She didn’t want to seem too close to anyone. When push came to shove, they could use anyone as weight against her and vice versa. Besides, how could she ever tell Wendell about this? A good man like that was only going to be disappointed in her—he and her faddah would have gotten along well that way. She made herself shrug. “I’m sure he’s all right,” she said.

“Wendell hit a snag, truth be told. Didn’t exactly pass his first test here. But, the treatment’s already helping, I’m sure.”

“Swell,” was all she said, “that’s just swell.” She took a long, worried drag of her Camel, but it was already out.

7.

When Lett woke, he was lying on a bunk. It had a thin, clean mattress on crisscrossed metal slats. The room was narrow, with gray concrete walls and caged light bulbs and no windows. Ventilation came down from a square grate in the low ceiling. The steel door to his room was left open. He could go out and walk down the short corridor, which had no windows, either. Three other steel doors had been left open, too, showing rooms like his but vacant. One end of the corridor had a connecting door, more like a submarine hatch with bolts and a wheel handle. That was shut. He had tried the wheel, but it did not budge. The other end of the corridor was just more gray concrete wall.

He was wearing a US Army medical corps robe of blue corduroy. Someone must’ve put that on him. His unadorned summer uniform had been hung on the one hook on the wall, his brown GI shoes shined and set on the floor, and the meager contents of his pockets stacked on a metal chair. He wasn’t hungry. He felt rested. His face had no beard stubble that he could feel, but there was no mirror to check. He sat up a few times, then lay back again and closed his eyes. Something made him flinch, like a person does right before sleep. He thought he’d heard a man screaming, far away, muffled. He told himself that the scream was only in his head.

Later, he heard a squeak of the wheel on the hatch down the corridor. Then came footsteps, measured but not marching. Lett had left his door open. He stood, brushed his bed cover taut, planted his feet in the middle of the floor.

Two men approached, athletic types with angular faces, their expressions relaxed. They wore Army coveralls like mechanics or tankers, but their khaki was spotless, with creases even. They looked inside the room.

“Afternoon,” one said.

“Gentlemen,” Lett said.