Summary

Section 3 – On the Sunday night before he is due to visit the second clinic, the narrator is reading in bed when he is interrupted by a visit from Mitko. As he describes his mixed feelings at Mitko’s arrival, including his feelings about having been infected by him (“… this felt like more than sickness, like a physical confirmation of shame”) (128), the narrator also describes conversations he had had with R about the situation. He reveals R’s initial understanding, his increasing panic, his eventual return to practicality, his insistence that the narrator no longer have Mitko in the apartment, and his (R’s) ideas for keeping Mitko at bay. The narrator describes how R seemed to understand at least some of his feelings towards Mitko: “You want to be the big American, R. said in a final charge [sic], you think...