The room is turbulent with kleptos conferring in Esperanto, featuring a lot of words ending in u (“Volitive mood,” comments Zoltán, “used for yearnings, regrets, if-onlys…”), hurried exchanges of goods for cash, contraband of all kinds just in from across various borders, loupes flourished like daggers, with a lot of peering up and down through eyeglasses, an unslackening interplay of hands from time-battered to just-manicured, among pockets, sleeves, lapels—traffic, scaled to the human palm and the briefness of time allotted, in antique watches, knickknacks, earrings, finger rings, cigar
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