It was windy on the day that Hej took me to the Central Temple. Borá and Lÿsti—both given to more pragmatic concerns—remained at home, tending the garden and talking; I think that garden work is more a pleasure to them than necessity’s task. Indeed, a whole third of our rocky, stubborn garden is given exclusively to Borá’s favorite orange blossoms, and Lÿsti’s wiry vines. And so yes, the pragmatic delights of garden-tending were theirs on the day that Hej walked by my side through the dusty streets of Ůtef. Hej carried onionskins in a small, lacquer box; I carried salt and incense and flat, round charcoals stamped with the bas relief likeness of a sprouting onion. Our destination lay ahead and we walked the gauntlet of fruit stands and fishmongers hawking the bounty bribed from the half subterranean Lóz. There are aspects of Ůtef as underground as its river, but I have scarcely seen these parts of the city: these underground warrens, damp with river-mist and lit only by a copper-man’s wires and domesticated lightening in oblate, glass bulbs. Center Temple stood underground, on an island, Hej said, where the underground river widened. We descended after a time, down spiral stairs carved into living rock. The air cooled, light faded, shifted, and carried a different, half-wavering hue. I was in a different world: half dark and loud with echoes. It was beautiful, if alien. Where Ůtef—above ground—was a city of stone and stucco: angular and blocky, Ůtef—below ground—was a rounded, meandering labyrinth. It smelled of rampant moisture, of mold and of black soil. It smelled of algae and of mushrooms. It smelled of onions. I knew that onions grew (with some difficulty) along the above-ground banks of the Lóz, and I knew that the Ůt’ēžen maintained delicate crops—elsewhere: in vats. Though I knew of Ůtef underground, I never imagined onions to be common there. In silence, we walked through a narrow passage. It opened—some 200 paces later—into a vast dome of a chamber, centered—I thought—with the bulb of an enormous onion. It was visual trickery, an act of devotion. No onion grew there, but one had been carved and dusted with gold; it might have taken a dozen horses—nose to tail—to surround it. Hej chose a spot near to the structure, and I was overcome by the sound of chanting and laugher. Others had come to commemorate Naming Day, and Hej—among them—sat before the stone-carved bulb, and instructed me in the ritual. We poured salt and centered the mound with charcoal…we lit the coals and waited for them to smolder. We dusted them with incense. And then we sat, face to face with fragrant smoke between us. We held our silence for a while, and when it broke, it was to the sound of Hej reciting his father’s history. I learned of the man named Ivór; his wives and his brother-husband. I heard tales of bawdy exploits, and quiet remembrances of Hej’s childhood lessons. I heard marvels and mysteries far richer than anything I’d known in Elül, and near the end of Hej’s telling, he included me in his narrative. Near ritual’s end, Hej opened his lacquered box and drew a single onion skin into the light: one from an onion bulb I’d given him…an onion grown in Elül. He cradled it in both hands, whispering to it…giving wishes, as he’d explained (later.) He placed the dry, fragile skin in my hands and I did the same. Done, our wishes safe in the skin’s hollow, Hej took the skin and placed it on the fragrant embers. He watched, entranced at is broke into smoke and smoldered into ash. I watched him, touched and amazed by the look of innocent rapture on his face. Onions, I learned that day, possessed the power to carry wishes. *** This is the same onion skin in plain, old fashioned lamp-light. No postwork, except for resizing and a small bit of level adjustment. And, as always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re having a fantastic week.