The girl sitting opposite gets up, leaving him a view of the window. At a table outside, two women are arguing. One looks tearful. The other sits drawn tight, arms crossed. It’s only when she shakes her head and turns to the window that Santi recognizes Dr. Lišková.

Their eyes meet through the glass. Santi freezes, convinced she sees him, but she turns back, reaching across the table to take the other woman’s hand.

Jaime bumps his shoulder. “What are you staring at?”

“My supervisor,” Santi says in slow horror.

Jaime laughs and slaps the table. “Guys! That’s Santi’s supervisor outside!”

As one, they turn their heads to the window. Santi crouches, hiding himself. “Stop! Don’t all stare at her!”

“She’s younger than I thought,” says Jaime.

“She’s hot,” says some guy Santi doesn’t even know.

“Looks like she’s having a fight with her girlfriend,” Héloïse observes. Wonderful: now she’s talking to him.

Santi covers his head. “Can you guys dig a tunnel to get me out of here?”

His plea is ignored. Vibrant speculation about Dr. Lišková’s love life ensues. Santi bites his nails and drinks his way toward a hoped-for oblivion. Through the window, his supervisor and her girlfriend mime a passionate unraveling. After a dilated, unreckonable time, the girlfriend gets up and walks away. Surely now Dr. Lišková will leave. But she stays, an angry ghost ordering glass after glass of wine, throwing it down her throat like it’s a poison she deserves. There is something obscene about seeing her like this, and yet Santi can’t stop looking. The girl opposite gets fed up of him peering over her shoulder and moves to another seat.

Finally Jaime shakes him. “Hey. We’re leaving.”

Santi looks up, disoriented. “Sure.”

“Do you want us all to huddle around you as we walk out? Like—human shield style?”

Santi considers it. “No, too obvious. I’ll wait here. Just—make a lot of noise as you leave. Then while she’s busy looking at you guys, I can sneak out.”

Jaime laughs, but he marshals the troops. Santi watches them stagger performatively outside, whooping and reeling across the cobbles. Dr. Lišková looks up jerkily from her nth glass of wine. Santi takes a breath, puts his head down, and walks quickly after his friends.

“Santi. Santiago López. Santiago López Romero.” She slurs his name but still gets it right. Given that he’s seen her put away the better part of two bottles of wine, he’s almost impressed. “Please stop insulting both our intelligences and turn around.”

Dr. Lišková sits clinging to her empty wine glass like an anchor chain. She hasn’t been crying. There’s another emotion than sadness at work here. Santi thought he had seen her angry before. Now her anger is elemental, incandescent, and it is all turned inward on herself.