A blister formed on her foot, and the straps of the travel bag and the weight of the sling cut into her shoulders. Nola stopped to catch her breath. She massaged her trapezius muscles. How long had she been wandering like this? An hour? Two? Her bladder was full, and the stench of another public facility announced its proximity. She wavered, not wishing to expose herself or Lulu to the noxious odor, but there was no choice. Entering a hotel where she might encounter Westerners and journalists was not an option.

She examined the hunkered-down lavatory, unable to decide which side to enter, until a woman emerged from the right. Breathing through her mouth, Nola rounded the partition wall, and stopped at the sight.

In a room tiled from floor to ceiling, about ten women crouched one behind the other over a one-foot wide trench. While each benefited from a full view of the output excreted by the woman in front of her, a thin stream of water from a faucet at the start of the trench slowly carried the materials beneath their spread legs toward the other end, where it was collected in an open drainage basket.

Gagging, Nola made a turn to leave, but the urgency of her need made her accept the attendant’s signal to step to an available spot. Get over it, she told herself. Lulu must be used to these conditions, and this was how most of humanity lived. A wad of cut-up newspaper hung from twine on the wall. She ripped off a piece. This was a new life; no more Wade to fold and hand her soft toilet tissue. Tightening one arm around Lulu's sling, Nola fumbled with her own clothes, silently thanking Leslie for her Amazonian thigh muscles that enabled her the whole feat without slipping on the soiled tiles.

When she came out a few minutes later, the low sun was still pushing the margins of the encroaching night. Nola fanned the air in front of Lulu's face, hoping that the stench had awakened her. But there was no change in the shallow, even breathing, and the skin was warm with an almost-healthy tint.

From somewhere in the distance, she heard ’40s Big Band music. The strangeness of it, the improbability of hearing “Always True to You in My Fashion” in this place, drew her to the sound. Anything to jog her brain back to action. Anything to chase away the urinal’s rankness that stuck in her nostrils, and, she was certain, had penetrated her pores and hair.

Around the corner, a chiseled-stone plaza occupied the center of a long block. A rose garden at the back was fringed with Japanese maple, cedar and poplar trees. In the plaza, music pumped out of loudspeakers hanging from the surrounding trees. About fifty couples—all middle-aged Chinese in their work clothes and flat cotton shoes—danced ballroom dances.