Hawkins stood up and backed away from Luria. He was dazed; the beloved little shop was suddenly stifling and he went up the steps to the street to get air. Levy called his name, but he kept going. He crossed Nostrand and headed down Sterling, to the end of the street where they’d demolished Ebbets Field to put up a huge apartment complex. He went right into the construction site, which looked like it had been bombed, and he sat down in the dust at the foot of a bare girder. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there before he heard something moving in the rubble. He thought it was a cat, or a rat, and he started to get up when Jacob Levy came out of the shadows and stood over him. From this angle, Jacob looked enormous and the reflection of the moonlight coming off the stone and concrete all around them sunk his eyes into holes and threw the lines and ridges of his skull into relief.

He looked down at Hawkins sitting in the rubble and said, “I need you more than you need me. . . . You’re my hope for knowing and understanding what is now, whether I like it or not, my world. And I do like it. It’s a better world. I wouldn’t go back if I could, not in miles or time. You . . . you keep me here, in my mind as well as the ground I stand on. You with your brightness, your life . . . your newness. The others aren’t here, but they aren’t there either, poor souls. But with your help my son and I will find a home here. Besides,” he said shyly, “I . . . care for you.”

Then he sat down in the stone dust next to Hawkins and opened the bottle of slivovitz he had brought from the shop. He took a deep swallow, and gave the bottle to Hawkins.

“You think you’re jealous of Adam,” Levy said, “but you won’t be. He’s part of me, so you’ll love him. You can be his father, too, and his brother.”

Levy took the bottle back and looked around the site. “Looks like there’s been a war here,” he’d said.

2

Chapter 2

They raised the cover and Levy looked at Adam’s face. The gashes on the side of it were wide and rubbery, slightly green, and Levy gagged, turned away, and almost fell, but Hawkins caught him and held him up.

“It’s my son,” Levy croaked. “It’s my Adam.” He held on to Hawkins with one hand, and grabbed the collar of his shirt with the other. “I need a knife.”

“No, Jake . . .”

“I need a knife.”

Pescado came over to them. “It’s for keriah,” he told Hawkins. “It’s a ritual.”

“So get him a knife,” Hawkins snapped.

All they had was a scalpel.

“Take it,” Levy said. Hawkins did. “Now cut my shirt, here.”