“Don’t you know?”

“I do!” she said as her hands framed his face and she stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips. Her kiss was gentle, but as magic as Tony knew it would be. “I do,” she whispered as she clung to him. “We must be together. But now you must go. Now I want to think about what we must do.”

She was serious. Suddenly much older than he, feeling much wiser, she understood the primitive wilderness they inhabited. She had to return to her room and think. “It is very important that we think.”

“I’ll help you down the ladder. But you still must look up.”

“Even if I looked down I would only see the sky,” she said.

“And the stars,” he added.

“And the moon. And the sun,” she said.

“How could you see the sun when it’s night?” His tone changed suddenly. “I’ll see you tomorrow? And we’ll tell each other what we thought about, and what we’re going to do? Where can I see you? What time?”

“Do you know where Señora Mantanios has her bridal shop? I work there,” she continued after he nodded. “I sew.”

Tony held her hand against his cheek. “You be careful of the needles,” he warned her. “I don’t want any accidents. What time will I see you?”

“Six o’clock?”

“Six o’clock,” he repeated. “What name do you like better? Tony or Anton?”

“I like them both,” she said after a moment. “But Anton is more poetical. Te adoro, Anton,” she said. “That means I love you.”

He rapped his forehead to awaken his dormant and rudimentary knowledge of Polish. “Maria, ja kocham cie. That’s Polish,” he said, “and it doesn’t sound as good. But it means the same thing.”

“Kiss me,” she said. “It’s a new language for both of us. But we speak it so well.” Again she looked at the stars. “Even up there”—she pointed at a bright star—“if there are a boy and girl standing on a roof, and they are able to see us, and they hear us speak, they might not understand what we say. But if they see us kiss, they will know.”

“That I love you,” he said, as he moved to cover her mouth with his lips.

“And that I love you,” she murmured, before the wind whirled them into the sky toward the stars.

Although she had wanted to stay awake, to remember everything over and over again, sleep enveloped her in a matter of minutes, and she murmured drowsily that she was sleepy and whoever was bothering her, would they please go away?

“Wake up, Maria. It’s Anita,” she heard the whispering in her ear. “Wake up!”

She sat erect with a start, as a cold hand of fear fastened itself at her throat. “My God, what is the matter?”

“Nothing,” Anita continued to whisper. “Bernardo wants you to come up on the roof. We are all there—Chino, Pepe, Indio. All the girls too. There is nothing the matter; we are having a party there. Suddenly you don’t like parties?”