They stood, face-to-face a moment. Ana grew suddenly self-conscious. After all the phone calls, he’d become just a voice, a message on her machine; and seeing him now in the flesh, she felt slightly deflated. What did he want from her? What did she want? He was still staring at her. She grew hot in her sweater. Pars shifted his coat to his opposite arm. They both looked at the floor.

Come, he said, I’ll pay for this and we’ll go.

She wiped perspiration from her forehead, and they made their way to the front of the store. Pars said he’d finally found Hafiz, but he was in the wrong section.

Poor Hafiz. He shook his head. He wasn’t in poetry at all. They put him in New Age, can you believe that? He’s more than two hundred years older than Mr. Shakespeare, yet they call him “New.”

He got on line at the cashier while she waited by the door.

Outside, it was lunch hour. Pars shouldered a small black bag. The wind spiraled scraps of newsprint in the air. In Union Square, the Salvation Army was already ringing bells. Usually that time of year, Ana and Russell flew to his mother’s in East Anglia for a week. Not this year. There wasn’t any usual this year.

Pars had arrived just that morning on a red-eye. He hadn’t eaten since the night before, and Ana suggested they get some lunch. She knew a place in the Twenties, an Indian restaurant. Pars said fine.

They walked up Broadway. Pars had never been in Manhattan before and he kept turning around, pirouetting at buildings, the sidewalks, the people.

So, Ana said, you came all this way for lunch?

No. He shook his head. His sister and her husband were flying over from Iran. He was going to meet them in Montreal in a few days. Since he was flying east, he decided…

He made a vague gesture with one hand, then pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose.

To what? Ana asked.

To check on you, he said.

He stopped in his path and stared across the street at the Flatiron Building.

What an amazing building, he said. Does it have a name?

Yes, she said, it does, and she told him.

The restaurant was off Fifth. It was one of Russell’s favorites, a cafeteria with the best idlis in New York. Ana often met him there after work.

Inside, the lunch crowd was thinning. The windows steamed. Pars ordered a chicken saag, Ana a vegetarian plate. When she reached the checkout, Ana realized her mistake. The friendly woman with the bindi and the glass bangles was working the register.

How is the husband? she asked.

Ana fished a bill from her wallet.

Fine, she muttered.

I have not seen him in some time. Tell him we are missing him.