Not only does Marta not have her umbrella with her, she has no raincoat, not even a square of plastic to tie around her head. She doesn’t mind about this. It’s the cardboard briefcase she’s worrying about; will it melt away in this deluge, and what about the rest of the brochures? They’ll be ruined. She takes a tentative step forward, one high-heeled shoe advancing through the doorway and onto the flooded marble steps, then quickly retreats to the dry lobby.

Ssschwippp-the noise of an umbrella unfurling, Malcolm’s made-in-Montreal umbrella; a cunning button pressed, and voila! He gestures broadly at Martä and then at the umbrella. His forehead is working rhythmically, saying the unsayable in lines of brow.

In response Martä swings a dramatic arm in the direction of the open door, a perennial actress with unstartled eyes and a cheerful shrug of complicity. She points to the cardboard valise, helpless, helpless, and pulls a rueful face.

Time to take charge. Malcolm nods northward in the direction of the People’s Square. A query, a proposition. He touches his tweed chest, a vigorous me-too sign and, with surprising delicacy for such a large person, mimes the classic gesture of invitation, a hand uncurled, beckoning, one finger leading and the others following quickly. Why not? his look says.

Why not? Martä mimes back. No coyness here, not at age forty-two, not from a woman whose biography drills straight through to struggle and achievement and recent pools of terrible loneliness. She ducks under the umbrella and together they set off, down the broad marble steps, a turn to the right smoothly performed, and then along the wide pavement skirting the boulevard.

“You a visitor here also?” asks Malcolm, shouting above the noise of battering rain and reverting to the wooden English he uses when visiting foreign countries.

“Ko yon skoni?” Martä asks, waving a pretty arm, baring her teeth.

“A rainy night,” Malcolm says loudly.

“Por farë feni (with great pleasure),” Martä replies.

They both stop suddenly and smile. The futility of language. The impossibility.

Hundreds of people fill the street, some of them running, only a few equipped with umbrellas, most of them comically drenched. Who would have thought the weather would turn so suddenly! Men, women and children. The end of the working day. Everyone seems to be carrying a bundle of some sort, vegetables or kindling or books, and these they attempt to shield from the downpour. Under Malcolm’s strong black umbrella Martä and her cardboard case stay dry. She has given up on conversation ; so has Malcolm.