We ate Chinese food for dinner in a little takeout/eat-in joint around the corner. Helen did the ordering; the food was lukewarm, but it was not bad. I told her briefly about the concert, and she asked about my mother. But I was, for once, too tired to talk about myself; I sat with my head still full of the plane and listened to Helen plot the regulatory policies with which she hoped to make the world less of an unfair place. By the time we got back to the apartment I was worn out. Helen had set up a futon on the far side of her room, and had made it up with crisp white sheets and a large green quilt. I sank down to floor level and thought I would go at once to sleep. In fact, Helen slept first. I lay in the corner and listened to her breathing, and saw the way her arm dropped off the side of her bed, like Chatterton’s. Helen had no curtains in her apartment, and the light of the city and the light of the moon came through her large window and lit her, and she looked like peace on earth. I got up and walked across the room to look at her more closely; I almost touched her hair, which had become luminous, but she turned slightly and alarmed me, and I lay down again. Then I, too, fell at last into a deep, exhausted sleep.

The next morning jet lag woke me early. I showered in Helen’s glitteringly white bathroom, turning the large, old, satisfying knobs that she had polished to a silver glow, and reveling in the bliss of American water pressure. Helen had to get to work, and when I shuffled into the kitchen, she was eating a croissant with some orange juice and a large cup of milky coffee. “The jam’s for you,” she said, pushing a jar of apricot preserve in my direction. “And there’s another croissant, and there’s toast if you want it, and I got some yogurt.” So I had the croissant with a great deal of apricot jam—which I didn’t particularly want—and I drank some orange juice, and I ate the yogurt, and I made myself some tea. Bernard always said it was less painful to make breakfast for me than to watch me bump into things in my morning miasma; Helen seemed to think it was easier to let me fend for myself. I was in an expansive mood, but Helen was pressed for time. “Lock the top lock, but don’t try to lock the bottom lock, because it gets stuck. Turn off the lights when you go, and please make sure you wash your dishes because there are bugs in this building.” Helen stopped for a second in front of the old gilded mirror in the hall and tightened one of her earrings, as though the mirror had shown it to be loose. “I’ve got to run,” she said, and then she gave me a great hug. “Sweetie, I hope it’s a raving success tonight. Give your mother all my love,” she said. “And call me.” And then she was out the door and gone.