How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Grass is growing up in the path and in front of the gate; the weeds are a month tall. Ordinarily I would spend a few hours pulling them out, but it isn't worth it, we'll be here only two days. (4.23)
She manages to cram a lot of units of time into these couple of sentences, no? From other references, we know she's used the growth of plants in the garden to determine how long her father has been gone. Her weighing of amounts of time and their significance may speak to a larger sense in which she's just trying to sort out time and its movements.
Quote #8
There's no act I can perform except waiting; tomorrow Evans will ship us to the village, and after that we'll travel to the city and the present tense. I've finished what I came for and I don't want to stay here, I want to go back to where there is electricity and distraction. I'm used to it now, filling the time without it is an effort. (6.1)
Here, the narrator suggests that being back home has kind of been like stepping back in time, and only leaving will bring her back into the "present tense." It's worth noting that the tense of the narrative shifts into the past tense soon after this moment—after David decides that they're all going to stay there for a few additional days. Apparently when the characters fail to move back to the present tense, the narration follows suit… for a few chapters, at least.
Quote #9
He was speaking about it as though it was an exercising programme, athletic demonstration, ornamental swimming in a chlorine swimming pool noplace in California. "It wouldn't keep me healthy," I said, "I'd get pregnant." He lifted his eyebrows, incredulous. "You're putting me on," he said, "this is the twentieth century." "No it isn't," I said. "Not here." (18.23-25)
When David tries to convince the narrator to have sex with him, he is shocked when she uses lack of birth control to brush him off. To him, being in the "twentieth century" means being able to have sex without getting pregnant. The narrator sets him straight by reminding him that the place they're staying is hopelessly rooted in the past.