She put water up to boil, measured powdered coffee into a cup while he watched. Round one to him, she thought. I’m cooking for him. . . .

They didn’t talk until the coffee and a plate of cookies were in front of him. Then he said, “It’s a long trip to Riverdale.”

She couldn’t tell him about Garfield. He’d find out who that was and they’d guess why she needed a rabbi. They’d hide the thing if it existed, and she’d have to find it before she could kill it. If it existed. Lie, she thought.

“I went to see Rose Pinchik.”

“Who?”

“Rose Pinchik. Eli Pinchik’s wife . . . from Sterling Street. They moved to Riverdale when Adam died.”

“You were so close?”

Rachel shrugged. “We were friends. She’s never even seen Leah.”

He opened the book. “The name here is R. Saltzman. Little R. Saltzman.” His eyes were wide and blank. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

She didn’t look at the book. “I thought it was going to Tel Aviv,” she said.

“I found it at the shul and read the chapter about Rabbi Loew. Of Prague, of the great Altneushul . . . Did you read it?”

Rachel didn’t answer.

“By far the most interesting of the stories . . . I never believed in the Dybbuk . . . Gilgul . . . Samael . . . any of that. . . did you?”

Still no answer.

“But the Rabbi Loew’s golem is something else.” He held the book, resting its edge on the table, and opened it facing her and turned the pages until they opened to the picture of the ghetto street. There was the rabbi’s house with leaded windows and the rabbi standing on the cobbled street in his black robe and the shadow that was so big the wall could only contain half of it. Luria held the book and said, “You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?”

He laughed softly and her skin prickled.

“You want to pretend,” he said, “we’ll pretend.”

He kept the book upright and went on turning the pages. The pictures flashed past her: the ruined Seder table, dead bodies on cobbled streets, the shadow again. She turned her back and emptied his cup and rinsed it. She added more coffee powder, heard the pages stop rustling, and looked around. An androgynous-­looking being filled the page he’d turned to. It had no beard, and the nubs of breasts showed chastely over the body of a huge snake that was coiled around it. It had wild black hair and flat almond-­shaped eyes, its arms were round and heavy, and Rachel knew if she could lift the snake away she’d see a fat slashed-­looking vulva. The painting was two-­dimensional and looked like it was copied from the wall of some Bronze Age tomb.

She stared at it, fascinated.

“Do you remember her from Shabbes school, R. Saltzman?”

“No.”

“Ah. Meet Lilith. Demon of demons.”