105. The chalk from the hills bled into the river so that when the sun was directly overhead, the enormous carp bobbing at the surface resembled weird blue children swimming in milk. The girl to be married was wrapped in strips of dyed bark and her burro’s hooves tamped sharply on the thin sheets of orange stone. Her lover was made to lead the burro to her wedding, out of punishment for loving her when she had been matched to someone else. They were not allowed to look at one another but only at the bright, trembling water or the pairs of dusk-red ducks preening together on the shore.