And she had folded the piece of paper and put it in her pocket so as not to forget. Nevertheless, she had forgotten or ignored it. It’s true that Mr. N had taken a liking to her; that she was good and kind to him; that he sometimes surprised himself by dreaming the kind of dreams about her that made him wake up embarrassed and damp. But the episode of her taking his papers without permission was sufficient to make Mr. N reevaluate their relationship. As did her perfume and her other recent lapses.

With his last remaining Faber-Castell 2B pencil, which he had sharpened so many times that it was no longer than his pinky, Mr. N scratched out his frustration with Miss Zahra and resumed writing: