“I can’t remember when I last had such strong, good coffee. That may be one reason I’m talking too much. I’ve hardly said a word to a living soul for ages because I haven’t had a soul to say one to. Even though the Bible teacher around whom I just constructed my little hypothesis may never actually exist, one grieves all the same for the death of a decent, dedicated man who may not have set the world on fire in the classroom, so to speak, but who never did the slightest harm to his country or his fellow man. These are delicious. Did you bake them yourself, Rimona?”

“They come from a box,” said Rimona.

“I noticed this morning,” said Yonatan, “that every little thing excites him.”

“I’m sorry about that teacher,” said Rimona.

“Yonatan,” said Azariah, “has a sharp eye, so to speak. There’s no point in pretending that I’m not excitable. Still, I’ll say it again, my own governess never made pastry as good as this when I was a boy. I won’t tire you now with stories about my governess, but sometime when your children are here I’ll tell them all about her. Children love listening to me, especially the little ones. Maybe you know the legend of the Jewish peddler who came to a village of terrible Jew-killers and lured all their children after him with his flute until they drowned in a river. Little children would follow me through hell and high water, because I tell them the loveliest stories that are frightening but not too frightening.”

“We happen,” said Yonatan in a slow, sleepy voice, “not to have any children.”

Azariah glanced up just as a profoundly bitter smile began to form around Rimona’s lips without ever touching them. Before dying away, it momentarily reached her shaded eyes. Looking at neither of them, she said, “We had a little girl but lost her,” adding, after a pause, “Whether or not it just happened, as you say, I don’t know. But I’d like to know why it had to happen.”