Rimona put down her embroidery and went to open the window to air out the smoke-filled room. Tia rose too, arched her back, and moved closer to the table, panting in short, rapid breaths, her pink tongue hanging out, her eyes glued on her master and her ears cocked forward, as if straining not to miss a word or a move. Azariah Gitlin burst out laughing. “Give me time,” he said, “and I’ll teach your dog to play chess. You’d be surprised at what a dog can learn. Once, when I lived in a camp for new immigrants, I taught a Yemenite’s goat to dance the hora.”

Rimona shut the window, returned to the couch, and said, as if continuing her thoughts out loud, that it must be sad to have to spend so many hours alone in the barber’s shack. In the bottom closet, she believed, was a small, unused electric kettle that they could lend to Azariah. Before he left she would also give him some coffee and sugar and a few pieces of the pastry that he liked so much.

“Check,” said Azariah. His voice was cold.

“But what good does that do?” marveled Yonatan. “I can go here or here. Or here.”

“I’m just pressing home the attack,” said Azariah with a nervous giggle. “Thank you, Rimona,” he added. “When you’re being so nice to me, how could I possibly go and hurt Yonatan’s feelings by inflicting, so to speak, a defeat on him.”

“Your move,” said Yonatan.

“As a gesture of friendship I offer you a draw.”

“Hold on there,” said Yonatan. “Why don’t you first take a good look at what’s happening to your rook. You’re in bad trouble.”

“If so, it’s because I lost all interest in this banal, repetitious, and, if you don’t mind my saying so, boring game at least ten minutes ago.” Azariah’s reply was almost a singsong.

“You,” said Yonatan, “have lost.”

“So I have,” said Azariah, trying to force a comically gay expression.

“And I,” said Yonatan, “have won.”

“There now,” said Rimona. “The kettle’s boiling again.”

They drank more coffee and Azariah demolished another plate of pastry. When it was all gone, he took his guitar out of its battered case, moved away from his hosts, and sat down on a footstool near the kitchen door. Tia went with him, sniffing at his shoes. At first he picked out two or three simple popular tunes, sometimes humming softly along, but then he started playing a melancholy melody that neither of them knew.

“That was sad,” said Rimona.

Azariah flinched. “You didn’t like it? I can play all kinds of things. Just tell me what.”

“It was beautiful,” said Rimona.

Thoughtfully, Yonatan gathered the survivors from the board and arranged them in two rows, black and white, on the table.