I glanced at my bed, at the sheet I had dampened with the sweat of my night terror, at the thin blanket I had twisted around me. I needed sleep badly, but I feared the nightmare would return. There was only one way to keep it at bay, but it wasn't possible tonight.

And I needed my sleep.

With a sigh, I closed the window, got into bed, and pulled the thin blanket over me.

I shut my eyes and waited for the nightmare to reappear.

"Adam Lapid?"

I looked up from my chessboard at the woman who had said my name.

She was a small woman. Five foot two and thinner than she had any business being. Lackluster blond hair pulled back from a high forehead. A faded yellow dress that had been made with a fuller woman in mind. She held her bag in front of her pelvis, worrying the handle with both hands. I recalled that my mother used to hold her bag like that sometimes.

It was half past four and I was seated at my regular table in Greta's Café. Greta's was a homey café located near the center of Allenby Street, on the block between Brenner and Balfour Streets. Bar and kitchen on the left. A dozen small round tables scattered about the rest of the square space. Above, a lazy ceiling fan rattled with each slow revolution, but did little to dispel the heat. Some of Greta's other customers groused about the rattling, but I hardly noticed it anymore. I frequented Greta's nearly every day. It was more than a place to eat and drink. It was a second home to me.

"Yes," I said and gestured to the chair on the other side of my table. The thin woman lowered herself onto it, setting her bag in her lap. "And you are?"

"My name is Henrietta Ackerland," she said in the tentative Hebrew common to those speaking a new language. She had a pronounced German accent, and for a moment I was about to suggest we conduct our conversation in that misbegotten language. The impulse died fast. Her accent was grating enough as it was.

"Want some coffee?" I asked. "Greta makes the best coffee in Tel Aviv."

Henrietta began shaking her head, but changed her mind when I told her I was buying. Greta had been watching us from her post behind the bar. I raised two fingers in her direction.

While we waited for the coffee, I examined Henrietta Ackerland more closely. She had been beautiful once, but time and circumstances had changed that. Dark bags bulged beneath her washed-out blue eyes. Her lips were thin and colorless. Deep lines ran across her forehead and shallow ones webbed at the corners of her eyes. The lines of someone who did more frowning than smiling.