She kept showing up because she had never experienced lust before. It fascinated her. After the ordeal of meeting strange men on her brief escape to Baltimore, she’d been terrified that she might never want to be a wife and mother. These new feelings, even toward someone as unacceptable as Duvie, were a huge relief. As it is written: Were it not for lust, man would not marry, bring up children and do business.

“So tell me. What are you up to, Duvie Halpern?”

“Wish I knew!” he laughed uproariously, slapping his thigh.

She looked around the car anxiously, embarrassed. She sniffed the air to see if she could detect the scent of alcohol. That would have been nothing new for Duvie. Often he had shown up at their meetings smelling like the inside of an Irish bar. Not that she had ever been inside such a place! But long ago, she had passed by outside just as someone was swinging open the doors and been engulfed by that pungent, slightly sweet-and-sour smell. She didn’t smell it now. But he kept laughing. Soon, the whole train would be looking at them, she thought, mortified.

“Shh! What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. What’s wrong with you?” He took a few deep breaths, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out his cigarettes.

“You can’t smoke in here,” a man across the aisle called out to him.

“What’s it your business?” he answered belligerently as if he, too, were six foot two with the girth of a heavyweight champion like the man now looking darkly across at them, as if he were about to spring up from his seat. Duvie sullenly put the pack back into his pocket.

“Let’s go,” he told her, suddenly grabbing her hand and pulling her roughly through the aisle to the next car.

“You’re hurting me!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, letting go and motioning her to two empty seats.

Reluctantly, she joined him.

“Why aren’t you interested in me?” he asked again, sliding his arm around her shoulders.

“Don’t!”

He removed it peevishly. “Such a tzadakis all of a sudden.”

She blushed, looking at him sullenly.

“So okay, I’m sorry. But, taka, are you or aren’t you interested, huh?”

“What’s with all the questions, Duvie?” She was getting more and more annoyed until she suddenly noticed his hands were trembling. “What’s wrong with you tonight?”

“Nothing … Well … I had this … thing … with my parents. They are kicking me out of the house if I don’t go back to yeshiva.”

She caught her breath. “HaShem Yishmor! So what will you do?”

He clasped his hands together between his knees and stared at the floor. “How do I know?”

“So go back to yeshiva. What would be so bad?”