Garfield watched them. They were supposed to be passionate, angry, but they didn’t look it, and his heart sank. Hawkins looked determined, and Rachel looked distant, but very pretty, for some reason. Excited, as if she were on her way to a dance. He wanted to shake her and tell her that if this didn’t work, there’d be no dancing, or anything, for any of them. He didn’t know how he looked, but he felt seasick and he hoped it didn’t show.

The box was in a corner away from the window and he pointed to the post diagonally across the room from it.

“That post will be spirit,” he said, blushing at how ridiculous it sounded. “Look at it, try to feel it.”

Spirit, Rachel thought.

“Really try,” Garfield whispered, and she did. But all she saw was a post painted brown. She tried to think of Ain Soph Aur; she even said the words to herself, but it didn’t help, because she didn’t know how to conceive of nothing-­limitlessness-­light and after a moment she gave up. The post would have to stay a post, and Ain Soph Aur an ungraspable idea. She knew she should have been frightened, but she wasn’t. Garfield was, and maybe Hawkins, too. He was standing very straight and his dark skin was starting to shine with sweat.

They made the star shape and Rachel came to the center of the room and made the first circle in front of the curtain. She said the name of the angel she was supposed to be—Michael—and suddenly remembered an afternoon at Habonim where she’d met a student with a thick beard that covered his chin, cheeks, and part of his neck. He’d asked her to have coffee with him and he sat across from her eating potato chips out of a bowl in the middle of the table and looking at her breasts. He was a mystic, he said, and he was studying Cabala. She could almost hear his voice telling her how Judaism was full of mysticism and even had an angelology. Oh, yes, there were angels in Judaism. Metatron and Michael, for instance. She started the second circle. Everything was quiet. If Mr. Walinsky was still yelling and Glenn Miller still playing upstairs, the celotex ceiling soaked up the sound. She finished the second circle and said, “ICHAEL,” and could hear the student saying, They aren’t just names. The angels have personalities and qualities. She finished the third circle and said, “CHAEL.” It came out with a rhythm, like a chant.

Michael wore a robe of fire, the student had said. He was trying to look down her blouse, and she leaned forward so he could. And he carries a spear.

Rachel was already through the fifth circle. “AEL,” she chanted.