Although her house badly needed painting, it wasn’t falling down. The concrete front steps and the roof had both been replaced the year I moved into my co-op. I’d never seen any other signs of work on the place and vaguely assumed she had a child somewhere who took care of the most pressing problems. Her yard apparently didn’t come under that heading. No one ever cut the rank, weed-filled grass in the summer and Mrs. Frizell didn’t seem to mind the cans and cigarette packs that people tossed over the fence.

The yard was a sore spot with the local block development committee, or whatever my upwardly mobile neighbors called themselves. They didn’t much like the dogs either. The Lab was the only purebred; the other four were mutts ranging in size from a large, off-white Benji replica to something that looked like a walking gray earmuff. The animals were nominally fenced in, except when Mrs. Frizell walked them on a tangle of leashes twice a day, but the Lab in particular came and went as he pleased. He’d jumped the four-foot fence to mount Peppy, and presumably other dogs as well, but Mrs. Frizell wouldn’t believe angry callers who told her so. “He’s been in the yard all day,” she would snap. And somehow, with that telepathy that exists between some dogs and their people, he would miraculously appear in the yard anytime she opened the door.

“Sounds like a problem for the Department of Health,” Lotty said briskly. “An old woman alone with five dogs? I can hardly bear to think about the smell.”

“Yes,” I agreed, but not wholeheartedly.

Lotty offered dessert to Michael and his companion, the Israeli composer Or’ Nivitsky. Michael, who made his home in London, was in Chicago for a few days to play a concert with the Chicago Symphony. Tonight he was giving a solo recital at the Auditorium as a benefit for Chicago Settlement, the refugee assistance group. It had been a favorite charity of Max’s wife, Theresz, before she died nine years ago; Michael was dedicating tonight’s recital to her. Or’ was playing the oboe in a concerto for oboe and cello she’d written in Theresz Loewenthal’s name.

Or’ refused dessert. “Prepremiere butterflies. And anyway, I need to change.” Michael was already superfine in tails, but Or’ had brought her concert gown with her to Lotty’s—“That way I can pretend it’s just an ordinary evening as long as possible and enjoy my dinner,” she’d explained in her clipped British English.

While Lotty bustled out to fasten the back of Or’s dress, Michael went down with his cello to fetch the car. I cleared away the dinner plates and put water on for coffee, my mind more on Mrs. Frizell than on Or’s premiere.