Itried to get her accent. I couldn't get any sign at all. We were drinking coffee along 53^rd Street in New York—we had just met and got to know each other in that city of millions, that fascinating city like the Tower of Babel gone wrong, that city where conversation can take place in Ukranian or Tahitian, Spanish or Persian—and all I knew of her was that she was not an American. Where are you from? She replied: "My name is Elena P.