“Miss Lubliver! My old friend!”

But just then the velvet curtains parted and Nisel Lipiczany leaned through. His face looked anxious, his head tilted aside. “Chaim!” he exclaimed. “They’re leaving!”

Beyond the boy’s head you could see where the last of the Council of Elders—Jacob Tort, Chairman of the Water and Power Department, and Plumb, of Finance—were filing out the open door. The sixteenth member was Anton Schneour. Those left in the room, the regular Jews, were rushing to get on their coats. The band had stopped playing. The lights were already dimmed.

Trumpelman jumped from his place and ripped the curtains closed. “Miss,” he said. “Time to go!”

But the singer did not seem to hear him. Beneath the black cap of her hair her eyes were fixed, not blinking. She spoke as if he were not in the little chamber. “This is not my home. I am from the seacoast, near the beach, the waves. In our village the boats left at night, with yellow lanterns on the bows. The little boats. The little lights.”

Bai nakht verft der alter fisher, hoopla!
Zem netz ber de glanzende fish—

At night the old fisherman, hoopla!
Throws his net over the gleaming fish—

She broke off her song. There were real tears in her eyes and—because of the night, the rocking boat, the salty, moonlit waters—in his as well.

“Such a beautiful voice.”

Her head twitched once more. “In the morning the boats threw the catch onto the sand, onto the shore. How they flipped and flopped! Curling! Covered with sand! How frightened the little girl was to see them struggling. Breathing! Breathing! She was frightened of the net!”

Trumpelman dropped to his knees before her. “No one will harm you! I swear this! It is I who will protect you, the Chairman of Public Health!”

She stretched her arm. She touched him, as if he were a knight, on the shoulder.

Automatically almost, his hand opened on the little flower. It was as fresh, as red, as young-looking as the one he had sent her two decades before.

“You remember?” he said to the lady above him.

She nodded.

He leaned forward, pushing the stem of the flower into the crack in the gown. The rosebud’s perfume filled the room. He shut his eyes. For a dizzy moment, for many moments, he felt like the newcomer again, the Lithuanian just off the train. She had thrown him a kiss then, across the room. Yes! He would kiss her now!

There was a rustle, like wind blowing, and he opened his eyes. The singer was gone.

Trumpelman dashed from the booth. “Miss Lubliver!” he cried. “Where is she?”

Rievesaltes spoke up from his table. “Don’t worry. Mister Turski is taking her home.”

“The Council! What about the Council?” The physician was shouting. “I have a place on the Judenrat!”

Verble, just a ragpicker, a beggar, mumbled a reply. “The Judenrat left a long time ago.”

Trumpelman looked around the Astoria Café. Chairs were on the tables. The windows were shuttered. Most lights were out. Yet the waiters remained there, with their dark suits, their white towels, and not one of the musicians had budged. Lipiczany turned from a crack in the shutter and, wide-eyed, gasping, stared at Trumpelman, through Trumpelman.