Inside the duplex, Mrs. Srinivasan and Helga stared at each other as if they had come not from Sweden and India, but from Venus and Jupiter. They both seemed like decent women to Van, or at least okay women, but they couldn’t get the remotest grip on one another. They kept addressing each other through Van: "Ask your blond girl if she wants to sit down," "Ask the nice lady if she has a real bathroom here, you know, with a toilet." Irritated, the old man turned up his morning cable news show. The TV blared war and terror, headache pills and paper towels, suicide and revenge.