Page 61 of Roaming Holiday

“Gracea mucho.” I lower to pet the eager bulldog. “Ciao, panímorísi.”

I glance up to find the man’s eyes on me. Please don’t be creepy. Please don’t be creepy. He nods politely and asks, “Cómi stara?”

“Stari sto bueni. Ke tu?”

“Bueni. You are American?”

I chuckle. “Is it obvious?”

“We do not get many tourists in this part of town.”

“I came to the right place, then. My name is Nina.”

He holds a hand to his chest. “I am Sebastian, this is my niassa Eleni, and our neighbor Philip. He does not speak any English.”

I reply in Maldanian. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“Please, sit,” Eleni, Sebastian’s grandmother, says, pointing to one of the chairs, which I graciously accept. The bulldog curls up by my ankles and I reach down to scratch behind his ear.

“Is it your first time Maldana?” Sebastian asks in English, his accent heavy. I quickly rake my eyes over his lanky frame and his thin, long face.

“Uh, yes, it is,” I stammer, and the four of us carry small talk for a bit. I keep my replies in as much Maldanian as I know for Philip. He smiles every time I speak. We chat about tourists and the way some of them behave. Sebastian talks about Antina’s corrupt governor being why the streets are not being fixed.

“The government no help us.” Eleni waves him off. “We help each other.”

“Do you like living in Maldana?” I ask her.

She repeats my question with a laugh. She ponders for a moment. “It’s all I know. Do I have a choice?” She notes my confused look and continues, using many hand gestures as she speaks. “I live here all my life. I work, I sleep, I raise family—uh, in Antina only.” She pauses to find the English words. “I ask my husband—before he die—if he want to move to new city or country. He say we cannot afford it. I think he want to stay.”

“He didn’t want to leave?”

“No,” she says fiercely. “He love Antina, but it get, uh. It get… Sebastian—” She then speaks quick Maldanian to her grandson, asking for the right word.

“Crowded,” he offers.

“Yes, crowded.”

“Antina is getting crowded?” I clarify.

She nods, but Sebastian answers. “All of Maldana is. We have a small population, but we are growing and don’t have enough places to live. The prices go up and people who live here for many years, like my grandmother, cannot afford her own home anymore.”

“That must be difficult. I’m sorry.”

Eleni laughs again. “They can’t take me from my home. I will have to die.”

“Niassa,” he drawls, and I hold back a smile at her ardor.

“I have another question,” I say. “The royal family, do you like them?”

She considers my words, then shrugs as she flicks her wrist as if to show her lack of care. “I don’t care for them, they don’t care for me.”

Sebastian looks at me, capping his pen. “Why do you ask?”

The likelihood of him guessing my reasoning is almost nonexistent. I look nothing like my fully European family members. “I’m curious.”

“They don’t do much. Nothing to like or dislike.”

“What about other Maldanians?”

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