Usually, he meets his friend Jaime here and stays for a few drinks, but Jaime is back in Spain visiting family. Alone, Santi finishes his one beer and leaves. Out of habit, he looks up, but the stars are shrouded by the city lights. As he walks the night-lit shopping streets of Neumarkt, he sings to himself, a wordless, familiar tune. He should feel at home here by now, in this city with its many names. Köln to the locals, Cologne to the teachers of the international school, Colonia to his family, when they call to ask him when he’s coming back. Only the Spanish preserves the meaning of the colony it once was, named and founded by foreigners. He steps over the invisible line of the old Roman wall: another foreigner, not conquering but passing through.

His phone rings. His sister, Aurelia. “Lita,” he says as he crosses the broad, tree-lined Ring into the Belgian Quarter.

“Is this a good time?” she asks, her voice compressed by distance. The couple of thousand kilometers between them might as well be light-years.

“Yeah. Just walking home from work.” A passing man shoots Santi a look and spits into the gutter. Because he’s speaking Spanish, or for some other reason, or for no reason at all? His brain whirls in the exhausting mental dance of not belonging.

“How are the new kids?” Aurelia asks.

“Same as always.” He corrects himself. Thora, the anomaly. “One of them wants to be an astronaut.”

His sister makes a sympathetic noise. “What are you going to tell her?”

“To try her best.”

Aurelia is quiet for a moment. “Is that kind?”

Santi wonders how to answer. It’s what I wish I’d been told. “She’s a rich kid at an international school,” he says instead. “She has more chance than I ever did.” Before Aurelia can argue, he changes the subject. “How’s my niece?”

Aurelia sounds exasperated. “God knows. She calls me once every six weeks to tell me she’s not dead.”

Santi smiles as he turns onto his street. “Tell her to come visit me sometime.”

“She wouldn’t need to visit if you were closer. Mama wants to know if you applied for that job in Almuñécar.”

He should have known Aurelia would seize the opportunity to return to her favorite subject. He sighs. “I’m thinking about it.”

“That means no.” He leaves a gap for her to continue. “Santi. You tell me all the time you don’t feel right there.”