In the confines of the room—my grandmother’s room, which she has given up for me, the visitor—I lie spread-eagle and watch the blades of a painfully slow fan waltz above me. I tell myself it is okay, no one will notice, that someday I will be in a better financial position and I will come back to Cuba. I will give my grandmother, my cousin, all my family whatever money the book was worth times a hundred. I wonder what an antiques dealer might pay for a rare book, how many bills that money might cover, how much rent, how many nights without sweat rolling down my forehead and into my already damp pillow. I miss the air-conditioning of my apartment in Miami. I have hated that apartment at every turn, but now I miss it. That apartment with its peeling paint and moldy bathroom, the only place I could afford after my mother cut me off.

In the morning, I wake before my grandmother and Maydelis and make them coffee. They are amused that a Yumita like me can make good espresso on the disintegrating stovetop. My grandmother gives me seeds for the rooster and chickens and guanajos, and I walk through the dirt spreading the bounty like a flower girl at the altar. Maydelis takes advantage of the hens’ commotion to search for eggs. She tells me she loves it here, a break from La Habana’s commotion. I miss that commotion. I spent only a week in La Habana before arriving to this town with her to visit our grandmother. We fry the eggs, yolks violently red from the ateje seeds.

I tell myself there are more books where Les Misérables came from. I tell myself no one will even notice that one book missing. I tell myself that, really, I am doing my grandmother a favor. She has no idea how valuable those books might be, and moths will surely eat them or hurricanes whip them away. It is a miracle they have survived even this long. I am saving one of the books, ensuring its place in the world, because something so precious needs a place in the world.

When my grandmother notices the book missing, I’ve been in Camagüey for another week. Each day has bled into the next, endless porch rocking, endless walks on dirt roads, endless visits from curious neighbors who, even miles away, learn of my arrival.

My grandmother simply walks into the kitchen one morning as I sit peeling a mamey and says, no hint of anger or emotion, “El negro stole one of my books.”

“What?” I say, a current running through me.

“Les Misérables. I had a book, an original printing of the Spanish version. A rare book worth money.”