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. It was small, both kitchen and wash room; Baslim filled a pan, handed the boy a bit of soap and said, "Take a bath." He pantomimed what he wanted.
The boy stood in mute stubbornness. The man sighed, picked up a brush suitable for floors and started as if to scrub the boy. He stopped with stiff bristles touching skin and repeated, "Take a bath. Wash yourself," saying it in Interlingua and System English.
The boy hesitated, took off his clout and started slowly to lather himself.
Baslim said, "That's better," picked up the filthy breech clout, dropped it in a waste can, laid out a towel, and, turning to the kitchen side, started preparing a meal.
A few minutes later he turned and the boy was gone.
Unhurriedly he walked into the living room, found the boy naked and wet and trying very hard to open the door. The boy saw him but redoubled his futile efforts. Baslim tapped him on the shoulder, hooked a thumb toward the smaller room. "Finish your bath."
He turned away. The boy slunk after him.
When the boy was washed and dry, Baslim put the stew he had been freshening back on the burner, turned the switch to "simmer" and opened a cupboard, from which he removed a bottle and daubs of vegetable flock. Clean, the boy was a pattern of scars and bruises, unhealed sores and cuts and abrasions, old and new. "Hold still."
The stuff stung; the boy started to wiggle
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