With her anxieties again mounting, she told herself it was now or never. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out into the hall and headed toward Mr. Benfatti’s room. All went well until she arrived at the man’s door, which was open about six inches. Eager at that point to get the whole thing over with, Samira raised her hand to knock when she found her hand poised in midair. To her utter shock, the door had been pulled away the instant Samira had expected to make contact with its surface. Reflexively, Samira let out a yelp of surprise as she was unexpectedly confronted by one of the evening nurses, whom Samira knew only by her first name. It was the remarkably obese and brusque Charu, and she completely filled the doorway.

In contrast to Samira’s reaction of surprise, Charu acted irritated that someone was in her way. She looked Samira up and down as if evaluating her and said, in not too friendly a manner, “What are you doing here? You work days.”

Charu and Samira knew each other only from nurses’ report during the shift change when the day nurses communicated to the evening nurses each patient’s status and specific needs.

“I just wanted to check on my patient,” Samira said, her voice more hesitant than she would have preferred. “I’ve been in the library studying up on knee-replacement surgery.”

“Really?” Charu questioned, with a tone that suggested doubt.

“Really,” Samira echoed, trying to sound forceful.

Charu eyed Samira with a look of disbelief but didn’t voice it. Instead, she added, “Mrs. Benfatti is visiting.”

“Will she be leaving soon? I wanted to ask Mr. Benfatti a few questions about symptoms.”

Charu merely shrugged before pushing past Samira.

Samira watched her as she headed in the direction of the desk. Samira was in a quandary about what to do. She couldn’t hang around the floor waiting for Mrs. Benfatti to leave, yet if she returned to the library, she wouldn’t know when the wife departed. On top of that, she wondered if running into Charu meant she should abort the effort altogether. Of course, the trouble with doing that was that it might be a week before she had another American patient with some kind of history of heart trouble who would make an appropriate target. By then the benefits of competing with Veena probably wouldn’t accrue.

Samira was still debating the issue when she was surprised yet again. This time it was Mrs. Lucinda Benfatti, who was a moderately tall, heavyset woman in her mid-fifties with tightly permed hair. Having met Samira that day, she recognized her immediately. “My word, you do put in a long day.”

“Sometimes,” Samira stammered. Her mission during which she was to avoid being seen was devolving into a bad joke.

“What time do you work until?”