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But I didn’t ask for that, he says. I never told you—

You should rest, she says. Taking his cane, she slides one arm under his shoulder and walks with him to the couch. Soon we start the therapy, she says. Later I will cook for you. Otherwise you will never get better.

I feel guilty, he says. Why would you disrupt your whole life for me? I didn’t want this to happen.

She sits on the couch next to him and takes his hand in her lap. At first it seems to hold her full attention—she kneads the palm, rolls the loose skin of the fingers, works her thumb between the knuckles—but at the same time she opens and closes her mouth, as if straining to breathe. Finally she releases the hand and looks up at him. It is not so hard to understand, she says. I can help you. And you also can help me.

Me? he says. Look at me. I’m not in much of a position to help anyone.

She blinks twice, rapidly; a tiny, almost imperceptible flinch, and turns to look toward the door.

I’m sorry, he says. You said I had to choose, didn’t you? But this isn’t a choice. I don’t have the faintest idea what you want from me.

Nobody will be able to help you if you are so closed, she says fiercely, turning back to him. You are like an insect. All hard around the outside.

Shell, he says, trying not to smile. The word you’re looking for is shell.

So laugh, she says. Laugh and forget. She begins to rise, but he reaches over and catches her arm, feeling a sharp spike of pain in his thigh as he does so.

I’m sorry. I’m not making fun of you.

Her arm feels terribly fragile; expecting her to pull away, he holds it lightly, tentatively. She does not move.

Let’s start this over again, he says. Don’t leave.

She stares at the floor, her cheeks reddening, and he thinks, she is embarrassed by happiness.

You see? she says. It is not so difficult. You are helping me already.

In the afternoon she boils herbs in a pot on the stove, filling the apartment with a sour, earthy smell, and covers the floor with Mrs. Mei’s monogrammed towels. When he lies down she wraps the herbs in washcloths and ties them around the brace, at the ankle and the thigh. Close your eyes, she tells him, and places a damp, hot cloth across his face. He hears her footfalls across the floor, more pots clattering on the stove; the lights dim, and her fingers pull his toes forward, cupping the heel.

What is this? he asks. You’ve never done this before.

My grandmother taught me.

Your grandmother?

When I was a child, we had no medicine. Even aspirin we did not have.

He remembers a movie from elementary school: Life Behind the Iron Curtain. Gray buildings under ashen skies; streets lined with bare trees, smoke boiling from factory chimneys. How nightmarish it seems in memory: as unreal as the bogeyman, the children who got lumps of coal in their stockings.

I wish you would tell me about Poland, he says. How you became a nun.

So many questions today, she says.

I want to keep talking. I’m a little afraid of this.

Why? It hurts?

No, he says. It feels wonderful—too wonderful. It’s a narcotic.

A what?

Like being drunk.

You are courageous, she says after a moment. Most people would want to forget.

Courage has nothing to do with it. I’ve had too many hangovers in my life, that’s all.

Holding his ankle with one hand, she moves the other slowly up to his calf, gently squeezing the muscle through the holes in the brace. He feels how thin his leg has become underneath its plastic frame: a mass of tendons and nerves that quivers under her touch. When he grimaces she removes her hand and returns it to his ankle. There is a new tenderness, a slow, deliberate quality in the way she handles him. He reaches up and peels away the cloth from his face. His eyes widen; the room shifts more sharply into focus around her.

To leave it on is better, she says. You can relax more.

I want to watch you. I’d rather be awake.

While she makes dinner he runs hot water in the bath and washes himself, scrubbing with the