In August she moved out of the dormitory to a room and a half downtown. He contributed to the rent and had a key. She thought it was smug of him, having a woman downtown at his age, and so did he. He had never been happier, and he did not keep it a secret from her. He adored her, she understood that better now. He was willing to do the shopping, pin the hems on her skirts, shampoo her hair, and let her shampoo his. He would not tag along to push a cart for her in a supermarket while she made the selections, or stand around in a department store while she looked at dresses. She could calibrate the strength of his feeling about a thing by the amount of obscenity in his speech, and she learned that he did not like to hear her go beyond “hell” and “damn.”

His method of learning was memorization. He was not a bad student, but through practice he had become capable of retaining thousands of pieces of information that did not interest him. When she told him that the way he worked made her feel like a waste, he did not understand why. She said that it seemed that he could do anything he put his mind to, but she was wrong; there were some things, like mathematics, in which he could not do well. If she felt he was better disciplined, he felt that she had the greater natural intelligence. Her interests were wider-ranged. She did not believe that, and when he began to study for the policeman’s examination she offered to help, to see how he did it.

“Defensive wounds,” she said.

“Cuts on the hands of a victim from trying to fend off a knife.”

“I’m going to skip around,” she said. “How long can you use a search warrant?”

“Ten days.”

“What’s the telephone number of police headquarters?”

“Crown Seven, six thousand.”

“Where is the Eighteenth Precinct station house?”

“There isn’t any. It burned down in 1918 and wasn’t rebuilt.”

She closed the book. “I’ve had enough. Fix me some coffee.”

“Full of piss and vinegar, aren’t you, to order me around?”

“Well, who’s taking this damned test, you or me? I think you ought to do something for me.”

“You’re right.” And he got up to fix the coffee.