The mentor, on that furtive call, had reminded E of the Manual because she, the mentor, had worked hard on it and because E was, of all her students, the one who had most astutely and productively questioned its techniques. It was the self-confidence apparent in E’s judgment (the self-confidence of a person who self-identified as lacking confidence, as lacking, at times, self ) that impressed and reassured the mentor, both about E and about the Manual’s ultimate value. The Manual was not meant to be followed obediently; its title and authoritative appearance were a recruiting trick.

There was no one in the dark tent; at least, it had the feeling of vacancy; the mentor stood by the door and let her eyes adjust. White plastic folding tables lined the edges of the provisional room. She noted the plywood platform the tent was constructed on: a semipermanent structure, and not a new one. Faded curved and colored lines were visible on the plywood, which, without knowing much about team sports, the mentor took to be related to one or more of them: basketball, dodgeball, who knows what else.

Only after her eyes had fully adjusted, had swept halfway around the tent in a clockwise direction, taking in not only the sequence of tables but their various offerings (not all of them, or hardly any of them, recognizable, but which included sewing machines, small hydraulic pumps, stacks of books, piles of wrenches and other hand tools, and, distributed among them, unidentifiable forms or figures apparently made from terra-cotta, some on tables and some on the floor), did she see, at the farthest table from where she stood, a seated person, sipping something from a paper cup.

“Hello!” said the mentor, walking briskly across the floor. “I’m Marina. I’m looking for the translator.”

“I’m the translator,” said Pablo. “Pablo.”

They shook hands.

“Cookie?”

Marina and Pablo ate peanut-butter cookies and looked around. They each, in turn, considered speaking, opening their mouths, and then reconsidered, realizing they didn’t yet know what to say. The sun moved into a direct shot of the sheet-plastic windows cut through the tent’s long sidewall, and the increased brightness made the array of tools and strewn-about terra-cotta figures ever more chaotic and absurd. They chewed their cookies and swallowed, opened their mouths to speak, closed them again. Went back for more cookies. Finally, simultaneously, they burst out laughing.

“What the fuck,” said Pablo.

“is this place?” said Marina.

A DRIVE

E was silent for the first half of the drive; S sat pensively in the passenger seat, humming in a soft, low voice.

“Do you think,” S said, and then stopped. The car was alone on the two-lane county highway, threading through fields and past trailers, cabins, old farmhouses. S’s hand was on E’s knee.

“Do I think?” E answered, keeping her eyes on the road, slowing down for a deer.