So he took the plastic bucket and threw out the used water and rinsed it and made new suds and got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed. The two floors were bigger when you got down to them but he sang at his work.

By the time he was through it was dark outside and they were both hungry. He left her waxing the bathroom floor and although he was sweating profusely he allowed gravity to carry his rubbery legs down the cold, windy north side of Beacon Hill to the roast beef stand next to the Charles Street Jail, where he ordered sandwiches and root beers to go and had the distinct feeling that the man behind the counter knew he was bringing the food next door to a prisoner.

When they had eaten he was ready for the locker room but she asked him to wash the kitchenette cupboards while she cleaned the closets and the bathroom fixtures.

This time he didn’t sing. Toward the end each of them labored with mechanical grimness. She finished first and while she showered he waited in the wicker chair, too weary to do anything but breathe. When she came out in her robe he went in and soaked under the fine hot spray until it began getting cool fast and he entered a race with the dropping temperature, soaping and rinsing off one split second before the water was unbearably cold.

She had opened the couch and made the bed and she was lying there in a blue nightgown reading a magazine and marking recipes that she liked.

“That’s a lousy light. You’ll ruin your eyes,” he said.

“Why don’t you shut it?”

He made the rounds of all three weak-bulbed lamps and stumbled on her shoes in the dark on the way back. He eased into bed beside her, stifling a groan because his muscles had already stiffened dreadfully, and he had just turned toward her when somewhere a woman screamed, a long and terrified sound followed by a thump somewhere outside their door.

“My God.”

He leaped out of bed. “What did you do with my bag?”

“In the closet.”

She ran and handed it to him and he stuck his bare feet into his shoes and his arms into his robe and raced outside. It was very cold and he couldn’t see a thing. From somewhere upstairs the woman screamed again. He climbed the front stairs that led into the upper regions of the building and as he entered the front hall, the door of Apartment One opened and a woman looked out.

“Yes?”

“We heard something. Do you know what it was?”

“I didn’t hear anything. Who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Silverstone. We just moved in. Downstairs.”