“Come here,” I said and pulled him toward me until I could whisper to him. “Am I going to see you again?”

“Of course, it’s okay. I just have to go. Walk down to the train with me. Do you want to see me again?”

“Yes.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Fine.”

“Let’s get ready and go.”

The streets were half-full of Sunday couples on their way home. We walked fast so that Pablo could catch the midnight train to San Isidro. From the time we left the apartment and set foot on the street, I had a feeling I’d never had before. I hesitate to call it love, but it was in my body as much as in my mind, a strange ease and feeling of happiness, a sense that I did not need anything more than this, that this would do me for all of my life. I wondered was this how other people felt, was it something which people took for granted and did not usually mention, was it something all the couples who were walking in the city on this Sunday night felt? Was I the only one who had never felt it before?

The following night we made love in my apartment. Afterward, he said he liked me. I asked him if he could say it again.

“I like you,” he whispered.

His body was something that I dreamed about at night and felt close to all day. In the evening when I came home, having walked him to the railway station, I loved getting back into the bed where we had been, lying on his side, savoring the faint smell of him from the pillow and the sheets.

On Friday of that first week he telephoned to say that he could not see me that evening, there were problems at home. They had been asking too many questions, he said, and he needed to spend one evening there, and have his dinner with the family. He hoped that I understood. I found it hard to say anything. I told Pablo that I understood, but I needed to know if this was a code for saying that he did not want to see me again. Would I be around on Saturday afternoon, he asked. Yes, I said, I would. What about two o’clock? Okay, I said, I’ll see you then.

As soon as I put the phone down Susan rang.

“First, can you have dinner with us tonight? There are a few other people coming, including your friend Jorge. Two, can we use your apartment tomorrow afternoon?”

“Will Donald be there tonight?”

“Yes, he will, and he doesn’t know a thing and I want it kept like that.”

“Fine,” I said.

“So that’s arranged?”

“Yes.”