Sophia burst into tears. Which made things even worse. It was all so humiliating. Mortifying. The thought of herself twirling around in the air, gagging, strangling—in front of a near-total stranger. And now crying like this. She felt like an utter fool—which made her hate him—which only confirmed her vague first impression of him as an irksome American jackass.

“Here,” he said. He was beside her, holding out a tissue.

She snatched it from him. Blew her nose. But she wouldn’t look at him. She didn’t like him looming over her like this, his belt buckle at eye level. She was wearing only a nightgown under the sheet.

“Stop … looming,” she managed to say, waving her hand at him. She went on crying. The man was an idiot.

“Oh. Sorry. Was I looming? I’ll go over here.” He thumped over to the window. Thumped down on the sill, crossed his arms on his chest. Bigly. That stupid half-smile was still plastered on his enormous face.

“And don’t …” She had to blow her nose again, blew it angrily.

“What,” he said. “What am I doing now?”

“Don’t expect me to thank you,” Sophia said. “I didn’t want you to help me and I’m not glad you did.”

“Yeah, well, tough luck.”

“It wasn’t any of your business. Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

“Hey. Guess what. I don’t need a reason. You do.”

She was ferociously wiping her cheeks, her nostrils, trying to stem the flow, but the tears kept on. She hadn’t done this in front of anyone since she was ten years old. She detested him.

“A pretty girl like you,” said Storm. “Young. Successful. Smart as hell, anyone can see that. Hanging yourself? Hey, I mean, gimme a break. You got some kind of glitch in your inner life, I mean, Jesus Christ, lady, fix it. Don’t go …” He didn’t finish this, just shook his head, glancing out the window as if seeking moral support from the benighted city.

Sophia could only look at him in disbelief. That he would talk to her like that. As if he even knew her. She felt bitterly conscious just then of the fact that her feet were bare, because she would have taken enormous satisfaction in breaking his head open with the heel of her shoe. As it was, she just lay rigid under the sheets, clenching her soggy tissue in her fist, vibrating with rage at his arrogance and his intrusiveness. Snorting and sniffling, trying with all her will to stop.

Finally, when she felt she could work a sufficient amount of venom into her voice, she said, “Is that what you do with your inner lives in America—fix them?”

“Well, yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Why, what’s the matter? You don’t have psychiatrists in this country? Is that, like, in violation of the Stiff-Upper-Lip Laws or something?”