‘ … the neighborhood. Nobody asked him to move in here, did they? He knew it was a Christian neighborhood. You got to admit that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but … What I mean is this. If there was a law I’d say all right. But it’s not safe to have people deciding things like that by themselves.’

‘If more did, you wouldn’t have this problem. You’ll see, the time will come when they’ll have special neighborhoods that they won’t be allowed out of, or even special states.’

‘Oh nonsense. Where did you get that idea?’

‘Everybody on ’the Coast was talking about it for a while.’

‘They can’t do that,’ he said, dismissing the idea nervously.

She frowned now. ‘I don’t understand you, Lully. No kidding, I don’t understand you. You got some kind of ideas.’

‘The only idea I have is that I am not going to be pushed out of my house. I’ve bought this house and I’ve paid for it and nobody is going to tell me whether to live in it or not. Especially that gang of lunatics.’

‘If you’d go see Fred you wouldn’t be pushed out.’

‘I am not going to get down on my knees to Fred for the privilege of living in my house, dear. Now that’s final.’ He tried to smile away his absolute tone.

She did not understand. ‘You mean you don’t care what happens on the block, is that what you mean?’

‘Finkelstein never bothered anybody. If there was a law that said he couldn’t live here, well … all right. But …’

‘What do you mean, he don’t bother anybody? Then why is everybody against him?’

‘You know why they’re against him.’

‘Well, are you against him?’ she asked quietly.

‘Well, I … I wish he wasn’t here, yes. But he is here and I have no right to force him to move.’

‘But you asked him to move yourself.’

‘I did, yes … but … well, I mean I have no right to beat up on him.’ That, finally, was what he meant, he felt. And he clung to the idea, and reached over and grasped her arm. ‘People have a right to ask a man to move, but they’ve got no right to force him to move.’

He felt his head spinning. That wasn’t right either. What did people have a right to do to a Jew? Why was he so crippled in thinking about it? It used to be so clear to him that they simply had to be frightened out of a neighborhood where they didn’t belong. But now the picture of it clenched his stomach and he could not even utter it, for he saw the maniacal faces in the hall …

He saw she was waiting for him to explain himself. It was so dreamlike trying to grab hold of her sense of … well … kindness. She was kind, he knew. She would never want to see blood, even a Jew’s blood.