When Emil was a small child, he found a kitten down beside the river. The kitten was small and sickly and each day he gave it saucers of milk with his great grandmother. After a few weeks it disappeared. It was probably dead, his great grandmother said, and for an hour or so his entire body shimmered with aching sorrow and then it was over. His great grandmother continued to pronounce things dead or alive and Emil never got used to it.