Unhelef's Secret Life

Unhelef was aware that she was living a life she could have neither conceived of nor made sense of a decade ago. She and Tongsu talked two or three times a year, mostly near a holiday or the farmer's birthday. They never talked about the past or what happened or any memory they had of each other in those years. One day Unhelef told him something she wasn't supposed to tell anyone, a secret. But whom would he tell? There were diplomats coming to stay at her hotel,. She didn't even know what a diplomat was. Pretend they're goats, he said. Goats? They used to calm you to see the goats on the mountain