Mihai stood on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis with a suitcase missing one wheel, watching it lean against his shin. Across the street, Madame Léonie had placed two café chairs facing a blank brick wall instead of the morning traffic.

He decided to have a coffee

Madame Léonie set a small black coffee on the table nearest the wall and, with a dry scrape of chair legs, turned the second chair toward him. Beneath its saucer lay a folded receipt with an address written in blue ink; she tapped it once, then went back inside.

Mihai unfolded the receipt and saw, beneath the address, the cemetery where he had buried his wife, written in Léonie’s blue ink.

The cemetery name was written exactly as it appeared on the gate in Romania, including the chipped accent over the final letter. Madame Léonie, behind the window, set down her glass and pointed to the address above it: the blue ink there had begun to run toward the curb like rainwater.