Chapter 12: The Coat Lining

It was the coldest morning of the winter, and I decided to wash the coat.

Madam Lu had not touched it since the carter brought it home.

She had folded it into the bottom of the clothes chest.

For three months it had sat there under the quilts.

"It's stiff with mud," I said, lifting it out. "If it stays, it will rot. Let me."

Madam Lu looked at the coat for a long moment.

"There is blood on the collar," she said. "I could not."

"I can."

She turned and went into the kitchen without answering, which was her way of saying yes.

I carried the coat out to the wash stone behind the house, where the ice had to be broken in the tub with a mallet.

I wet it, and soaped it, and began to work the mud out of the blue cotton with the heels of my hands.

I have washed a great deal of laundry in my life.

I know where the hidden stiff places are in a garment, where a seam has been doubled or a patch put in.

The left side of the chest was stiff.

Not with mud.

I pressed it between my fingers, and something crackled.

There was a pocket stitched inside the lining, small and flat, sewn shut with neat, fine thread.

It had not been made by a tailor.

It had been made by someone who knew how to sew straight and had not often needed to.

I sat back on my heels and looked at it.

It was not mine to open.

Then I thought of the fever, and of what he had said in the dark about a bowl.

I picked the thread out with my fingernail.

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