“You can have the second bedroom,” Claudia says, leading me down a short hallway. She flips a switch and the beaded chandelier throws a kaleidoscope of light across the ceiling. No fewer than nine brightly colored pillows sprawl on top of the red-brown comforter, which glints with pieces of mirror like an antique sari. Mismatched art lines the walls—including a piece featuring a giant red sneaker on a skinny, hairy leg. It’s too vibrant to look away from and really kind of ugly, a line in another language scrawled across the bottom.

“What does that say?” I ask.

“ ‘And I knew that the foot of God was about to crush me.’ ”

“That’s kind of horrible,” I say.

“Piotrek painted it,” she says.

“Oh. I mean it’s just very . . . bold.”

“I find it comforting, myself,” she says, leaning in the doorway. “How many times have I felt that God was a god of crushing feet? That all bad that happened was punishment for some mistake—of even being born?”

“You don’t still feel that way?”

“No,” she says. “Not since the day Piotrek painted this and I cried the minute I saw it. ‘I think one day you will realize that God likes you,’ he said. Which made me cry more. Because it’s much harder to think that God likes us than that He loves us.”

I have shortchanged her, I realize, and the often-silent Piotrek. It must be impossible to have no beliefs, living as they do. As I have, too, lately. I wonder if I was ever religious, if I ever had a single thought nearly as deep during my life before. I recall what Luka said about our argument over whether it was better to take what life we could get or fight for more, and wonder if I’m a far shallower person today than I was two months ago.

“There are things in the closet, the other bedroom, the bathroom. Take what you want, but I suggest you sleep,” she says. She turns on the bedside lamp. It is outfitted with a purple bulb. “We don’t go out during the day unless we have to, as I must now if we’re going to get you passports.”

I catch her by the arm.

“Thank you, Claudia,” I say, and mean it. She gives me a perfunctory nod.

She leaves shortly after downing a small cup of espresso with what she calls “sinful speed.” “You see?” she says, as she picks up her purse. “I’m practically American.”

Luka locks the door behind her as I force down half a cooling cup of coffee. There’s no milk, and I’m pretty sure asking Claudia to get some would have gotten me a laugh in the face.

“How is it?” he asks.

“Horrible,” I say, setting it on the table.