“If you’re going to keep doing that, Fernando, you’ll have to move away from Lucy,” Colonel Zimmermann said. I saw that Fernando was dry-humping Lucy from behind. I just offered the sandwiches to the older gentleman, who seemed indifferent to eating or the humping.

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” Fernando said; he sounded sincere, but his bad tattoo told another story. It was a sailor’s tattoo—a tall ship’s mast ran up one side of his neck, reaching to his temple. But the ship’s mast was only the background of what was also a true-love tattoo. On Fernando’s cheek was a heart, pierced by a dagger. The pommel of the dagger was a dark knob under Fernando’s eye, the hilt stood parallel to his nose, and the blade crossed his chin, the tip touching his throat. The true love’s name, written in small capitals on the bleeding heart, was not LUCY—she was someone Fernando had fooled around with, before Lucy. As tattoo artists know, a true-love tattoo lasts longer than many true loves.

“You’re not doing anything to encourage Fernando, are you, Lucy?” Colonel Zimmermann asked the girl. With her lips tightly closed, she shook her head, but I could see that Lucy’s denial was met with disbelief by the others in the soup line—not to mention by Elmira.

“You are encouraging Fernando, Lucy—I’ve seen you be encouraging to him,” the housekeeper said.

“Lucy, go stand beside Adam—he’s got the sandwiches,” Colonel Zimmermann told her. The girl complied with downcast eyes—not looking at me, or at the sandwiches. The older gentleman was looking at me—not at the sandwiches.

“Not especially hungry today, Professor?” Colonel Zimmermann asked the dignified-looking gentleman.

“Not especially hungry every day, Colonel,” the professor answered. I’d noticed that his flask was empty. He kept uncapping it and lifting it to his lips, where he tilted it, but there was nothing left in the flask—only fumes, I imagined. “And you—your name is Adam, and you’re going to be a writer?” the professor asked me. The snowshoer would tell me later that I’d failed to understand the Em-like pantomime the colonel was performing with the soup pot; his gyrations and contorted facial expressions were intended to forewarn me not to speak of publishing my writing to the alcoholic professor. But I misinterpreted Colonel Zimmermann—I thought he’d burned himself with some spilled soup. I explained to the older, academic-looking gentleman that I’d received an advance for my first novel, which I was still writing. The novel would be published by Random House when I finished it, I said.

“Random House—not exactly a small-press publication!” the professor exclaimed, stumbling out of the soup line. “And they’ve paid you an advance!” he cried, the plastic spoon snapping in his clenched teeth and the paper bowl and paper plate falling from his outstretched hands, like the hands of a supplicant, or of someone praying. “Random House!” the professor repeated. That was when Lucy licked my face. I was too surprised to react right away, and I still had both hands on the sandwich platter. Lucy began by licking my cheek, then my ear, then the side of my neck.