PORTION OF THE WORLDHE AWOKE as though from a long dream, startled, confused, groping for something tangible, and in the half-dark of his room, he sought
Maria’s dampness in the warmth of the night; but seeing nothing but the mist of a dream, disturbed by foreign light, he felt for the switch that was only two palms away from the headboard of
his bed.
Then he heard the cry.
As foreign as the light that leaked into his room from the outside narrow hall was the cry in the warm night. He did not turn on the light in his room. The night had almost completely crawled
into his room through the open window, but it carried no alien sound.
He realized his mother had risen before him. The small hurried steps were coming from the rear that room was formerly his sister’s, but his mother decided
