For the second morning in a row, she wakes up convinced someone is in the room with her. Was it a voice that roused her? A man’s, gravelly and indistinct—she cannot remember the words. Yet the door is locked, and she is on the fourth floor, too high for intruders. She grips a corner of the flimsy curtain and rips it open like a band-aid. Nothing but the windowsill, scummy with moss and cigarette butts, and beyond it the sun rising over the wide city.

She is motionless for a few minutes, waiting for her heart to settle. Just a fragment of dream slipping over the borders of sleep. It is boiling hot in this room, on the top floor of a hotel too cheap for air conditioning, an oven of low ceiling and narrow walls. Her own country is hot, but not like this, not dry roasting heat without the relief of humidity, so you stifle instead of sweat.