The disciple unfortunately was possessed of a limited understanding of what he had witnessed. In recounting all of this to me, my brother speculated that the boy likely had base designs on the girl, and for this reason alone, to protect the maiden, a few of his stronger followers were dispatched to teach him a lesson. Even so, within twenty-four hours, false and sensational accusations involving my brother leaked out, appearing in the press and all the media, and a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Israeli police. For his own safety and protection, his supporters had no choice but to spirit him immediately out of the country. The whole thing was completely ridiculous, Shmelke told me, reverting to the Brooklynese of our childhood, to our conversations in the womb. By that point, because of his regimen of fasting and the various forms of ascetic practice that he had taken upon himself to hasten the redemption, not to mention the obvious desiccation of his lower half as a result of his injury and his confinement to a wheelchair, his whole sex drive was a nonstarter; he would not have been able to get it up if you paid him, he confided to me. I was after all his twin sister, we had been naked together for forty weeks in the womb, we had played naked in the mud as children, his baitzim had shriveled to the size of two raisins, he confided to me. Nevertheless, and despite his disability, he was branded an abuser and offender, and forced to hit the road and take up again the extremely onerous tikkun of pursuit, but now he was pursued not only as a holy man by his disciples who chased him exuberantly into exile wherever he might lead them, but also by the authorities, who pursued him relentlessly like a common criminal.

For seven years, as his hair and beard turned a brilliant patriarchal white, my twin, Shmelke, was on the lam. In general the family had no idea of his whereabouts—and I least of all since I had so radically severed the ties not only because of my marriage to Geeta, a gentile, but especially after word reached them of the manner in which our mother’s remains had been processed. I was cut off without hope of access, any reference to me inevitably followed by a sputtering execration as if I were already dead, May her name and memory be blotted out forever and ever, pooh pooh pooh. Nor did Shmelke contact me privately, through alternative underground channels, falling back instead on our extraordinary soul connection from prebirth, trusting that I would know, simply know, trusting that I would be his ally and never betray him. Except for a single extremely critical occasion that forced him to solicit my collusion, he never overtly thought of me, never reached out until finally he arrived in the lap of Mother India and found a haven there at last. During the greater portion of his years as a fugitive, I, like everyone else in our family and the public at large, was not briefed as to where he was in the world. Only when some mention of him and his merry band hit the news were we able to get a precious clue as to his location and stick a voodoo pin into the map, usually when he and his loyalists were kicked out of a place where they had found some temporary sanctuary, or when the Israeli government from which nothing is hidden, every hollow and cavity, blocked or ruptured, all of it exposed and revealed before its seat of glory—only when all-knowing Israel was inspired for some reason to insist yet again on extradition from the country in which he had taken refuge could we pick up his trail and follow it in the media as the case was fought in the courts by his armies of lawyers bankrolled by the exclusive secret society of his supporters and benefactors, independent thinkers one and all, including, thanks to me, the very influential and very rich Charlotte Harlow.