He shrugs. “Several reasons.” He pours more wine into his glass. “For one, there’s no one else to take care of my mother. Plus, this place is my home, and I’m not convinced there’s much better out there. My experiences have taught me that things rarely improve with a simple change of scenery.”

“Maybe so, but I still can’t wait to leave. I only have a little over four months left at the orphanage, you know? And you can’t tell anyone this, but I think that I’m going to leave sooner than that.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Marina. You’re very young to be on your own. Where will you go?”

“America,” I say without hesitation.

“America?”

“There’s somebody there I need to find.”

“If you’re so determined, then why haven’t you already left?”

“Fear,” I say. “Mostly fear.”

“You’re not the first,” he says, taking a moment to empty his entire glass. His eyes have lost their sharpness. “The key to change is letting go of fear.”

“I know.”

The door to the café opens, and a tall man wearing a long coat and carrying an old book enters. He moves past us and takes a table in the far corner. He has dark hair and bushy brows. A thick mustache covers his upper lip. I’ve never seen him before; but when he lifts his head and meets my gaze, there’s something I immediately don’t like about him and I quickly look away. From the corner of my eye, I can see he’s still staring at me. I try ignoring it. I resume talking to Héctor, or rather I babble, hardly making sense, watching him refill his glass with red wine; and I hear next to nothing of what he says in reply.

Five minutes later the man’s still staring, and I’m so bothered by it that the café seems to spin. I lean across the table and whisper to Héctor, “Do you know who the person in the far corner is?”

He shakes his head. “No, but I’ve noticed him watching us, too. He was in here on Friday, sitting in the same seat and reading the same book.”

“There’s something about him I don’t like, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Don’t worry, you have me here,” he says.

“I really should leave,” I say. An odd desperation to get away has come over me. I try not to look at the man, but I do anyway. He’s reading the book now, the cover of which is angled toward me as though he wants me to see it. It’s brittle and worn, a dusty shade of gray.

PITTACUS OF MYTILENE
AND THE
ATHENIAN WAR