Manager’s voice wasn’t like her usual one, and though her eyes were on the outside, I thought she was now looking at nothing in particular. I even started to wonder what passers-by would think to see Manager herself in the window with us for so long.

Then she turned from the window and came past us, and as she did so she touched my shoulder.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘at special moments like that, people feel a pain alongside their happiness. I’m glad you watch everything so carefully, Klara.’

Then Manager was gone, and Rosa said, ‘How strange. What could she have meant?’

‘Never mind, Rosa,’ I said to her. ‘She was just talking about the outside.’

Rosa began to discuss something else then, but I went on thinking about the Coffee Cup Lady and her Raincoat Man, and about what Manager had said. And I tried to imagine how I would feel if Rosa and I, a long time from now, long after we’d found our different homes, saw each other again by chance on a street. Would I then feel, as Manager had put it, pain alongside my happiness?

* * *

—

One morning at the start of our second week in the window, I was talking to Rosa about something on the RPO Building side, then broke off when I realized Josie was standing on the sidewalk in front of us. Her mother was beside her. There was no taxi behind them this time, though it was possible they’d got out of one and it had driven off, all without my noticing, because there’d been a crowd of tourists between our window and the spot where they were standing. But now the passers-by were moving smoothly again, and Josie was beaming happily at me. Her face – I thought this again – seemed to overflow with kindness when she smiled. But she couldn’t yet come to the window because the Mother was leaning down talking to her, a hand on her shoulder. The Mother was wearing a coat – a thin, dark, high-ranking one – which moved with the wind around her body, so that for a moment she reminded me of the dark birds that perched on the high traffic signals even as the winds blew fiercely. Both Josie and the Mother went on looking straight at me while they talked, and I could see Josie was impatient to come to me, but still the Mother wouldn’t release her and went on talking. I knew I should keep looking at the RPO Building, in just the way Rosa was doing, but I couldn’t help stealing glances at them, I was so concerned they’d vanish into the crowd.

At last the Mother straightened, and though she went on staring at me, altering the tilt of her head whenever a passer-by blocked her view, she took her hand away and Josie came forward with her careful walk. I thought it encouraging the Mother should allow Josie to come by herself, yet the Mother’s gaze, which never softened or wavered, and the very way she was standing there, arms crossed over her front, fingers clutching at the material of her coat, made me realize there were many signals I hadn’t yet learned to understand. Then Josie was there before me on the other side of the glass.

‘Hey! How you been?’

I smiled, nodded and held up a raised thumb – a gesture I’d often observed inside the interesting magazines.

‘Sorry I couldn’t come back sooner,’ she said. ‘I guess it’s been…how long?’

I held up three fingers, then added a half finger from the other hand.

‘Too long,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Miss me?’

I nodded, putting on a sad face, though I was careful to show I wasn’t serious, and that I hadn’t been upset.

‘I missed you too. I really thought I’d get back before this. You probably thought I’d cleared right out. Really sorry.’ Then her smile weakened as she said: ‘I suppose a lot of other kids have been here to see you.’

I shook my head, but Josie looked unconvinced. She glanced back to the Mother, not for reassurance, but rather to check she hadn’t come any closer. Then, lowering her voice, Josie said:

‘Mom looks weird, I know, watching like that. It’s because I told her you’re the one I wanted. I said it had to be you, so now she’s sizing you up. Sorry.’ I thought I saw, as I’d done the time before, a flash of sadness. ‘You will come, right? If Mom says it’s okay and everything?’

I nodded encouragingly. But the uncertainty remained on her face.

‘Because I don’t want you coming against your will. That wouldn’t be fair. I really want you to come, but if you said, Josie, I don’t want to, then I’d say to Mom, okay, we can’t have her, no way. But you do want to come, right?’

Again I nodded, and this time Josie appeared to be reassured.

‘That’s so good.’ The smile returned to her face. ‘You’ll love it, I’ll make sure you do.’ She looked back, this time in triumph, calling: ‘Mom? See, she says she wants to come!’

The Mother gave a small nod, but otherwise didn’t respond. She was still staring at me, her fingers pinching at the coat material. When Josie turned back to me, her face had clouded again.

‘Listen,’ she said, but for the next few seconds remained silent. Then she said, ‘It’s so great you want to come. But I want things straight between us from the start, so I’m going to say this. Don’t worry, Mom can’t hear. Look, I think you’ll like our house. I think you’ll like my room, and that’s where you’ll be, not in some cupboard or anything. And we’ll do all these great things together all the time I’m growing up. Only thing is, sometimes, well…’ She glanced back quickly again, then lowering her voice further, said: ‘Maybe it’s because some days I’m not so well. I don’t know. But there might be something going on. I’m not sure what it is. I don’t even know if it’s something bad. But things sometimes get, well, unusual. Don’t get me wrong, most times you wouldn’t feel it. But I wanted to be straight with you. Because you know how lousy it feels, people telling you how perfect things will be and they’re not being straight. That’s why I’m telling you now. Please say you still want to come. You’ll love my room, I know you will. And you’ll see where the Sun goes down, like I told you the last time. You still want to come, right?’

I nodded to her through the glass, as seriously as I knew how. I wanted also to tell her that if there was anything difficult, anything frightening, to be faced in her house, we would do so together. But I didn’t know how to convey such a complex message through the glass without words, and so I clasped my hands together and held them up, shaking them slightly, in a gesture I’d seen a taxi driver give from inside his moving taxi to someone who’d waved from the sidewalk, even though he’d had to take both hands off his steering wheel. Whatever Josie understood from it, it seemed to make her happy.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Don’t get me wrong. It may not be anything bad. It may only be me thinking things…’