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Show 293 just inside the garage, waiting to step out. Still another time-this was shortly after Alice's baptism-he was shaving and noticed the movements of his reflection in the mirror over the wash basin were slightly out of sync with his own. He continued for a time, as though he hadn't noticed, and suddenly stopped short. There was the barest hesitation, the tiniest perceptible lag in the pause made by his reflection. He set down his razor, placed a hand on either side of the wash basin, and leaned toward the mirror, his nose only inches away, and stared until he was able to make i t out, the smallest trace of a shit-eating smile surrounded by the streaky lather on the face that looked back at him. He picked up his razor, watching closely as the reflection did too, and finished shaving, taking satisfaction in shearing through the head of a small pimple beside his adam's apple and watching the reflection bleed. * * * * * * It was not easy to do something imprudent. One of the givens of the mission field was that you and your companion did not let each other out of sight for one hour out of the twenty-four. With companions less personable than Sorenson this rule could, of course, lead to horrors, and even Sorenson had proved now and then a mild irritant. But Lorin was resigned to living out his second year as he had lived out his first, keeping close quarters with a series of companions some of whom he would not like, and he would not consciously have sought his undoing if the devil had not stepped in and poisoned the fish sandwich Sorenson ate one night at an A&W while Lorin, who hated tartar sauce, ate an overcooked double burger and survived. Far into the night Lorin sat reading at the bedside of his stricken companion, who lay moaning and twisting and periodically bolted from under the covers |
