noting dates and dampness, so we can see if they line up with the days people report hearing voices. The guard turned me back before I could finish, and this could be important."

Garrin nodded slowly. "Fernando, I hear you. The blue tinge is new, and the dampness on a dry morning—that's not ordinary. I'll support your petition."

"Thank you, Garrin. I'll compare each seed against my workshop batch and the reference list. If the blue shows up on the same days as the voices, it ties everything together."

"I'll check the guard's patrol schedule at the east edge myself. If the timing matches the seed dates, we'll know if the guard's turning you back is just routine or something else."

"The guard stopped me before I could even note the ground conditions. I need the Council's permission to walk the line properly."

Garrin closed his tablet. "I'll put it to the Council at the next session. Meanwhile, I'm measuring the well's fog line tomorrow with Zipporah. Maybe we'll see the same pattern."

I folded my petition and put it in my pocket. The Council chamber was quiet, the clock on the wall reading 11:22.

Outside, the fog held its grey light. Somewhere beyond it, another seed was coming.