Messai was afraid. He had not told Yemsiratch that. But the things he does, the values he would like to develop, the person he would pay to be seen as [that he suspects he hasn’t got the ingredients for] were clear indications of a cry for help. If ever there was a man whose seeds were stopped from sprouting by the birds of the sky, by a severe sun, by the rocks he was forced to tread upon; that man was Messai. Still, it was painful–nay, beautiful–to see him struggle to go back to what he could have been; much like an absent-minded man trying to retrace his steps.
