Two men were sitting next to Gack’s cot. One was skinny, with broad bony shoulders and huge bony hands. He was with sitting with his lugs crossed, grasping his knee with calloused fingers. He was wearing an open-necked gray sweater and tight blue pants of an unfamiliar cut – not part of a uniform – and red and gray woven sandals. His face was sharp, tanned, with a comforting firmness in his features, bright eyes with a slight squint, and gray hair tousled in a disorderly but somehow still neat way. A straw moved back and forth from one corner of his thin-lipped mouth to the other.
The other, in a white coat, was obviously a good-natured person. His face was rosy, young, without a single wrinkle. A strange kind of face. Not really his face but his expression, like a saint’s in an ancient i
