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got there.” He stood on his toes and looked over his shoulder again. “Good, good question indeed. That it does not come out but just sits there. Well, the manager is asking for me, I think. So nice to see you.”
    The secretary watched Fokuhama slowly back away from her, navigating his way toward the manager’s table. She squeezed her hand around the stem of her wineglass. She felt cold.
    Everywhere in the room people were talking to one another animatedly. The secretary listened with deep concentration to fragmentsof the conversations around her, sucking in the words: “You must give me the recipe, I love fruitcakes.” “Oh, sunsets, I can’t get enough of them, really!” “Susan is wonderful, isn’t she? A remarkable person, I do say.” “A good sunrise, on the other hand, can be nice too, don’t get me wrong.” “To meet people, to really connect with them, that is just the most precious thing for me. And family, of course.” “I’m sorry, I’m just terrible with lighters. Ha ha ha.” “Meeting people, yes, indeed, it is something else, isn’t it?”
    Slowly, the secretary turned around, walked out the door quietly, through the hall and the large door, and into the cloakroom where she got her coat and where the clock said ten to eight. Just as she put on her coat she heard a voice behind her.
    â€œPlease don’t tell me you’re leaving,” a man said.
    RUS NEEDS HELP

    â€œPlease,” Rus said. “I need your help.”
    The checkout girl at the supermarket looked up from her register and raised her eyebrows.
    â€œHello,” she said. “You don’t have any groceries.”
    Rus was standing exasperated in front of her register, holding the letter pressed against his chest.
    â€œI have a letter,” Rus said. “I have to pay taxes, but all my money is gone.” When Rus heard himself say it out loud like this the horror of the situation truly dawned on him. It was as if someone were holding him by the throat.
    â€œOh,” the girl said. “So why are you telling me this?” She waved at the customer behind Rus to give her the groceries.
    â€œWe see each other every day, Cathy,” Rus said. “Soup, bread, lemonade. That’s me. I go to your register every day.”
    â€œYeah,” Cathy said. “Cathy’s not my real name. I don’t want all of East knowing my name.”
    â€œI thought we could figure this out together,” Rus said. He placed the letter on her register. “I can’t handle it alone, you see. I have never been in this situation before. I don’t feel like myself; I can’t even think clearly.”
    â€œSo call them,” Cathy said. She pushed the letter off her registerand took the groceries of the next customer from the conveyor belt. “Don’t bother me.”
    â€œBut I can’t call them. I don’t have a phone. I don’t have anything. My house is made from scrap material, and I don’t know anyone.” Rus’s voice broke.
    He’d spent all afternoon pacing down the streets of the neighborhood, looking at the people in the streets and on the market square, looking for one familiar face among the people who passed him by. He had to have made at least one acquaintance during the twenty-five years he’d lived in his neighborhood, he thought; there had to be one person he’d left an impression on, one person who might want to help. But there wasn’t. Sammy from the Wash-o-Matic did not recognize him, and the people who worked at the Starbucks did not remember ever even seeing Rus, or writing his name on a cup. Rus had never really paid attention to them either; his mind was usually somewhere else—on the sea, or already busy counting the customers—so he’d never really looked at the person attached to the hand that gave him the latte.
    â€œPlease,” Rus said