Warlight

by Michael Ondaatje

worked in the bathrooms, pretending to be essential to guests who really had no need of me at all.

In this post-war world twelve years later, it felt to some of us, our heads bent over the files brought to us daily, that it was no longer possible to see who held a correct moral position.

“Wow,” I say. “Please don’t say ‘Wow.’ You were only in America a few months.” “It’s an expressive word.”

At night he slid from the bed into the darkness and tried to move his ungainly body. It was important he couldn’t see himself. If the hip gave way, he fell against a wall or the bed. He moved as long as he could, then got back into the bed, covered in sweat. All this was unknown to his family or the girl’s family.

“I think, after tonight, I am going to stay away from you. You’re too important to me.”