The old man takes his place very slowly, sitting on the towel that he’s brought again, but doesn’t offer her now. He crosses his legs with difficulty and reflects. We see each other here because you skip school, he says at last, and also: maybe that’s not good! What’s not? she asks, and thinks, but doesn’t say: what is it that’s not good? Skipping school, or for the two of them to see each other every morning? I don’t need to go to school, she says. I don’t need the stuff they teach there, that stuff in particular, I don’t need it, or at least I don’t need anyone to teach it to me. I can learn it by myself: all the things, everything, it’s already online and in books. The old man asks her until what age a person has to go to school. She swallows. Does that change things, if the old man knows that or not? It’s obligatory until sixteen, she says. Until fifteen, actually: the day you turn sixteen you can leave if you want. And you?, he asks, how old are you?

For a few seconds, the girl debates between lying and risking the truth, and she chooses the truth, or half-truth. Fourteen, she finally says: I’m fourteen. He looks at her as if he didn’t believe her; she feels unmasked. Well, almost, she backpedals. I’ll turn fourteen soon. Soon, soon murmurs the old man, shaking his head side to side. He’d thought she was older, but fourteen! Not even fourteen yet, in fact, but almost fourteen, soon-to-be fourteen … What’s your name? The girl tells him her name and he shakes his head again. A pretty name, yes, really pretty! But she interrupts: I hate my name. Oh, well then, there’s nothing else to say, if she doesn’t like it they don’t have to use it. He can call her Almost, if she’s okay with that, or maybe Soon would sound better. She says: yes, she’s okay with Soon. It reminds her of a neighbor she used to have, a neighbor named Asún, an older woman who gave her candy when they met on the stairs—she carried it in her apron pockets, which were always bulging. That was before they moved into the house, back when Soon was much younger than fourteen and they’d lived in an apartment building full of people to stop and talk to. Her neighbor’s name was really Asunción, a horrible, old-lady name. But Soon, Soon on its own, Soon for soon-to-be-fourteen, sounds good, it’s ingenious, it’s like a secret name that the old man has thought up just for her. And this same old man now places his hand over his chest and promises, in turn—swearing with all the solemnity of a true gentleman—to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. His complete name—first, middle, and last—and his age—fifty-four years old. Fif-ty-four, he repeats, laughing, sing-song, not almost fifty-four, not soon-to-be, but fifty-four now. Aren’t I old. Soon laughs too, hiding the fact that she would have believed any age he told her, whether forty-four or sixty-four—to her this man is an old man and old men have ages as variable as they are inconceivable. Can she call him that? Old Man? Sure, sure, he goes on laughing. Soon and Old Man, why not?