Hungary, Argentina and Ireland all in the one bar in Paris.

Isabella stared into her glass. Her husband’s phone had rung and he had gone out onto the street to take the call saying, as he always did, that he would only be a few seconds. She stopped watching him through the large plate glass window that gave onto Place de la Contrescarpe and its leafless trees. The cold, November wind was whipping his words from his mouth as he spoke and he had to shout to make himself heard. She could hear nothing from inside and turned back to stare at her glass as if she were contemplating either her future or her past. It was warm in the bar and there was whiskey in her glass. In her loneliness she began to wonder if she were real, or if the universe was playing a trick on her even though she didn’t exist which would surely mean that the universe was playing a trick on itself. That line of thought became too complicated for her and reminded of the doubts that assailed her mind as a sick child - was she adopted, was she really Hungarian, did she have a serious illness that her parents weren’t telling her about but of which all her friends at school knew. The barman offered to fill her glass and she let him. He was Irish and his wife had just had a baby boy. He was planning to return to Belfast after finishing his studies in Paris. He lived in the apartment Hemingway had once lived in. Isabella’s husband returned. He came up to the bar and the Irish barman could feel the sharp November cold coming off his face and his clothes, countering the heat coming off Isabella. Hungary, Argentina and Ireland all in the one place. Hot and cold. Whiskey. Everyone needed to start over