clothes, I wouldn’t know how to wear them.
Dr. Kerry appeared and announced that we’d been invited to take a
tour of the chapel. We would even be allowed on the roof. There was a
general scramble as we returned our trays and followed Dr. Kerry from
the hall. I stayed near the back of the group as we made our way across
the courtyard.
When I stepped inside the chapel, my breath caught in my chest. The
room—if such a space can be called a room—was voluminous, as if it
could hold the whole of the ocean. We were led through a small
wooden door, then up a narrow spiraling staircase whose stone steps
seemed numberless. Finally the staircase opened onto the roof, which
was heavily slanted, an inverted V enclosed by stone parapets. The
wind was gusting, rolling clouds across the sky; the view was
spectacular, the city miniaturized, utterly dwarfed by the chapel. I
forgot myself and climbed the slope, then walked along the ridge,
letting the wind take me as I stared out at the expanse of crooked
streets and stone courtyards.
“You’re not afraid of falling,” a voice said. I turned. It was Dr. Kerry.
He had followed me, but he seemed unsteady on his feet, nearly
pitching with every rush of wind.
“We can go down,” I said. I ran down the ridge to the flat walkway
near the buttress. Again Dr. Kerry followed but his steps were strange.
Rather than walk facing forward, he rotated his body and moved
sideways, like a crab. The wind continued its attack. I offered him an
arm for the last few steps, so unsteady did he seem, and he took it.
“I meant it as an observation,” he said when we’d made it down.
“Here you stand, upright, hands in your pockets.” He gestured toward
the other students. “See how they hunch? How they cling to the wall?”
He was right. A few were venturing onto the ridge but they did so
cautiously, taking the same ungainly side steps Dr. Kerry had, tipping
and swaying in the wind; everyone else was holding tightly to the stone
parapet, knees bent, backs arched, as if unsure whether to walk or
crawl.
I raised my hand and gripped the wall.
“You don’t need to do that,” he said. “It’s not a criticism.”
He paused, as if unsure he should say more. “Everyone has
undergone a change,” he said. “The other students were relaxed until