Another thing I remembered: the four girls have in their own ways a suitor in this section. Rachel and Axelroot, Leah and Anatole, Ruth May and Nelson, Adah and... the lion? Death? Are these suitors the Judges? (if we consider that Orleanna is married to a major type?) This could link to your comment on this passage speaking of women's relationship to marriage (Orleanna's bemoaning at the start of the section.) If we follow this reasoning, then I think you are right that Adah dropping the h has some meaning - it's almost as if she is trying to remove the human from her since in some ways that's how she is treated by others. She is all language, poetry and perception, but from a removed, observation point. She loves spying on people in the dark, has an almost lack of fear in that sense (I'm thinking again of her connection to death.) She does keep having these close brushes with death, doesn't she?! Birth, lion, ants...

Didn't Leah and Anatole speak at one point about the French language and how it had unnecessary letters hanging from its words? Perhaps one of those moments when Leah was more closer to Adah than she realised?

I think Orleanna hates Axelroot because he suggested that she had other ways to pay for escape if she couldn't afford his airplane fees. I took it to mean sexual intercourse with her or her daughters. I'd say she's also picking on the hostility of the rest of the villagers towards him which is why she doesn't trust him.