Hana sees Hans daily. He is the semicolon that marks the middle of the day. At noon he saunters into the restaurant, always behind a group of customers, each time holding the door open for them to enter first. Then as soon as he is inside he takes off his hat, holds it against his chest and lingers before the closing door. The other hand behind him waits to slow the closing door, to close it silently. If another party is waiting to exit he holds the door for the woman, waits for the man to catch it on the other side and keep it open. Then he tips his hat. It takes Hans a full five minutes to enter the restaurant proper.

            Once inside he always requests a table with a view of the street. Like any regular customer he has his regular table. But, Hana explained, noon is a busy time so there will be times when his table won’t be available and he will have to be seated somewhere else. Quite all right, he had said, as long as one can see the street from there.

            The first time he came Hana started to take his jacket but he pulled away as if stung. “What the hell are you doing?” She explained that a good waitress has to make sure that her customer is comfortable. “Strange thing, to take somebody’s clothes and think it makes him feel better.” Hana gave up explaining and asked him what he wanted to drink. “But I haven’t even sat down.” She smiled, her long blond eyelashes lowered indulgently over cerulean eyes. With a pen poised atop a notebook she waited for him to peruse the menu, too experienced a waitress to doubt that in the end he will ask for water. Hans ceremoniously handed her the menu and, as if about to request something very odd, enunciated: “I have decided. I will have water.”

            When she returned to take his order Hans enveloped her with an affable smile. Sit down for a minute, will you, he entreated. She sat across from him and crossed her legs halfway, not quite knowing how to sit, not used to being on this side of the table. His gaze, no longer petulant, was locked on her eyes as if noticing them for the first time. “You have large eyes,” he had said. Hana widened her eyes in surprise, exacerbating the effect. A strange compliment.

            “You are from Poland. Your accent.” He held both hands on the table, palms facing downward, palpating the wood. 
            
            “No,” she said.

            “What do you mean no,” he barked as if responding to an insult.

            “I am from the Czech Republic.”

            “Ah. I was almost correct.”

            “You weren’t,” Hana said playfully. “They’re different countries.”

            And then, to palliate him: “And you are from Germany.”

            Hans extended the corners of his mouth in defeat. “Yes.”

            Hana nodded and blinked at the same time.

            “Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” Hans said closing the menu. “This is America now. I’m just another guy.” And then, bringing his hands together: “And I will have sauerkraut with smoked sausage, if you please.”

            “Got it,” Hana confirmed and jumped swiftly to her feet, orders more benign than conversation. He did not ask for her name and she did not ask for his.

            It is noon just now, time for Hans to arrive. He is crossing the street, looking right and left superfluously, holding his hat with his hand so that the wind doesn’t grab it. Right before he enters he glances at his watch, although he knows what time it is. At the door he takes a good look around to make sure there are no other people who want to come inside. Then he enters and at once notices a couple that is about to exit, so he walks backwards all the way outside and holds the door for them to pass. Hana watches the performance through the window. She thinks that the restaurant should make a door just for Hans.

            The table where he usually sits is occupied by other customers. A man and a woman, sitting with their hands together, fingers locked in a cogwheel embrace. She looks on the verge of tears. There is a sort of desperation in the way his eyebrows waver. A break-up or a proposal, who can know.

            Hans looks at Hana and from far she indicates a free table of two that has a generous view of the street. Hans walks over and sits, with his back to the street, leisurely draws his chair closer to the table. He takes off his coat, folds it, rests it on the back of the chair taking his time. Around, people are hurrying through their lunches, scrambling conversations with mouths half-full.

            From his bag Hans removes a photo, a white clean frame around it. There is a woman in the photo, a brunette sitting at a desk with a book. She is wearing glasses and for a moment raised her eyes from the page, face still engrossed in her diversion, and then the shutter clicked, robbing her of that lapse and perhaps startling her even. Hans places the photo carefully in front of him. The photo sits facing the street, the woman watching the passers-by. He has saved this privilege for her.

            He looks at the photo at length, his mind industriously struggling with a message, a heavy preamble, something that a first-grader would recite in front of the class. Hans looks nervous, the speech he delivers with his eyes is charged with a romantic note which he handles, most likely, maladroitly. Hana watches him from the counter. Hans has lunch with his wife every day. He imagines what she would say and responds. Their conversation is never idle, his eyes never tired to contemplate the framed person.

            She asked him once who is in the photo. Hans is not one who likes his life undressed in front of others, so he was miserly with his words. Hana understood his reasons and did not press. She has learned of a wife marooned in Germany, cumbersome visa affairs precluding their reunion. But even without knowing the details of this, merely looking at him conversing silently with this photo, smiling covertly from time to time, she can construe what this nostalgia summons, whether a person or an abstract idea. Perhaps Hans himself does not know which. But Hana has her own make-believes too, so she comes over and without irony asks:

            “Do you think she would like something to drink?”

            Hans looks at her in response, protocol long obviated by the habitude between them, and says:

            “You find me cuckoo.” He looks amused saying this, as if he has analyzed the possibility himself and found it indisputably false.

