When Nadina mentioned living in Lisbon, Armin said his Portuguese was quite good. In reality, he could order coffee and repeat two lines from a song. He had not planned a great lie. He simply liked her and did not want to seem like a man who had always intended to go somewhere but never arrived.
They met at a pottery workshop. Nadina made wide, uneven bowls. Armin tried to fix each of his until it collapsed. She would laugh and say clay did not like being persuaded that you knew better. He thought she was talking only about clay.
After a few weeks, he asked whether she would have dinner with him. She said she would answer in an unusual way. The next day, she left a small pot of rosemary at the workshop with a handwritten note in Portuguese. Armin recognized the word for Saturday. The rest looked like a saying about patience.
He could have opened a translation app. He could have asked. Instead, he decided Nadina was gently telling him to wait. He wrote that he understood and there was no pressure. She replied with a simple smile. On Saturday, he stayed home, hurt by something no one had said to him.
At the next workshop, Nadina greeted him more coolly. He concluded that the rejection was final and began talking more than usual. He mentioned cities, exhibitions, and writers. Nadina let him finish, then asked why he had not come.
The note on the flowerpot had been an invitation to dinner at eight on Saturday. Below it was her address. She had cooked and waited, then assumed he had changed his mind after she accepted.
Armin felt every clever sentence from the past few weeks closing in around him. He admitted that he did not speak Portuguese. He also said he had been ashamed to check the meaning, even though that would have solved everything in half a minute. Nadina did not laugh. She asked how many more conversations with him she would have to translate into the truth afterward.
They began with Lisbon, then went through his travels, most of which were plans. She did not immediately offer another date. Two weeks later, he brought a bowl to the workshop without trying to straighten it. Inside was a note in Bosnian: "Dinner on Friday. If you'd like." Nadina read it, looked at the crooked rim, and wrote down a time.