LESSING
349
She got up. "Look, I've got something I think would be just right for
you."
Folded over a chair was a jacket, which she had found in a charity
shop, searching until there was one with wide shoulders. The jacket Ben
had on was dirty, and torn, too.
He took it off. The jacket she had found fitted his big shoulders and
chest but was loose around the waist. "Look, you can pull it in." There
was a belt, which she adjusted. And there were trousers, too. "And now
I want you to have a bath, Ben."
He took off the new jacket and his trousers, obedient, watching her
all the time.
"I'm going to throwaway these trousers, Ben." She did so. "And I
have got new underpants, and vests."
He was standing naked there, watching, while she went next door to
a little bathroom. His nostrils flared, taking in the smell of water. Wait–
ing, he checked all the smells in the room, the fading aromas of the good
stew, a warm friendly smell; the bread, which smelled like a person; then
a rank wild smell-the cat, still watching him; the smell of a slept-in
bed, where the covers had been pulled up covering the pillows, which
had a different smell. And he listened, too. The lift was silent, behind
two walls. There was a rumbling in the sky, but he knew airplanes, was
not afraid of them. The traffic down there he did not hear at all-he had
shut it out of his awareness.
The old woman came back, and said, "Now, Ben." He followed her,
clambered into the water, and crouched in it. "Do sit down," she said.
He hated the submission to the dangerous slipperiness, but now he was
sitting in hot water to his waist. He shut his eyes, and with his teeth
bared, this time in a grin of resignation, he let her wash him. He knew
this washing was something he had to do, from time to time.
It
was
expected of him.
In
fact he was beginning to enjoy water.
Now the old woman, Ben's eyes no longer fastened on her face,
allowed herself to show the curiosity she felt, which could never be
assuaged-or indulged in.
Under her hands was a strong broad back, with fringes of brown hair
on either side of the backbone, and on the shoulders a mat of wet fur:
it felt like that, as if she were washing a dog. On the upper arms there
was hair, but not so much, not more than could be on an ordinary man.
His chest was hairy, but it wasn't like fur, it was a man's chest. She
handed him the soap but he let it slide into the water, and dug around
furiously for it. She found it, and lathered him vigorously, and then used
a little hand-shower to get it all off. He bounded out of the bath, and
