‘I don’t want anything,’ she said.

Milk. I washed a glass and poured it full. She sat up, her pink nightgown torn at the shoulder, ripping all the more as she moved to sit up. She held her nose and drank it, three swallows, and she gasped and lay back, horrified, nauseated.

‘Fruit juice,’ I said. ‘Grape juice. It’s sweeter, tastes better.’ I opened a bottle, poured a glassful, and held it out to her. She gulped it down, lay back and panted. Then she put her head over the side of the bed and vomited. I cleaned it up. I cleaned the apartment. I washed the dishes and scrubbed the sink. I washed her face. I hurried downstairs, grabbed a cab, and rode all over town looking for a place to buy her a clean nightgown. I bought some candy too, and a stack of picture magazines, Look, Pic, See, Sic, Sac, Whack, and all of them — something to distract her, to put her at ease.

When I got back the door was locked. I knew what that meant. I hammered it with my fists and kicked it with my heels. The din filled the whole building. The doors of other apartments opened in the hall, and heads came out. From downstairs a woman came in an old bathrobe. She was the landlady; I could spot a landlady instantly. She stood at the head of the stairs, afraid to come closer.

‘What do you want?’ she said.

‘It’s locked,’ I said. ‘I have to get inside.’

‘You leave that girl alone,’ she said. ‘I know your kind. You leave that poor girl alone or I’ll call the police.’

‘I’m her friend,’ I said.

From inside came the elated, hysterical laughter of Camilla, the giddy shriek of denial. ‘He’s not my friend! I don’t want him around!’ Then her laughter once more, high and frightened and birdlike, trapped in the room. The atmosphere was nasty, ominous. Two men in shirt sleeves appeared at the other end of the hall. The big one with a cigar hitched up his pants and said, ‘Let’s throw the guy out of here.’ I started moving then, retreating from them walking fast, past the despicable sneer of the landlady and down the stairs to the lower hall. Once in the street I started running. On the corner of Broadway and Temple I saw a cab parked. I got in and told the driver to just keep moving.

No, it was none of my business. But I could remember, the black cluster of hair, the wild depth of her eyes, the jolt in the pit of my stomach in the first days I knew her. I stayed away from the place for two days, and then I couldn’t bear it; I wanted to help her. I wanted to get her away from that curtained trap, send her somewhere to the south, down by the sea. I could do it. I had a pile of money. I thought of Sammy, but he loathed her too deeply. If she could only get out of town, that would help a lot. I decided to try once more.