Pinchik said, “He’s a good man. Very good. But you can’t forget, Roger, he was in the camp.”

“How does that change things?”

Pinchik thought. He drank some more and poured some for Hawkins. He picked at the remains of the kugel, deep in thought. Then he said slowly, “Roger, did anyone ever call you a nigger?”

“Of course.”

“How’d you feel?”

“Like killing.”

“No. That’s how you felt about the guy who said it. How’d you feel in yourself.”

After a moment, Hawkins said, “Like a nigger.”

Pinchik nodded as if he had expected that answer. “The power of the name, right?” He pulled the biggest of the books to him and found the page he was looking for.

“This much I remember from Cabala.” He read from the book: “The power of the name is almost limitless. Spirits guarded their names and when Jacob asked the angel he’d wrestled for his name, the angel kept it secret for fear that the name would give Jacob power over the angel. In other words, Rog, when the man calls you a nigger, he makes you a nigger for an instant. The name has power. So much, that for that same instant, you are what he called you, even to yourself. Now imagine what names the Jews in Europe were called. Kikes, yids, whatever. But worse, Roger, much worse, they were called animals, bestial, inferior, vile. And not just called, but locked up, starved, beaten, killed . . .” He closed the book. “Remember the instant when Mr. Whoever calls you nigger; stretch it out from 1939 to 1945; add prison to it, and slaughter. Not execution, Roger, slaughter, like we slaughter animals, so it is quick, neat, cheap, and won’t damage what we want of the animal. In this case, the gold teeth, hair, odd jewels. Imagine it. . . .

“We have this bubbemysah**** that suffering ennobles. It doesn’t. It coarsens, brutalizes. Ask a doctor who treats patients in pain. . . .”

Hawkins was quiet, and Pinchik said with inexpressible sadness, “I think Jacob Levy was a good man for a long time. But if you are a nigger in your own mind, even for a second, because of a name, what do you suppose Jacob is in his?”

Hawkins drove downtown. He meant to go home, or to Brooklyn to Alma for comfort. He didn’t have to decide which until he got to Fifty-­ninth Street. The westside drive was backed up and he knew the Cross Bronx would be, too, but Riverside was good into the Eighties. Then it blocked up, too, and he cut over to Broadway. At Eighty-­seventh he missed the light and he jiggled in his seat, trying not to think of anything. He looked out of the window and saw a jewelry store on the corner. The window was lit up and he saw gold Mogen Davids on chains and mazuzahs like Peg wore around her neck.