“If it bothers you,” he said, “don’t look at it.”
“You think I’ve got to rent to you?” She looked around at her customers, lining up support, should the young man with the scar decide to resent her remarks. “All I’ve got to do if you complain is say we’re full. You can walk to the police station then—it’s twenty blocks—and maybe they’ll let you sleep in a cell.”
“I’d like a room and something to eat. What do you have?”
“Ham sandwich,” she said. She named a price. “Your room—” She named another.
“All right,” he said. “I’d like two sandwiches. And coffee.”
“The room is only half if you share with somebody—if you want me to I can yell out and see if anybody wants to split.”
“No.”
She ripped the top from a can of coffee. The handle popped out and the contents began to steam. She gave it to him and said, “I guess they won’t take you in the other places, huh? With that face.”
He turned away from her, sipping his coffee, looking the room over. The door by which he had just entered (water still streamed from his coat and he could feel it in his shoes, sucking and gurgling with his every movement) opened again and a blind girl came in.
He saw that she was blind before he saw anything else about her. She wore black glasses, which on that impenetrable, rain-wracked night would have been clue enough, and as she entered she looked (in the second most terrible and truest sense) at Nothing.
The old woman asked, “Where did
“From the terminal,” the girl said. “I walked.” She carried a white cane, which she swung before her as she sidled toward the sound of the old woman.
“I need a place to sleep,” the girl said.
Her voice was clear and sweet and the young man decided that even before the rain had scrubbed her face she hadn’t worn makeup.
He said, “You don’t want to stay here. I’ll call you a cab.”
“I want to stay here,” the girl said in her clear voice. “I have to stay somewhere.”
“I have a communicator,” the young man said. He opened his coat to show it to her—a black box with a speaker, keys, and a tiny screen—then realized that he had made a fool of himself. Someone laughed.
“They’re not running.”
The old woman said, “What’s not running?”
“The cabs. Or the buses. There’s high water in a lot of places all over the city and they’ve been shorting out. I have a communicator too”—the blind girl touched her waist—“and the ruler made a speech just a few minutes ago. I listened to him as I walked and there was a newscast afterward. But I knew anyway because a gentleman tried to call one for me from the terminal, but they wouldn’t come.”
“You shouldn’t stay here,” the young man said.
The old woman said, “I got a room if you want it—the only one left.”
“I want it,” the girl told her.
“You’ve got it. Wait a minute now—I’ve got to fix this fellow some sandwiches.”
Someone swore at the old woman and said that the game was about to start.
“Five minutes yet.” She took a piece of boiled ham from under the counter and put it between two slices of bread, then repeated the process.
The young man said, “These look eatable. Not fancy, but eatable. Would you like to have one?”
I have a little money,” the blind girl said. “I can pay for my own.” And to the old woman: “I would like some coffee.”
“How about a sandwich?”
“I’m too tired to eat.”
T
he door was opening almost constantly now as people from the surrounding tenements braved the storm and splashed in to watch the game. The old woman turned the wall on and they crowded near it, watching the pregame warm-up, practicing and perfecting the intentness they would use on the game itself. The scarred young man and the blind girl were edged away and found themselves nearest the door in a room now grown very silent save for the sound from the wall.
The young man said, “This is really a bad place—you shouldn’t be here.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I don’t have much money,” he said. “It’s cheap.”
“You don’t have a job?”
“I was hurt in an accident. I’m well now, but they wouldn’t keep me on—they say I would frighten the others. I suppose I would.”
“Isn’t there insurance for that?”
“I wasn’t there long enough to qualify.”
“I see,” she said. She raised her coffee carefully, holding it with both hands. He wanted to tell her that it was about to spill—she did not hold it quite straight—but dared not. Just as it was at the point of running over the edge
