"People die and you see them. You know," Mrs. Friedlander said. "They are sick and you can't do anything but try to nurse them, anyway. Or the big Karadi cars run them down and you see the broken body. You see them. Alive. Then dead. It's hard, so hard you want to stop living too, but there's God and God shows you they are dead and you have the memories, all the sweet ones. You know they're dead because you see them dying. You can forget. In time, you forget. You have to forget because otherwise you don't want to live, but you ... hold me. Hold me tight." Mr. Friedlander patted her hair awkwardly. The Karadi not only condoned but encouraged displays of simple emotion and for that reason Mr. Friedlander tried to avoid them. "What are you trying to tell me?" he asked. "Freddie. Freddie. His plane was shot down over the mountains, they told me. Freddie is dead. Freddie." Mr. Friedlander stopped patting his wife's hair, stopped stroking the tangles into a smooth glossiness. He bent down and carefully unbuckled his torn overshoes, placing them carefully in a corner of the room. Then he walked to the window and stared out at the snow sparkling in wind-blown puffs under the street lamp which remained only because the Karadi liked to drive their confiscated autos at night. "What are you saying?" he asked his wife. "Just because they tell us Freddie is dead--" "Stop it. Don't say that." "Freddie is dead. Because they tell us, that's no reason to believe. How can we believe? We saw Freddie alive, but now they tell us Freddie is dead. Far away, two thousand miles. Over the mountains. Did we see him die? He's dead. Oh, he's dead. But we'll never learn to live with it. Don't you see? How can we believe? How can we know? We saw him alive. Now he's dead." Freddie was flying a Karadi plane against the last strongholds of free man in the Rocky Mountains. Not because Freddie had wanted to pilot the dart-swift craft particularly, but because they had made him. The Karadi announced their own human losses readily, almost as if they took great pleasure in the impressive figures. "They told you this?" Mr. Friedlander asked. "That Freddie's plane was shot down. That he is assumed dead." "You saw nothing in writing?" "They sent a man." "You knew him?" "No. He wore good clothing. He drove up in a sleek Karadi car." "Quisling." "Freddie died a hero's death, he said. Against the rebels." "Rebels? Trying to preserve their own freedom? Freedom which we lost because the bombed cities couldn't survive?" "I only know what the man told me, but how can we ... how ... all my life, always, forever, I will be praying and waiting for Freddie to walk in, right behind you, through that door. We never saw him die. They should at least send something. Some proof. Anything to make me understand he is dead."