Gradually Lemuel finds himself tuning out. He hears her voice droning on, but no longer makes out what she is saying. It is like watching a film without a sound track. From time to time he mutters “Uh-huh,” which is an American expression he has never been able to locate in a dictionary, but everyone seems to understand. It occurs to him that having your hair cut by a lady, and an attractive one at that, is a curiously intimate business. He has not been this close physically to a woman he does not know since the KGB handcuffed him to the lady movie reviewer after his arrest for signing a petition. When Rain leans diagonally across his chest to trim the hair falling over his eyes, he feels the air stir, he gets a whiff of female flesh, o
