The evening the two managers finally cornered me to say so, they were interrupted.

I was being called to the office of the gerente.
I climbed the stairs.

The big man himself was holding a landline telephone against his chest, the way you hold something you’ve briefly set aside.

He looked at me — one quick assessment — and said: someone is making a lot of noise to find you.

I’m not certain which part gave him pause. Possibly the cats. Possibly the no.

Toward the end of summer he said: you can call me Allanu. I only understood what Allanu was much later.

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