“Sixty years ago my family lived in an orange grove. Forty years ago we were one house in a field of houses, with few orange trees between. Twenty years ago we were one of many houses in a row in a rich neighborhood. Ten years ago, mainlanders bought up all the houses, all but my family’s, because my father didn’t sell. So now we have a hotel to the left of us, and a surf shop to the right, and two bars on the street, and three mansions, and no orange trees. My father sits on the porch and rocks, as he’s done all my life.”

Margot ate the last piece of crepe, and finished the coffee. “Is that so.”

“Even if you live sixty years on one block, the block moves around you.”

“It does at that,” he said, and paid the man. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

“I’m always here,” the man replied, and patted the cart again. “Where you are, is the question.”

He climbed the stairs back to his room. Coffee burbled in his stomach, and grated his nerves. He felt drained, and wired. He needed more lunch, or dinner, he supposed, with a glance at his watch. Then again, he might as well work. If the Watch came, they would feed him in prison. If assassins, he would not need food.

He unlocked his door and entered an empty room. Bedclothes heaped in disarray. A few books on the shelf: poets, mostly, last-century Iskari and a few from the lost generation of Camlaan, broken remnants of the God Wars. Several dictionaries. A suitable library. A suitable room. Its contents bespoke poverty and dedication, a man striving against the limits of his own mind and life. His last work of art.

No. Not his last.

He caressed the surface of his desk. Stroked the pen in its stand. Opened a drawer, removed a fresh notebook, spread notebook on table, savoring the soft crack of glue and string and leather. Wind blew through the window. His fingertips drank the cream of the fresh page.

He reached for his pen, but did not draw it from the stand. He pushed back his chair and stood. The notebook drifted closed.

He paced his room as the sun declined. Three more times he sat. Three more times he stood. He wrote a doggerel verse on scrap paper. No help. He wadded the paper in his pocket, sat again, and bent to work. Palm fronds rustled. He looked up, sought the bruised sky for oncoming doom, and saw none.

He’d always thought waiting for death or prison would terrify him. He was not afraid. No control of his future, and no expectation of one, either.

He drew his pen and sat down to work. Outside, the sun set and the stars rose.

Chapter 38

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