When he met Myriam in October 1940, Vicente was a young man without a high-school diploma or even a middle-school certificate. Before the war he had worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant. Now, he aspired to become a mountain guide and poet. The problem was his grammar. He had posted a notice at the Sorbonne seeking a student to tutor him. That was how he met Myriam. They’d been born three weeks apart; Myriam in Russia sometime in August, and Vicente in Paris on September 15.
