There were men gathered in another room; he could hear them talking in low voices. And women too, who were helping the wife in the kitchen. From one of the bedrooms there were sounds of more women and more children. He moved toward the sound of the men’s voices. But then one of them came around a corner and said, “This boy, look at this boy who came from such cold!” And there was a competition of voices, and more men came toward him, and he looked in the kitchen and saw that the women were not veiled— of course they would not be—but were wearing blue jeans and skirts and sweaters and jewelry and makeup. And one of the women came toward him with a plate, piled with chicken legs and rice. She looked at him, without any fear but with something of what he had hoped the imaginary priest would have looked at him with, and asked in English and then slowly, in perfect Arabic, “Do you want something to drink?”

Chapter 2

2

He slept. In the morning, the wife came into his room and gave him juice and chicken sandwiches. He ate them and fell back asleep. This went on for three days. On the evening of the third day, he took another shower. In the mirror he checked carefully on his worries. The blisters on his eyes had flattened and begun healing. His elbows—reddened, still, but no longer as painful to the touch. Hands—scabbed over. Hair, beard—still a wild nomad. His teeth ached—what was that about? Had they hurt before? He couldn’t remember.

He could not get the water in the shower the right temperature. He turned the dial and scalded. He turned, wrong, again, over. Just as he was about to give up and find the Egyptian, the water flowed a strong warm. He crawled in using his previous method, this time improving it somewhat by placing the towel on the tub’s side as well as its bottom. He could tell his ears were still blocked. His feet— well, he almost threw up when the water first touched them.