Ram Dass

On fine evenings, when she can escape the kitchen unnoticed, Sara climbs onto the attic table and puts her head and shoulders out of the skylight. The sky is the one thing the attic offers that the front rooms do not. She has memorized the weather patterns of the square and watches the sunsets with the analytical attention she gives to everything else. Tonight the west is flooded with molten gold.

From the next skylight a sound: a chattering. A dark face appears, then the face of a small monkey beside it. The face belongs to Ram Dass, the Indian gentleman's lascar servant. He is up on the slates looking at the sunset too, with his master's monkey pressed against his chest. He and Sara see each other. She smiles at him — it has been a long time since she has had occasion to smile at anyone — and he smiles back with a warmth that makes her feel, briefly, less alone.

The monkey breaks free, runs across the slates, jumps onto Sara's shoulder, and drops into her attic. She catches him carefully and holds him while she works out how to get him back to Ram Dass. Ram Dass climbs across and retrieves him. While he does this, he sees the attic — the bare boards, the hard bed, the cracked basin with no fire set beside it. He does not say anything about what he sees. He thanks her and goes back across the slates. He is thinking about what he saw.