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Bangabandhu International Conference Center, Kendall had suggested a taxi, but Gerrin had pointed out that in the capital of Bangladesh, traffic in the streets moved even more slowly than people afoot. Day and night, masses of bodies clogged sidewalks and alleys and roads and overflowed into main highways,so that solid lanes of exhaust-spewing buses and trucks and cars measured their progress in mere yards per hour.
    And it was also true, Gerrin had said, that a walk would keep their Triage focus sharp.
    With only the backs of necks and heads to look at in front of him, Gerrin glanced over at a woman sitting by the curb under a sign prohibiting public defecation. The woman was not terribly old, but her mouth showed more gums than teeth and her skin was the color of ashes. She tilted over and slowly fell onto her side, her left arm flung across her body, her right arm trapped under it. Her fingers curled around a few coins in her right hand. Her head hung at an awkward angle, just touching the filthy sidewalk beside her shoulder. Flies lit on her eyes. Others crawled into her nostrils, and her tongue tried to push them out of her mouth.
    Arrayed in front of her on a square of green cloth were things she was selling: yellow pencils, a blue pack of Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes, cards with images of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, packs of chewing gum. She wore a torn yellow dress, and her swollen feet looked like black melons. One eye was opaque with a cataract. She was still alive, Gerrin figured, because the other blinked when flies tried to crawl into it.
    Gerrin pulled out his cellphone, dialed the emergency services number. It was not easy, in the jam, keeping the phone close to his ear. He elbowed people who elbowed him. Dhaka was many things, but polite it wasn’t. Gerrin kept listening to the ringing. Then he noticed Belleveau, who had been behind him, plowing through bodies, on a course for the woman.
    “Jean-Claude,” he yelled. “Wait!”
    Belleveau was already there. Gerrin and Kendall held doctorates, but Belleveau was the physician, the oath taker. He knelt beside the woman and took from his briefcase a CPR face-shield mask with a one-way valve. Gerrin knew that Belleveau never ventured into places like this without one, though truly it was intended for use on his own companions, or even himself. From years spent living and working in New Delhi, he knew that things unimaginable to Westerners were thestuff of everyday life in places like this. Gerrin watched him turn the woman over, feel for pulse and breath, tilt her head back to open the airway. He put the shield mask in place and turned to Kendall. “Ian—compressions, please.”
    “Yes, of course.” Kendall, no longer young, clambered down onto his knees.
    Gerrin stood, listening to the ringing, keeping some space clear around them. Belleveau and Kendall were busy, but Gerrin had time to look at the faces. The people could have been mannequins for all the feeling they showed. He understood. Death was far from an oddity here; it happened so frequently and so visibly, in fact, that it was only banal, if that.
    After a while, Belleveau sat back. “Finished,” he said.
    Belleveau and Kendall stood, both sweating so heavily that their dress shirts were soaked through and clinging. One knee of Belleveau’s white trousers was torn. Red, scraped flesh showed through. He cleaned his mouth and hands with sanitizing gel, handed the bottle to Kendall. No one was watching them or the woman now, most people focused on weightier concerns, cool drinks, the approaching dinner hour. Again, Gerrin understood. Not their fault. The way things were. He heard ringing still coming from his phone, forgotten and dangling in one hand. He broke the connection and put it away.
    “Someone should do something,” Kendall said, sluicing sweat from his forehead with the palm of one hand. “I mean, someone will come for her, won’t they?”
    Their guide had grown up in Dhaka and