After another fifteen minutes of driving, the pilot introduced himself apologetically over the intercom. I thought he was going to tell us that there was a bomb on the plane or that Montreal had been closed for the season. He explained, anticlimactically, I thought, that there were still six planes ahead of us, that we would get assigned to a runway sooner or later, and that he thanked us for our patience.

Minna said something unforgivable in Lithuanian.

“Watch it,” I said.

“But no one can understand me, Evan.”

“That’s the point.” I patted her little hand. “Don’t speak anything but English until we get into Canada. Remember, you’re an American citizen, you were born in New York, your name is Minna Tanner, and you speak only English.”

“All right. The pilot is a-”

“Proper English.”

“-nice man.”

She is not an American citizen, she was not born in New York, her name is not Minna Tanner, and I’m not entirely certain how many languages she speaks. She is fluent in Lithuanian, Lettish, English, and Puerto Rican Spanish, and has accumulated bits and pieces of many other languages from the books and records and occasional guests in my apartment, where I live and she reigns. She is the sole surviving descendant of Mind-augas, who in his turn was the sole king of independent Lithuania some seven centuries ago.

When I first met her, she was living in a cheerless basement room in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, tended by a pair of addled old maids who awaited the day when she could be installed as Lithuania ’s queen. I took her away from all that, and now she plays queen in my somewhat less cheerless apartment on West 107th Street. From time to time I threaten to send her to school or to have her adopted by some happy little couple with a happy little house out in a happy little suburb. She and I both know that this will never happen – she’s too much fun to have around. Ever since Kitty Bazerian’s grandmother taught her how to make Armenian coffee, she has become utterly indispensable.