I WENT TO SEE JOSEPH. I’d not been to see him since I had given him the painting, I worried about what he’d done with it. We hadn’t hung it, and I imagined it in the place I’d last seen it, propped against the chair back (but he’d have to sit, and what about when one of his comrades came, and sat in the chair?)

I knocked, he came to the door. Jacqueline. I’m so glad to see you, he said, and he stepped aside to let me in. His table was crowded with charts, his papers. Overflowing papers and piles on the floor. His books. His bed rumpled, I hadn’t seen that before. His dirty dishes in a pile on the floor. And my eyes scanned the room . . . the painting?

And then I saw it, it was propped on a small ledge on the wall. It was the right height, almost the height I would have hung it with the hammer and nail as I’d originally planned, and it was visible from the chair at the table.

And then I was overwhelmed. That’s not a bad place for it at all, I said. My comrades love it, he said, and he laughed. Oh, that’s excellent, I said. I looked at the painting. On that plain, peeling wall, on that small ledge, it looked quite strange.

Is everything else alright, I said. I felt so afraid to speak, I must not speak. Yes, it’s fine, he said. I’m still here, right?

It was warm now, he no longer wore the navy sweater, he was in his white shirt again, open at the neck. He was perhaps thinner than before. How I wanted to lay my head on his white shirt, on his shoulder, it would be freshly laundered, an ironed smell — who was washing his clothes? I loved that white shirt.

I must go, I said, and I turned to the door.

Jacqueline, he said. Lie with me one day, he said. Lie with me here. I looked back at him in terror, it must have been terror. I fled, I fled again, that room.

And then I felt like a child. Like a small, frightened child.

THAT NIGHT I told Howard that Joseph really must go. It’s a strain on us all, Howard, I said. The children. Benator really should have made a plan as he promised. And what if he’s found? What will happen to us? Have you read the newspapers, Howard?

I know what’s happening, Howard said, I know. He hasn’t been found. He won’t be found. It’s been a safe place.

And I turned from Howard, again, in our bed.

AND MY DREAMS became inhabited with a white cotton shirt: a man’s shirt. An ordinary man’s shirt. A collar, unbuttoned, and white cuffs. A shirt, smelling of the iron, and the sun. Its purity filled my dreams.

HELENA ASKED ME on her last visit if it’s too difficult for me now doing my laundry in the basement of our building — more worrying for her! And then I got angry with her. You’re treating me like a child, Helena, I said. You’re being ridiculous. I didn’t tell her I’ve had my cleaning woman do my laundry for a while now.