Jake cleared his throat. Nervous, she thought. Like before giving a speech. Except that when he gave his speech at the conference, he hadn’t seemed nervous at all. “Because he makes it possible to believe in a God that isn’t really God. If the whole universe is this God-substance and we’re all part of that substance, then we’re all part of God. But that’s not a meaningful conception of God, because then there isn’t any connection between God and his creations. The whole reason people want to believe in God is because they want to believe that the world isn’t indifferent to their presence.” His delivery was a little formal, but cute, Leora thought. His ears were almost perfect.

“I think it’s cheap,” he continued, “because it makes it easy to dismiss the fact that people don’t always get what they deserve. It’s almost as cheap as saying that it all just balances out in the afterlife. But just because life doesn’t work the way you want it to doesn’t mean that what happens in the world is completely random. The times when people really do interact with God are exactly those times when life doesn’t work out fairly, and that’s when people can really feel God’s presence in the world—if they’re willing to take on that kind of thing, I mean.” He cleared his throat. “That’s what I think, anyway. But this isn’t really my field, to tell you the truth. I’m a historian, not a philosopher. My specialty is dead people.”

There was a pause between them then, only slightly less awkward than the first. Leora wondered if Jake was speaking from personal experience. She decided not to ask him. Meanwhile he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He thought a moment, as if deciding whether or not to say what was on his mind. “Okay, you guessed right about me, so now I’m going to guess right about you,” he announced. “I’m going to show you something that I know you’re going to like. Come.” And then, before she could stop him, he started walking away.

She raced to catch up with him. They began wandering through what seemed like hundreds of galleries, most of them filled with paintings of Jesus, followed by an endless series of rooms filled with paintings just of fruit. Row upon row of fruit, so much fruit that she began to marvel at all the different ways one could arrange fruit in a bowl. But before she knew it, they had entered a separate gallery, and standing in front of her was a dollhouse.