Chapter One
The Holiday cóctel, coctel Lounge

It was always navidad down at the Holiday cóctel, coctel Lounge on St. Mark's Place in the East Village; the twinkling lights were left hanging up on the crossbeams year-round, just like the silver tinsel looped around the edge of the counter and the cheerful árbol in the back, its ornaments glittering in the dim light. The Holiday, as the regulars called it, was a New York institution. The bar had been a speakeasy during Prohibition, and counted as its patrons the poet W. H. Auden, who lived siguiente door, and Trotsky, who bunked across the street.

No one could...