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work. And worse, I had to watch as Mwabao Mawa casually took off her robe and walked naked across the room toward me.

"Aren't you going to sleep?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said, not bothering to hide how flustered I was. Her body was not particularly attractive, but it was the first time I had ever seen such a large woman undressed, and that, combined with her blackness and my long deprivation, made her exotic and intensely arousing. It made it all the more urgent for me to figure out a way to keep from getting undressed myself, since my modesty was essential to my survival in a nation which took me for a woman.

"Then why aren't you undressing? " she asked, puzzled.

"Because in my nation we don't undress to sleep."

She laughed aloud. "You mean you wear clothing even in front of other women?"

I pretended to speak as if I were from a nation whose customs exactly coincided with my present need, though in fact at that time I did not yet know of any such place. "The body is one's most private possession," I said, "and the most important. Do you wear all your jewels all the time?"

She shook her head, still amused. "Well, at least I hope you'll take it off to drop."

"Drop?"

She laughed again (that damned superior laugh) and said, "I guess a soiler would have a different word for it, wouldn't you? Well, you might as well watch the technique-- it's easier to show it than to explain."

I followed her to the corner of the room. She grasped the corner pole and then swung out through the curtain. I gasped at the suddenness of the way she lurched out over the vast distance to the ground. For a moment I wondered if she had leapt out into space and flown away; but there were her hands, still gripping the pole through the curtains, and she sounded calm as she said, "Well, open the curtain, Lark. You can't learn if you don't look!"

So I opened and watched as she defecated over empty space. Then she swung back in and walked over to another water bucket-- not the one she had drunk out of-- and cleaned herself.

"You've got to learn quickly which bucket is which," she said with a smile. "And also, don't ever drop in a wind, especially in a wind with rain. There's nobody directly below us, but there are plenty of houses off at an angle below my home, and they have strong opinions about feces on their roofs and urine in their drinking water." Then she lay down on a pile of cushions on the floor.

I hitched up my robe until the skirt was very short, and then grasped the pole tightly and delicately tiptoed through the curtain. I began to tremble as I glanced down and saw how far below me the few torches still burning seemed to be. But I bowed-- or rather squatted-- to the inevitable, trying to pretend that I was not where I was.

It took a long time to convince my sphincters that they should relax, not clench up in terror. When at last I finished, I came back and walked awkwardly to the water barrel. For a difficult moment, I wondered if I was at the wrong one.

"That's the one," came Mwabao Mawa's voice fzom the cushions on the floor. I inwardly winced to think she had been watching me, though I hope I showed nothing on my face. I cleaned myself and lay down on another pile of cushions. They were too soft, and soon I pushed them aside and slept on the wooden floor, which was more comfortable, though something in between would have been nicer.

Before I slept, though, Mwabao Mawa asked me sleepily, "If you don't undress to sleep, and you don't undress to drop, do you undress for sex?"

To which I just as drowsily replied, "That I will tell to those who have a practical reason for such knowledge." Her laughter this time told me that I had a friend, and I slept peacefully all night.

I awoke because of a sound. In a building where there is not only a north, south, east, and west, but also an up and down, I couldn't tell where the sound was coming from. But it was, I realized, music.

Singing, and the voice, which was distant, was soon joined by another, which was closer. The words were not clear. There may have been no real words. But I found