“Or maybe it’ll just seem that way to the folks who read them.”

“You will never know. You are illiterate in French.”

“I’m illiterate in most every language,” said Calvin. “So are you.”

“Yes, but in the illiteracy competition, I will concede to you the laurels.”

“Here’s the house,” said Calvin.

Honoré sized it up. “Your sister-in-law is not rich, but she spends the money to stay in a place that is respectable.”

“Who says she ain’t rich? I mean, think of it. She knows what folks are thinking. She knows everything they’ve ever done and everything they’re going to do. She can see the future! You can bet she’s invested a few dollars here and there. I bet she’s got plenty of money by now.”

“What a foolish use of such a power,” said Honoré. “The mere making of money. If I could see into another person’s heart, I would be able to write the truest of novels.”

“I thought you already could.”

“I can, but it is only the imagined soul of the other person. I cannot be sure that I am right. I have not been wrong yet about anyone, but I am never sure.”

“People ain’t that hard to figure out,” said Calvin. “You treat it like some mystery and you’re the high priest who has the word straight from God, but people are just people. They want the same things.”

“Tell me this list as we go inside out of the sun.”

Calvin pulled the string to ring the doorbell. “Water. Food. Leaking and dumping. Getting a woman or a man, depending. Getting rich. Having people respect you and like you. Making other people do what you want.”

The door opened. A Black woman stood before them, her eyes downcast.

“Miz Larner or Miz Smith or whatever name she’s using, Margaret anyway, she’s expecting to meet us downstairs,” said Calvin.

Wordlessly the Black woman backed away to let them come in. Honoré stopped in the doorway, took the woman by the chin, and lifted her head till their eyes met. “What do you want? In the whole world, what do you want most?”

For a moment the woman looked at him in terror. Her eyes darted left, right. Honoré knew she wanted to look down again, to get back to the safe and orderly world, but she did not dare to turn her face away from him as long as he held her chin, for fear he would denounce her as insolent. And then she stopped trying to look away, but rather locked her gaze on his eyes, as if she could see into him and recognized that he meant her no harm, but only wanted to understand her.

“What do you want?” he asked again.

Her lips moved.

“You can tell me,” he said.

“A name,” she whispered.

Then she tore herself away and fled the room.

Honoré looked after her, bemused. “What do you suppose she meant by that?” he asked. “Surely she has a name—how else would her master call her when he wanted her?”