presented with his swollen face and limp.
“I’m here to see my aunt.” He struggled with his swollen tongue, slurring his words. “Her name is Lena Prosnicki.”
She continued to stare at him.
“Ma’am, I’m here to see Lena Prosnicki.” He carefully enunciated the words this time in case his slurring had confused her.
She turned from him and walked through a wooden door behind her desk, leaving Poole to wonder whether she was reacting to his query and, indeed, if she had even heard him. He leaned over the counter that partitioned the room into the public and the official halves and scanned the reception desk for anything of interest. A filthy registry book was open among scattered sections of newspaper. A coffee mug contained only mold, and two plates had the crumbs of earlier meals.
Wincing with the pain in his knees and ankles, Poole pushed through the swinging gate and examined the registry. The most recent entry was from two weeks prior. The place did not get much traffic—at least officially. The names on the open page were not familiar, and he flipped back a page.
Poole had expected to hear the nun’s footsteps returning, but either the door provided remarkable soundproofing or she moved quietly because the door swung open without warning and the woman reappeared with a younger, worn-looking nun trailing. Finding Poole on the wrong side of the divider, the woman scowled, walked to the desk, and slammed the registry shut.
“Sister Prudence will take you back to Dr. Vesterhue.”
Sister Prudence kept her eyes down, acknowledging Poole by looking at his stomach. She turned and pushed open the wooden door through which she had arrived. With an uncomfortable look at the older nun, Poole followed.
They walked down a short, dim corridor and through a double set of steel doors, each of which Sister Prudence had to unlock and then relock once they were past. Then another corridor, though instead of walls, this one had bars. On either side, elderly men, in various combinations of gray institutional uniforms and tattered personal clothing, sat or lay or walked aimlessly. Probably fifteen or so of them were on each side, and Poole was struck by their seeming obliviousness to his and his companion’s presence. Indeed, they seemed unaware of each other’s presence. An ambient moaning sound accompanied the stench of sweat, urine, feces, and stagnant water.
Sister Prudence walked with her head down, the spectacle long ago ceasing to affect her. They passed through a single steel door—repeating the ritual of unlocking and locking—at the opposite end of the corridor and were met with another sound entirely, a hymn as if sung by the angels themselves. They walked past an intersecting hall and then by an open door, the source of the singing. Poole looked in on a choir of girls, most not even in their teens, the older ones in habits, singing at the direction of a matronly nun. Poole stood transfixed in the doorway until one of the girls noticed him and then they all noticed him and the singing stopped.
Poole caught the stare of one of the girls—one of the older ones, dressed in a habit. Something about her was familiar. From her look, this recognition was clearly reciprocated. Poole realized that the context had thrown him; he saw her nearly every day—one of the prostitutes who habituated the alley below his apartment. Confused, he backed slowly out of the room to find Sister Prudence waiting for him at the end of the corridor.
“Who are they?”
She didn’t look up. “Initiates.”
Through another door and into yet another corridor; this one had solid-metal doors on both sides at four-yard intervals. Banging came from the inside of some, shattering the corridor’s silence. Sister Prudence led Poole to its end, where a door stood open. He stepped into an office that had clearly once been a cell.
In the yellow light that filtered through a filthy window, a round man in a soiled white shirt sat behind a small desk. His small head was made smaller by thick sideburns that flowed down to his jawline. His face was gray and tired, but his eyes shone like those of a child who is awakened in the dead of night. He motioned for Poole to come in.
“I’ll send the visitor down to your door when I’m done, Sister.”
Sister Prudence gave a barely perceptible nod and drifted off.
“You’re looking for Lena Prosnicki?” Dr. Vesterhue asked.
“That’s right.”
“And you are?”
Poole was prepared for this. “Laszlo Prosnicki. Lena is my aunt.”
Dr. Vesterhue did