            Hana is at a loss, an attempt at persuasion so far beyond her energy right now. But she wants to tell him that he needs not justify anything before her, which he knows already for sure. She simply says:

            “I do not.”

            This suffices for Hans, a sanction from a nameless person. The space between the lines weighs heavier than the lines themselves.

            A few tables away there is an old woman smiling at herself. Her hair is bright white and misty, girding her head like an aura. Her eyebrows are nearly nonexistent, lashes too scarce to confer her expression. An oracle, her face, a sepia-toned portrait of serenity. To Hans the woman appears ageless, for if she were subject to degradation she would be long gone, he estimates by the chronology deeply engraved in her skin. She looks up from her meal now, straight at him, as if he’s called her name. But he said nothing, not with his voice, no.

            The group sitting at a table that blocks his view of her gets up noisily. They are taking a long time preparing to leave, donning articles of clothing, negotiating common routes and rides. They are filing out now, seven or eight of them in all. A woman forgets her gloves on the table and returns for them. One of them slips from her hand on the floor as she turns to leave. Picking it up she hits the vacant chair at Hans’ table, causing it to bump forward.

            “Oh, sorry,” she says and as she turns to acknowledge him her eyes are drawn by the photo. She delays now, the glove forgotten. One of her friends knocks on the glass window for her to hurry. She returns from the trance and, unlocking her eyes from the photo, has only one moment to look at Hans before she is through the glass doors. The group scrambles off in different directions.

            Under the spell of the mythological character sitting a few tables away, Hans has forgotten his lunch partner. He is gripped now, for he can now see that the woman also has a frame on her table. She does not look at the photo, certainly does not speak to it like he does, yet it seems that nothing else exists for her. Her link with reality tenuous, she pecks the meal vacantly, her expression a relentless half smile. There is something in her oldness that tells him she knows things about him that he himself does not.

            Hans is part of her universe now, for she has acknowledged him. He is wondering if she could be German, but of course this only happens in the movies.

            “What does it matter,” he thinks. Hans is not one for maudlin gestures, but he feels he should do something. He gets up and walks over with his photo, expecting her to signal him somehow if he’s being out of place. Now he is here at her table and in the absence of a nonverbal objection he feels welcome.

            “May I?” he says, indicating the empty chair.

            “Of course,” she responds joyfully. Her voice brings her back to the human realm, the legendary aura completely dispersed now. She is just an ordinary person. Hans’ attentive eyes on her, her translucent eyes on him, they are having lunch, as if brought together by chance events, like the restaurant not having enough tables to accommodate all customers and, since they are alone, asking them to share.

            The woman has finished her soup. She pushes the plate aside, rummages through her bag and brings out a newspaper. The photo frame is nudged out of the way to make room and now he can see the other side of it. There is no photo inside, only the price tag on the corner of the frame. Hans struggles a moment. He tries to understand how he has gotten it all wrong. Hana arrives, asks them if they would like anything else, and although he does not hear her she is his harbinger into the real world. He touches her hand to make sure that she is real. And immediately, trying not to seem too strange, he says, with words that sound like a confession:

            “Bring me some coffee, please.”

            Folding the newspaper, the old woman deems her meal concluded. She sluggishly gathers her things, photo frame flung obliviously into her purse, and gets up. Hans doesn’t quite know what to say, still hard pressed to understand, and her slowness notwithstanding he feels he still needs more time. For what, he doesn’t know. But the woman sees no awkwardness here and, buttoning her coat, addresses him genially:

            “Well, you have a good one!”

            And already she is off to the cash register to pay for her lunch. Behind her Hans sits slouched, his eyes unfocused. When Hana arrives with the coffee he looks at her for rescue, but she doesn’t know what to say either. Hans takes an hour to drink his coffee. When he leaves he forgets about the door etiquette and nearly slams into a man who is coming in.

            “Pardon,” the man says reproachfully.

            “We exit first, then you enter,” Hans replies matter-of-factly.

            Hana watches him crossing the street carefully, his pedestrian gray coat fading quickly into the city chromatic.

            The next day Hans shows up at noon. At the door he is back into ceremonious mode, at length negotiating entering procedures. Hana takes him to his table, which she has reserved for him, although she is not supposed to. He says nothing unusual, his countenance suggesting too little to conclude anything. She looks worried. He looks fine. He sits down and she stands at a distance, before taking his order, giving him time to bring out the photo. There is no photo today. Tentatively she approaches and asks him what he wants to eat. A hamburger, if she should be so kind. And yes, he is all right, she is so gracious to ask.

            “Where is your wife?” she finally asks.

            Hans looks at her blankly, his eyes devoid of emotional charge. “Somewhere else.”

            Hana rubs her hands on her apron as if trying to clean them. There’s nothing left to say, nothing she can put into words. She turns to go.

            “Could I also have a newspaper, please? Do you sell those here?”

            Hana nods. She proceeds to her errands with resolute steps, trying to get herself into a rhythm. With his elbows on the table Hans nibbles on the crackers she brought him, watching the street.