“Who, me? Some chance. That’s something I only do at work, when you’re performing your miracles with the tractors. Just now I was thinking about that knight. I’ve got a simple solution.”

“What knight?”

“Yours. The one you lost in our game yesterday after you were a rook up. She should be back soon.”

“Is she at a meeting? Or is tonight choir rehearsal?”

“She’s serving coffee and cake to the study group. To Stutchnik, Srulik, Yashek, and the rest of them. What does it say in that book?”

“It’s about philosophy. About different ideas and points of view. As stated by Spinoza. Yoni?”

“What?”

“ ‘A little fink.’ That’s what they used to call me in the army. Do you think I’m a little fink? Or a cheat? Or a jerk?”

“Come off it, Azariah! Tell me something. Don’t you ever feel like just picking up and taking off for some faraway place, some strange big city like Rio de Janeiro or Shanghai where you can be all alone, a total stranger who doesn’t owe anybody anything? Where you can spend whole days just walking the streets, not talking to anyone, without any plans or even a watch on your wrist?”

“In Russia they say, ‘The man who has no other friend will be the Devil’s in the end.’ That’s a proverb. I’ve had enough of being by myself, Yoni, with no one to talk to. First in the Diaspora and then here. And all the time somebody was out to kill me. Not just Hitler. Here too at first, in the immigrant camp. And the enemies I had in the army. You can never be sure. Maybe even you wish to get rid of me, though you are my big brother and though I’d go through hell and high water for you.”

“What kind of hell? Just listen to that rain outside! Wouldn’t you like to take off for Manila, or Bangkok, say, right now?”