“If you want.”
“Would I be allowed to put my books in the hallway?”
“And leave my shoes by the door?”
“And complain about your terrible cooking?”
“I was hoping that would be optional.”
She leaned closer. “Then I'll think about it.”
He smiled. It was the smile of a man learning to live with an answer he could not purchase.
Later, as they left, the young waiter who had cleared their table hurried after Selene with a folded piece of paper.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I heard you were a professor. I found this in a box of my grandfather's things. It's in a language nobody in our family reads. Could you tell me what it says?”
He held out a letter, creased and soft from being passed between hands.
Selene looked at it. The writing was unfamiliar. She could not solve it from a glance, and she would not pretend otherwise.
“I can help you find out,” she said. “Tell me what you know about your grandfather first.”
Dante waited by the door while the waiter began to talk.
There was no audience. No reward announced across a restaurant. No rich man demanding a miracle.
THE LANGUAGE OF FIRE
THE WOMAN BENEATH THE HONOR WALL
THE ROSES THAT REMEMBERED
Only a young man with a letter, a woman willing to listen, and the possibility that the past could still be made legible.
This time, Selene had all the time she needed.
The young waiter had been carrying his grandfather's letter in his apron pocket for eleven days.
He admitted that after Selene asked him to sit down.
Outside Loro, afternoon traffic pushed along the Chicago River. Inside, the lunch crowd had thinned to a handful of business travelers and two older women who were sharing a piece of lemon cake. The manager glanced toward the young man's abandoned station, saw Dante Valerio standing by the door, and evidently decided the table could be spared for a few minutes.
“My name is Tomas Vega,” the waiter said. “You probably don't remember me. I brought the coffee.”
“I remember,” Selene said. “You asked whether I could read something. What do you know about it?”
Tomas was twenty-seven, with tired eyes and a black tie that had been knotted in a hurry. He unfolded the letter carefully, smoothing its creases against the table with the side of his hand. The paper was thin and yellowed. At the bottom was a line in an uneven, hurried script and a date: October 1986.
“My grandfather Emilio left it in a biscuit tin. He died last winter. My aunt found it when we cleaned his apartment. Everybody thought it was Italian, but Grandpa was born in Mexico. He never said he spoke Italian.”
Selene studied the page without picking it up. She saw Spanish in the first paragraph, then Italian phrases that appeared to have been copied by someone who knew the sounds better than the spelling. Two lines were written in a cramped shorthand she didn't recognize.
“May I photograph it and show the images to a colleague?” she asked. “I don't want to guess at words that might be important to your family.”
Tomas looked relieved. “That's all I'm asking. I don't need to know a secret fortune or anything.”
Dante shifted beside the table. Tomas noticed him properly for the first time, and his color changed. At Loro, staff still told stories about the evening an angry businessman had offered ten million dollars for a translation. Most people remembered the money. Tomas remembered the waitress who had refused to pretend she knew something she didn't.
“You're Mr. Valerio,” he said.
“Yes,” Dante answered.
Tomas looked at the letter again. “I didn't bring it because of him, ma'am. I swear.”