The clerk stretched one leg out and put it on the rim of the tub. He looked at his toe, at the big one in particular, and thought how anonymous the toe looks. No face at all.

“I can’t remember what he looked like, do you know that?” said the captain. “All that hair and filth.”

“When he came to,” said the clerk, “the way he kept curling up.” He said it low, and to nobody, and when he thought of the man on the hospital bed he did with his toes what he had seen on the hospital bed. “God,” he mumbled, “the way he kept curling up-”

They said little else until the mayor came and they did not hear him because of the soft, native shoes he was wearing. Or because of the way he walked. Remal came straight into the bedroom, a very big man but walking as if he were small and light. Small steps which did not make him bounce or dip, but they gave an impression as if Remal could float.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said in English, and this also confused the impression he made. Remal looked as native as a tourist might wish. He had an immobile terra cotta face, with black female eyes and a thin male mouth. He wore a stitched skullcap which the clerk had once called a yamulke, to which Remal had answered, “Please don’t use the Jewish name for it again. Or I’ll kill you.” This politely, with a smile, but the clerk had felt sure that Remal meant it.

“I’ll fix you one of these,” said the captain, and looked around for another glass.

“Don’t,” said the clerk. He put his leg back into the tub and curled up in the water. “He’s Mohammedan, you know, but he won’t kill you because he’s also polite.”