We stop and sit very still in our seats. I want to ask what’s happening, but my aunt is silent, staring out through the front window. Soon a car door opens, I can’t see it, but I hear it, and someone climbs out. As he approaches us—it’s a man, I can tell from how he moves—his body is just a silhouette in that aggressive light. He lacks any contours, but he’s tall, and something that must be a jacket flutters around him. He’s also holding something in his right hand. He walks all the way to our car, to my aunt’s window. Knocks on it. I don’t want to turn toward him, it doesn’t feel good, but I can make out the glow of the cigarette in his mouth, and the smoke twirling upward in the light. When my aunt doesn’t open, he knocks again, and I can’t help myself, I turn a little so I can see his face. And suddenly I’m so happy! All my discomfort slips away, and I want to hug my aunt and whisper that there’s nothing to worry about. I know him. That’s Lorik.

“It’s him.”

She doesn’t answer, just stares straight ahead.

She hasn’t understood yet.

“Aunt Vesa? Aunt Vesa? That’s who I was supposed to have dinner with. Lorik! You can open the window. Do it, roll it down. How could he . . . When I didn’t come, he came here, aunt, he likes me, don’t you see?”

“Sit still. Don’t talk. Look straight ahead, the whole time.”

“Aunt Vesa, listen, it . . .”

“It’s not a good thing.”

Lorik knocks again. Peers into the car. At me. Why would I look away when he’s standing there?

“Straight ahead.”

“Aunt Vesa, I . . .”

“Straight ahead!”

I turn my eyes away, the floodlights swallowing me.

Then my aunt rolls down the window.

I hear them talking.

Albanian. Words I don’t understand. But the tone. Bitter. I understand that. Lorik sounds different. And my aunt sounds the same.

After a while they fall silent, and my aunt leans toward me.

“He wants to see your passport.”

“What?”

“Your passport. Take it out.”

I notice it now. My aunt is trembling. It’s not just fear, it’s more than that. Terror. The word feels so extreme, but I can’t think of a better one.

I take out my passport. Hand it to my aunt who hands it to Lorik. He flips through it.

“Hannah Ohlsson?”

His voice is just as sharp as my aunt’s was. It cuts. Into me.

“Yes.”

I speak English to him, like in the café. And he answers, his English is at least as good as mine.

“Is that your name? That’s not what you were calling yourself when we met.”

“I have two names, Lorik. Both are me.”

“Your questions. About Lilaj.”

“Yes?”