Renard, his ear plastered to his own door, could only barely make out the raised voices across the hall. Confound that ridiculous man’s accent. If he would just speak clearly, Renard thought.

But who in this building spoke clearly? The whole block was a mash of nationalities, languages, dialects, and accents. Even Renard, born in Martinique to a Canadian man and his German mistress then raised by Swedish housekeeper, knew he spoke with a hideous melange of an accent. Nobody could ever place it, and he rarely spoke to them long enough to correct their guesses.

The slamming door catapulted Renard out of his linguistic reverie and his face off the peeling paint on his own door. The man had left. The man had left angrily. Perhaps, there was consoling to be done.

Renard rushed threw his rote preparations, done a hundred times before. Tuck the shirt. Slick the hair. Check the breath. Rehearse the phrases. Practice the looks. Slap the tic away.

But finally, Renard stepped into the hallway.