Decker knew the bais midrash was the study hall which held the library of reference tomes for the yeshiva students. Most of the students congregated there for classes, lessons, and studying. In effect, Bernstein was giving him an excuse to look over the majority of the boys at the yeshiva.

Decker said, “I’m studying B’rachos. I could use some reference material.”

“Fine, I’ll take you to the bais midrash. Who am I to deny a scholar?” Bernstein glanced at Rina, then averted his eyes. “It would be better if you waited here. You might be kind of distracting—”

“I know, I know. I’ll wait here.”

Bernstein’s eyes fell on Decker’s face. “You don’t have a black hat, do you?”

“No. Do I look too goyishe?”

“More like a secular Jew, and that’s just as noticeable. You’re going to draw attention. Do you want that?”

Decker said, “It would be better if I blended in.”

Bernstein studied Decker and gave a hopeless shrug. “You won’t blend in. But maybe I can help so you won’t stand out so much. Wait here. I’ll find you a hat.”

Again, Rina checked her watch, amazed to discover that only ten minutes had passed. She now knew the secret of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Endless time had nothing to do with the speed of light or the mass of the object. It had everything to do with standing in a cold room on a bone-chilling floor with nothing to do. Ten minutes translated into ten hours in Comfortable Earth Time.

Nobody had passed through the portals. It was as if the entry was the weigh station of purgatory. Suddenly, the concept of indulgences made sense.

The solitude did give her an unwelcome chance to reflect upon Peter’s assessment of Honey Klein and her village, to think about Jewish divorce.

It wasn’t that Judaism had an innate antifemale bias. As a matter of fact, the original laws of marriage and divorce were laws of protection for both parties. While it was true that men could file for divorce for reasons as trivial as bad cooking, it was equally true that women could file for many reasons—if the man was unattractive to her, if he didn’t fulfill her sexually. Wasn’t that the case with Gershon?

The law was on Honey’s side. Gershon should have granted her a divorce. And when he didn’t, the rabbis did what was in their Jewish legal right to do.

Yet, no matter how she thought about it, Peter was right. It was still murder. She wondered how far Peter would pursue what he suspected.