He pulled down the uniform and stepped out of it. Then he put one of the towels into the tub, because he did not want to see his clotted bits swirling on the white, and he didn’t want to slip. He put his hand into the rain of water, and it was hot, but not too hot, and the kindness of the Egyptian’s tinkering flooded through him, causing more tears. He put his foot into the tub and on the now-wet towel. He had to grab the side of the tub with his hand and the pain was fierce, but he was no longer shaking and he was only a little dizzy. He forced himself, slowly, because he did not want to shock his system—or he had an idea there might be such a danger after having been cold for so very long—and as he put his shoulder and his neck and part of his back into the falling water, he realized his back was not hurt at all, not the skin, only the muscles were terribly sore. The hot water began to loosen them. He kept his hands out of the water and pushed his head back into the shower and cried, cried and cried as the clarity of the warm sweet water seemed to wash into his brain, not just through his hair. He began to say an old prayer his mother had taught him, his first one. He said it over and over, like a song, while he took the soap and endured the sting it brought. He didn’t look down at what swirled away from the towel in the tub’s bottom. He just washed and washed and rinsed and rinsed. And when the water started to lose some of its warmth, he turned it off and wrapped the towels from off the floor around his head, and his back, and his legs, and he sat there, humming a little, until he heard the Egyptian tap on the door.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Good. No hurry.”

But he did hurry. Because by then there was chicken cooking. It was a rich crackling sound of oil and the starch aroma of rice. He fumbled with the clothes, which did not fit, and finally he figured out he would have to use a too-large T-shirt as a belt to keep the pants from falling. He put on three sweaters and he kept a towel on his head, because his hair was wet and his beard still long. Now, clean, he looked like a boy. He was twenty-four years old, and he looked as if he were twelve—a twelve-year-old who was dressed up in a beard. He was more than slightly ridiculous.

He opened the bathroom door.