At her wedding, just before the ceremony, Leah sat enthroned on a chair, flanked by her mother and her older sister as the wedding guests danced and sang all around her, waiting for the groom and his party to come in to cover her with her veil for the wedding ceremony. David danced in surrounded by the male guests, who nearly carried him as he approached his bride. Leah gazed at him as if he were a prince at a royal parade. A broad grin covered his face as he lowered her veil, and in his smile she felt a fire burning.

As she began to make the seven circuits around the groom under the wedding canopy, she noticed him watching her, his black eyes following her as she walked slowly around him for the first time. Something thick and heavy filled the narrow space between him and her. The air grew furry under the wedding canopy, its strange fibers tickling her face under her veil. She found it difficult to breathe. On the second circuit, she felt his eyes on her again, but she avoided his gaze. Every bride is nervous, she thought to herself, hearing the words as if someone else were saying them.

On the third circuit, she permitted herself to look back at him, turning her head slightly as she passed in front of him to meet his gaze. Her veil was heavy, but through it she could see his eyes rolling over her body, his jaw drooping slightly as his thick red lips pressed together to hold in his tongue. His black eyes lingered over her legs, her hips, her stomach, then came to rest on her breasts. Leah watched him staring at her breasts and felt the floor giving way beneath her feet. She stepped backward in horror, then remembered where she needed to go and stepped forward, hurrying past him to complete the circuit, holding her breath until she was behind him. At his back, she sucked in thin, desperate breaths. On the fourth circuit, Leah looked at him again. This time he was smiling, shining his smile on the rabbi before aiming it at Leah. But when the smile hit Leah, she slunk back terrified. His eyes looked in her direction, but it was as if she were a window frame: he looked straight through her, smiling at some imaginary person behind her as if she did not exist.

Leah swallowed and made herself into a bar of iron. She completed the rest of the circuits without thinking and then stood at his right. As the ceremony hurried along, she tried to listen to the wedding blessings, but her mind kept wandering back to the previous night’s dreams, of her grandmother and the knots and the ever-growing cat. When the ceremony ended, the newlyweds were escorted to a tiny room to spend the first few minutes of their married life together before the reception commenced.