On the fifth day he gets to help Edith hang up the laundry in the yard. They move back and forth between the clotheslines and from tree to tree. The underwear, her own, she has already separated out back in the house and banished to a back corner of the balcony. He has taken a close look at them: worn out, graying white panties and small brassieres that look hand sewn.

He gets to hand her the children’s underwear, then, not without awkwardness, his own (which ultimately are Carl’s; it falls to Edith to decide who gets which). Edith, who has just been talking about fertilizer for the tomato plants, goes silent. Her embarrassment is so strong that it carries over to him. They can’t find their way out of this silence.

When they’re finished, Edith bends to pick up the empty tub and starts heading back to the house.

“Wait, Edith, let’s sit down on the bench and rest for a second.”

Reluctantly—she can’t think up an objection just then—she sits down next to him. Her legs pressed close together like two objects that have been neatly put away. Everything about her is measured, plain; even to cross her legs would probably seem to her to be too coquettish. He, on the other hand, lets his legs splay out to either side like an exhausted construction worker.

“You’re very different, the two of you. Was it always like that?”

The question takes him by surprise. He looks at Edith and wonders what she’s really trying to get at.

“Yes. But it’s gotten worse. Back then I was the stronger one, and then I left him behind when I went to America. I always looked after him, he was my little brother.”

Her face darkens, seems to seal itself off. She doesn’t say anything for a long time, and then, as if coming to a decision, she says, “He puts it very differently. He says you were always making trouble, and he was the one who had to answer for it.”

“No, that’s not how it was.” He says it too quickly and a bit testily. Now he tries to collect himself and to speak calmly. “He took most of the beatings from our father. Two left hands—you know how it is. Something was always going wrong. A torn pair of pants, lost change, spilt milk. Then our father would have to punish him.”

He seems to be calling up what to her mind is a strange image, her husband as a clumsy and abused child. He could go on, say something like: And he still is today, plus he’s missing an eye on top of that. It must take a huge toll on him trying to make up for all these weaknesses. Instead he says, “But there is one thing we have in common. We’re both short men.”