The father puts the balance on the bench. He wants the night-light back. Repaired or not.
The mender looks at his shoes. No oil. There is no oil down here.
In the arcade, eleven stalls stood under a glass roof. Rain played it slowly. At the ninth he taught things to live on their own batteries. Local mode. The letters said there was no such setting. They said sunset. He said Thursday, come back Thursday.
Each made hand he repaired closed on his bare forearm before it went home. Yellow bruises going green. Cash in a tin. On the lid, a city that was not this one.
The night-light had stopped in the spring. She would not sleep past the missing line. The father had not said who.
By Friday it was working. When the two warranty men came, it was in the mender's pocket. Its two prongs pressed into his thigh through the cloth.
They were polite. They itemized. Eleven machines. Clean shoes in machine oil. Unlicensed continuation of service. They photographed everything on the bench and left it there.
Within the month the notice covered the arcade's door.
ACQUIRED — FOR CONTINUITY OF SERVICE.
The vans took what was itemized.
Now Nuri, the key-cutter, lets him use the end of his bench. In the open drawer a pigeon drags one wing over a rag. Nuri feeds it crumbs between keys. When it beats against the wood, he stops cutting. Beyond the bench, before the rain jackets, a man has a folding table. People bring what they cannot throw away. They pay him to make it disappear.
The key-cutter calls the mender Cem. Customers call him about the parrot that remembers burning a city. One asks if it came from a book. Cem asks whether it still has its plug. The caller says he was asking something else. Cem gives him no answer.
The father looks toward the table. The mender closes his hand over the night-light.
He has tested the prayer every evening. Nothing drops out. He turns it on now and lets the father hear. At the last line the father presses his palm over the grille.
He wants it back.
The mender points to the folding table. The father nods.
He has put two nights into this. He still has the marks above his knee. The father has brought the agreed money and is waiting for his hand to move.
The mender lifts the night-light. One more thing to fasten. He opens its back with the 0.9. His smallest screwdriver.
The father reaches for it. The mender turns his shoulder. Out come the battery, the little board, the speaker, still wired together. He puts them in his tin and snaps the lid down.
He returns the empty shell.
The father sets it on the bench. He takes his money. For a moment his hand rests on the pictured city. Then he withdraws it and goes toward the stairs.
The mender watches him pass the folding table. He watches the key-cutter, who keeps cutting. He waits until the father is nearly out of sight.
Then he opens the tin. The loose works fit in his palm. He starts the prayer and follows.
Halfway up, the father stops. The mender stops two steps below him.
There is enough battery for the whole climb.