I called her at last; it seemed an age since we had spoken.

"Don't judge my father too harshly," I said. "You probably didn't notice that he has a bad stammer. I remember you saying that he seemed to think carefully about everything he said, that there was nothing spontaneous about him. That's because he has to weigh every sentence in his head before he starts to speak it; otherwise he will never manage to finish it. You put this down to a different kind of calculation, but that just isn't the case."

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, incredulous. "You call me, without the least explanation, to remind me about someone I only met once in passing, six months ago."

"I just don't want you to judge him too harshly," I repeated. "That's all."

I myself didn't know why I had picked up the phone. Perhaps I hadn't even known what I was going to say before I started speaking, and thus was the exact opposite of the man I was trying to defend. Perhaps there was no reason for her to have formed an incorrect assessment of my father, and my mind was idly throwing up possible but in fact aberrant states of affairs, based on lesser or greater misunderstandings, as a result of both my own actions and those of others. But at the back of my throat I could feel a different kind of stammer - an idea trying to get out. It felt like a want of compassion, but it was impossible to say for sure. Every night I heard voices; they were too sad to finish what they had begun to say, breaking down in sobs as they recounted the injustices of the world. And unless I started to take responsibility for what they said, there would never be an end to their whimpering. The gangling tongues were moving like the tubers of plants among the rocks and brick-dust, trying to reach fertile soil where they could put down proper roots at last; but for now, as I lay down at night within the ruins, tongue-tied they kept me awake with their less-than-speech. As if the words of suffering were too large for their mouths, at first they sought me to help them say them. It was only later, when they bowed their heads humbly, that I saw they really sought me for a different reason - to redress injustice and lack of understanding, so that they would no longer have to try to speak those words at all.