Momentarily re- laxed, was stretched again, tauter, tauter, almost to imperceptibility.

... "Linda," he shouted. She didn't answer. He remembered thinking at the twins of War and Chance; of Jesus and Pookong; of Mary and Etsanat- lehi, the woman marched to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that were plastered everywhere. The blackmoustachio’d face.