One of the doors off the kitchen led outside — this one was locked — and one to a pantry in which there were several cans of food, one to a broom closet, and one to an enclosed stairway. She climbed the steps, bumping her suitcase along in front of her because the space was narrow. Straight ahead of her on the second floor she saw a toilet with the seat up.
The door of the bedroom at the end of the hall was open, and in there she found Ken Boudreau.
She saw his clothes before she saw him. His jacket hanging up on a corner of the door and his trousers on the doorknob, so that they trailed on the floor. She thought at once that this was no way to treat good clothes, so she went boldly into the room — leaving her suitcase in the hall — with the idea of hanging them up properly.
He was in bed, with only a sheet over him. The blanket and his shirt were lying on the floor. He was breathing restlessly as if about to wake up, so she said, “Good morning. Afternoon.”
The bright sunlight was coming in the window, hitting him almost in the face. The window was closed and the air horribly stale — smelling, for one thing, of the full ashtray on the chair he used as a bed table.
He had bad habits — he smoked in bed.
He did not wake up at her voice — or he woke only part way. He began to cough.
She recognized this as a serious cough, a sick man’s cough. He struggled to lift himself up, still with his eyes closed, and she went over to the bed and hoisted him. She looked for a handkerchief or a box of tissues, but she saw nothing so she reached for his shirt on the floor, which she could wash later. She wanted to get a good look at what he spat up.
When he had hacked up enough, he muttered and sank down into the bed, gasping, the charming cocky-looking face she remembered crumpled up in disgust. She knew from the feel of him that he had a fever.
The stuff that he had coughed out was greenish-yellow — no rusty streaks. She carried the shirt to the toilet sink, where rather to her surprise she found a bar of soap, and washed it out and hung it on the door hook, then thoroughly washed her hands. She had to dry them on the skirt of her new brown dress. She had put that on in another little toilet — the Ladies on the train — not more than a couple of hours ago. She had been wondering then if she should have got some makeup.
In a hall closet she found a roll of toilet paper and took it into his room for the next time he had to cough. She picked up the blanket and covered him well, pulled the blind down to the sill and raised the stiff window an inch or two, propping it open with the ashtray she had emptied. Then she changed, out in the hall, from the brown dress into old clothes from her suitcase. A lot of use a nice dress or any makeup in the world would be now.
She was not sure how sick he was, but she had nursed Mrs. Willets — also a heavy smoker — through several bouts of bronchitis, and she thought she could manage for a while without having to think about getting a doctor. In the same hall closet was a pile of clean, though worn and faded, towels, and she wet one of these and wiped his arms and legs, to try to get his fever down. He came half awake at this and began to cough again. She held him up and made him spit into the toilet paper, examined it once more and threw it down the toilet and washed her hands. She had a towel now to dry them on. She went downstairs and found a glass in the kitchen, also an empty, large ginger-ale bottle, which she filled with water. This she attempted to make him drink. He took a little, protested, and she let him lie down. In five minutes or so she tried again. She kept doing this until she believed he had swallowed as much as he could hold without throwing up.
Time and again he coughed and she lifted him up, held him with one arm while the other hand pounded on his back to help loosen the load in his chest. He opened his eyes several times and seemed to take in her presence without alarm or surprise — or gratitude, for that matter. She sponged him once more, being careful to cover immediately with the blanket the part that had just been cooled.
She noticed that it had begun to get dark, and she went down into the kitchen, found the light switch. The lights and the old electric stove were working. She opened and heated a can of chicken-with-rice soup, carried it upstairs and roused him. He swallowed a little from the spoon. She took advantage of his momentary wakefulness to ask if he had a bottle of aspirin. He nodded yes, then became very confused when trying to tell her where. “In the wastebasket,” he said.
“No, no,” she said. “You don’t mean wastebasket.”
“In the — in the—”
He tried to shape something with his hands. Tears came into his eyes.
“Never mind,” Johanna said. “Never mind.”
His fever went down anyway. He slept for an hour or more without coughing. Then he grew hot again. By that time she had found the aspirin — they were in a kitchen drawer with such things as a screwdriver and some lightbulbs and a ball of twine — and she got a couple into him. Soon he had a violent coughing fit, but she didn’t think he threw them up. When he lay down she put her ear to his chest and listened to the wheezing. She had already looked for mustard to make a plaster with, but apparently there wasn’t any. She went downstairs again and heated some water and brought it in a basin. She tried to make him lean over it, tenting him with towels, so that he could breathe the steam. He would cooperate only for a moment or so, but perhaps it helped — he hacked up quantities of phlegm.
His fever went down again and he slept more calmly. She dragged in an armchair she had found in one of the other rooms and she slept too,in snatches, waking and wondering where she was, then remembering and getting up and touching him — his fever seemed to be staying down — and tucking in the blanket. For her own cover she used the everlasting old tweed coat that she had Mrs. Willets to thank for.
He woke. It was full morning. “What are you doing here?” he said, in a hoarse, weak voice.
“I came yesterday,” she said. “I brought your furniture. It isn’t here yet, but it’s on its way. You were sick when I got here and you were sick most of the night. How do you feel now?”
He said, “Better,” and began to cough. She didn’t have to lift him, he sat up on his own, but she went to the bed and pounded his back. When he finished, he said, “Thank you.”
His skin now felt as cool as her own. And smooth — no rough moles, no fat on him. She could feel his ribs. He was like a delicate, stricken boy. He smelled like corn.
“You swallowed the phlegm,” she said. “Don’t do that, it’s not good for you. Here’s the toilet paper, you have to spit it out. You could get trouble with your kidneys, swallowing it.”
“I never knew that,” he said. “Could you find the coffee?”
The percolator was black on the inside. She washed it as well as she could and put the coffee on. Then she washed and tidied herself, wondering what kind of food she should give him. In the pantry there was a box of biscuit mix. At first she thought she would have to mix it with water, but she found a can of milk powder as well. When the coffee was ready she had a pan of biscuits in the oven.
AS SOON AS HE heard her busy in the kitchen, he got up to go to the toilet. He was weaker than he’d thought — he had to lean over and put one hand on the tank. Then he found some underwear on the floor of the hall closet where he kept clean clothes. He had figured out by now who this woman was. She had said she came to bring him his furniture, though he hadn’t asked her or anybody to do that — hadn’t asked for the furniture at all, just the money. He should know her name, but he couldn’t remember it. That was why he opened her purse, which was on the floor of the hall beside her suitcase. There was a name tag sewn to the lining.