There was a knock at the door. It was a columnar noise. It seemed to push him back from where he sat. One hand dropped into the shells. Then he moved. He got up and made his way on the balls of his feet to the door. He was going to apply his ear to it when a female voice—it sounded like a girl’s—said, “Maid service,” in Farsi. No time for decision trees now. The knock came again, and then he could hear jingling and a metal sound progressing into the grooves of the keyhole.

He opened the door.

She was a teenager, he judged. She had thin lips and a too-pointed nose, and in another person they would have been witchy, but on her they looked delicate. He could tell she wasn’t stupid. She was saying her “sorry”s, she would come back later, and he saw over her shoulder the older supervisor, with another girl facing another man at his door. Hosyen put his index finger to his lip, breathed out his most fatherly expression, and opened the door. To his great joy, she followed, wheeling a small case of cleaning supplies with her.

He put his arms across his chest but didn’t entwine them; he just held his own arms. “I need your help,” he said.

She still had her hand on the handle that steered her bucket. He looked at her fingers, and when he did, she adjusted her grip but didn’t let go. He saw her eyes take in the room, the pile of pistachios and their shells, the bed not slept in, the one plastic bag, his wallet.

“How many rooms on this floor?”

“Twenty,” she said. Her voice was gentle, but only a little afraid.

“How many with guests?”

“Four.”

“On either side of me?”

She shook her head. “There is no one.”

“Not for tonight?”

“None are coming.”

“How long does she stay?”

“All day.” She knew he meant her supervisor.

“No lunch?”

“She eats it—in the room by the elevator. She has her eye, always on this hallway.”

“Except when she uses the restroom.”

“Yes.”

“Can you get me into the room next to mine?”

“You don’t like this room? You can call the front. I will—” She thought she had entirely misunderstood. Then he could read in her face that she was not sure what she understood.

“No. No. I need the front desk to think I am in this room.”

“You have a friend? A lady friend?”

“Not necessarily. Though it could be a lady. But it could also be a man. And, yes, a visitor. But I don’t want to be in my room when this person arrives. I want to put some of my things in another room. I want some of them to stay in this room. And I want to go to a third room. Can you help me do that?”