Central Café is in a stone building with arched windows and doors. Inside are tall ceilings, hardwood floors, and red leather. Everything polished and sparkling. We find a seat at the front where we can see the display filled with Hungarian pastries. I try, but I can’t imagine spending a day in such affluent surroundings, writing poetry, drinking espresso, eating tortes, working on political intrigues with friends.

“Not exactly bohemian,” I tell Mimi. “You want a pastry?”

“I want to go to the bathroom.” Mimi stands up. “If the waiter comes, order me a cappuccino and something chocolate.”

There are photographs on the walls. Mostly men in suits that are fifty years out of date. I guess that these are the artists who frequented the café in its heyday, but they could just as well be plumbers and truck drivers. On the back wall is a large portrait of a young man staring out at the customers. There’s something disturbing about the painting. One eye is in shadow, and the man’s mouth is drawn as though he is anticipating something unpleasant. Or cruel.

When the waiter arrives, I ask him about the portrait.

“Ah,” says the waiter, in perfect English, “this is Endre Ady. Do you know his work?”

I have to admit that I don’t.

“He was a poet and a journalist. Very famous.”

I check the menu one more time, but I know what I want.

The waiter takes out his pen. “American?”

AS SOON AS THE people standing around the vegetable cart saw us, they stopped talking, and they stopped moving, as though someone had hit pause on the remote. I smiled and waded in with my exceptional Greek.

“Kalimera.”

The man at the town hall had copied the page in the ledger that showed my grandfather’s birth along with the names of his parents and his siblings. I pulled the page out of my pocket and held it out.

“My pappou,” I said, pointing to the entry.

One of the older women came around the side of the cart and looked at the paper.

“Pappou?”

“Nai.” I pointed to my grandfather’s name. “Maletiani.”

The woman pointed to the ground at her feet. “Pappou? Maletiani?”

“Nai. Milate agglika?”

This was greeted with head shaking and a chorus of “okhi.” I pointed to my grandfather’s name again. “Pappou. Thomas. Athanasios. And then I pointed to my grandfather’s brother’s name on the Xerox. “Georgios. Adeltos.”

This sparked a lively conversation among the villagers at the cart, with the women taking the lead and the men chiming in every so often.

Mimi pressed against me. “What are they saying?”

“No idea.”

“What happened to ‘I speak Greek’?”

“Different dialect.”

“Right. So, do they know your grandfather?”

“Not sure.”