You worked in soil sort, you said. I asked if you would describe your work—I still had no idea what “soil sort” was, or what you were required to do with your body there for ten hours a day. You rose from your chair to demonstrate, maybe because you could tell by how poorly I’d asked the question that I didn’t speak much Spanish, and maybe because laundry work is difficult to explain without miming the motions of the massive machines that fill the factory. When you stood up, I was surprised by how tall you are, which I hadn’t noticed when you greeted us at your door.

You showed us how huge bags of linen—up to three hundred pounds, you said—are pushed off the backs of trucks in rolling carts. The carts are pushed into a “dumper” machine, which, like a garbage truck, picks them up with metal arms and turns them over in the air. You reached up to show us how the linen is supposed to fall on the soil belt. A person is stationed there who is also called a dumper. On your shift, that person is Santiago, you said. You bent forward to show how he tugs open the bags of soiled hospital laundry with his thinly gloved hands. You showed how he pulls each bag’s mass of sheets and gowns and towels apart. You said, The company doesn’t replace the gloves every day, so we have to rinse and reuse the ones they give us. Sometimes the gloves break open, and we have to keep using them anyway. You said this in Spanish after turning to me and saying, Sorry, no English in English, and I, in return, waved my hands, awkwardly, I imagine, and said, No, don’t worry! in English, which Manuel then had to interpret.