Their night swim had been two days before, but he still felt filthy. In those forty-eight hours they hadn’t had more than quick spongedowns with toilet paper in the rocking, jolting W/C compartments of a series of local trains. He ached all over. His feet were so swollen from sitting up for two days he had to pry off his shoes. Fortunately there were three bathrooms in the apartment, which was beautifully furnished with polished parquet floors, Afghan rugs, and modern paintings that looked real, not prints or reproductions. It was in a secure building with its own guards. The other tenants, Byrne said, were expats or Poles, all wealthy. The marble-lined shower was big enough to play handball in. The fixtures were gold-plated and the water exquisitely hot. He lathered from head to toe, and when it was soaked through he carefully peeled the bandage off his ear. It itched, which was good. He let it air. He found a woman’s razor in a cabinet and shaved. When he came out, wrapped in a heavy bathrobe—it was tight in the shoulders and short, and he guessed it belonged to the same woman as the razor—Byrne and Henrickson and de Cary were sitting in their underwear in the kitchen eating cheese and bread.
