Mary goes into a hubbub with the nurse, while the refrigerator squawks, coughs, and recovers-to come up with this answer:

“Fish-fish.”

When I go to the bathroom, I tiptoe through their tropical room and glimpse them like any normal couple: he hunched in hospital robe and Businessman’s Running Shoes, going through his closet, she sprawled in fur coat and hairnet, devotedly cracking pistachio nuts for him. Overheard in passing, a disquisition on his wardrobe, snatched midstreak:

Bought this jacket at a Hadassah thrift store sale in Hallandale, Florida. Fifty cents. It’s thirty dollars in the catalog. Keeps the rain off, more or less. Now this clip-on bow tie I found at a Cub Scout bake sale in-

Sometimes they bicker, but usually they both show an impressive amount of patience for each other, watching the Chinese weather channel for hours in harmonious silence. After which conversation resumes in respectful tones.

“Storm predicted.”

“Ummm, storm!”

“You like your food?”

“Hot.”

“I know it’s hot, Mary. Hot wings means hot. I like it, too.”

And so forth. I don’t know how he’s pulled it off. Right here in the middle of the East Asian landmass, a configuration of lofty mountain ranges and vast areas of inhospitable terrain, Larry’s managed to recreate the dinner-table conversations between Sam and Rivie in Lynn, Massachusetts, circa 1962.

Meanwhile we seem to be getting the runaround from Cherry. Two weeks come and go like nothing, and still there’s no sign of a kidney. I decide against hounding Dr. X but think there should be some sort of progress report. “You sure the dead horse is coming to the live horse?” I ask Cherry.

“I am sure. Maybe off by just one-two weeks, because first week of October is national holiday, or some screwup possible, quite minor.”

“And it’s not going to leak out to the authorities?”

“Chill, Daniel. Do not ransack yourself.”

Agreed: I should not ransack myself. It’s high time to get the silence and space I need. Fortunately, to this end, the elevator goes both up and down.

“Hello, Saudi Arabia,” I say to my friends in long robes, whom I haven’t seen in weeks.

“Hello, America,” they say to me. “Bush still suck, eh?”

“Big time.”

“Beeg time, beeg time.” They parse my words.

As usual, the women of the second floor are invisible-the Pakistani wives in blue shawls, the Egyptian mothers in head scarves and beads, the Yemenite sisters with wide belts and swaying hips. It’s the men who speak loudly, gesture broadly, pop their pecs before serving the birdie. But you get the feeling it’s the women behind the scenes who are conducting life, quietly making it all happen.

Abu, my Pakistani friend, has apparently been celebrating his birthday for three days. “Twenty-six years of age!” he boasts, accepting a soup bowl of cake that his mother offers with lowered eyes. “New cake every day!”

After receiving a short scolding from her son about too much frosting, the mother mutely sidles off to resume prayers on her little mat.

“Tomorrow we cut the cake again, four days!” he promises me.

“I’ll be here,” I say.

“So now I show you better exercise?” Abu asks me.

“Depends what you have in mind,” I say.

“You are familiar with the Vespa motor phenomenon?”

“Minimally.”

“Come with me.”

And for the next three hours, he rides me around on the back of his Vespa motor phenomenon, showing me a city I didn’t know existed. Muslim restaurants. Breweries and textile factories. Massage parlors conducted by blind men, who’re alleged to have more sensitive fingertips. Massage parlors that specialize in foot rubs with flaming glass cups placed against the soles to stimulate circulation. Massage parlors that-

“Why does your hat not fly off?” Abu calls to me from the front.

“It’s well trained. It knows it won’t get dessert tonight if it misbehaves,” I call back.

Laughing, Abu guns it. Last stop is an antique skyscraper hotel with a crenellated castle roof, glimpsed between cloud banks of smog. Abu instructs me to walk through the lobby as though we own the place, straight to the elevator, up to the top floor where there’s a stuffy old gym, 1920s vintage. A small swimming pool whose green water looks like it hasn’t been rippled since talkies were invented. A wooden contraption with rollers to wring the water from bathing suits. A machine you stand in that’s supposed to cook the pounds off, probably banned in the United States a century ago. And a stationary bike that feels like you’re riding a manual typewriter. But it works. The whole place is like an aboveground dungeon, with tiny windows of leaded glass through which I can see the city operating below like a toy-train village with thousands of whirring parts, all its flywheels and cogs clicking in sync. When the windows are cranked shut, it’s as if a mute button has been pushed. Blessed silence reigns: no more raucously melodious street cries, no more unstoppable firecrackers. Best of all, no more Larry-Mary noise. The only sound is Abu expertly penetrating the green water as he practices his half gainers from the diving board, slick and quiet as a coin entering a pay phone. It’s enough to bring me back the next afternoon, and the next. Every silent hour I spend up here, daydreaming to my heart’s content, is one I don’t spend with the non-silent hyphenate next door.

Then one night a phone call I wasn’t expecting.

“Huwwo?”

“Huwwo.”

“Huwwo?”

“Yes, is this Larry?”

“Yes, Dan, what do you need?”

“I don’t need anything. You just called me.”

“No, you just called me.”

Beat, garbled.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Dan, Mary is telling me that she called you. She just woke me up and handed the phone to me.”

“Well, why did Mary call?”

“I’ll ask her. Mary, why did you call Dan and hand the phone to me?…Not yes, Mary. That’s not an answer to why did you call…”

“Larry-”

“Not sure, Mary. Not uh-huh, Mary. Why. Did. You. Call. Dan.”

“Larry, does Mary need something from me?”

“I know he’s my cousin, Mary. Mary, stop! I don’t want a pedicure! [Garbled] Because I don’t care for a pedicure, Mary, it’s as simple as that.”

“Larry, listen, why don’t you call me back when you get this straightened-”

“I am being patient, Mary. Do you hear me raising my voice, Mary? Do you see me raising my fist?”

“Larry, it’s four in the morning. Can we maybe resume this another-”

“DAN!? DAN!?”

“Yes, Mary,” I say as Mary takes the phone, “there’s no need to shout.”

“DAN!? LARRY NOT MARRY ME!”

“He’s not marrying you, Mary?”

“NOT MARRY ME AT ALL!”

“Okay, Mary, let’s talk about this in the morn-”

[Click.]

Knock-knock. In the morning I go to Larry’s room, and we do talk about it-a powwow between distant allies who have no particular warmth to pool but do have business to conduct. Then again, Larry’s room has a lot of warmth to pool.

“So the bridesmaids’ dresses are on hold?” I ask, fanning myself with both hands, kicking pistachio shells out of the way as I sit on the molded-plastic school chair.

“Don’t get me wrong. Compatibility remains high,” Larry says in a monotone that’s more mono than usual. “As a matter of fact, I believe I may be falling for her, somewhat violently. Just look at her preparing my pistachios. She lines up the piles so all I have to do is delve. I’d like nuffing better than to do right by her, marriage-wise. It’s only the trust issue I’m continuing to monitor.”

“Anything in particular bothering you?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge,” he says, squirting back a blast of nasal spray and blinking at me blankly.

“But I mean, you wanted to talk-”

“Oh, I see,” he says, his concentration coming back. “Yes, in that case, one thing. As you may or may not know, Mary is very diligently studying the English workbooks I got her. But the other day I offered to buy her English-language CDs that she could play on her computer at home, and she told me she didn’t have a computer.”