The heat was punishing. It was one of those days when the sun seemed especially merciless – the heat seeming to sear one’s skin to the bone and the humid air driving the strongest of men to weariness. In the cramped, cheerless room, the heat was even more intolerable. The sole fan attached to the ceiling provided no relief from the cruel heat; if possible, it seemed only to trap the dense air in the windowless box that served as the factory office.
Across the room, the woman sat stiffly on a padded bench. Her head was slightly bowed, her gaze fixed on an indistinct spot on the gray linoleum floor. The heat was almost suffocating, but she felt cold on the inside, her clammy hands gripping her knees tightly in an effort to steady her rioting nerves. Cold, sticky sweat was trickling down her spine in tiny rivulets and dark crescent stains had begun to form below her armpits. Beads of moisture, too, started to line her brows, and she had to swipe them off with her sleeve every so often to keep them from falling to her eyes.