Hawkins passed the dining room where Dworkin’s daughter, Golda Cohen, guarded his plate; Rachel wasn’t there. He went to the bathroom. The place was so hot even the tiles were warm. He looked at himself in the mirror. What battle did he lose and Luria win? What was so hard for Levy to face then and now?

He opened the door and went out into the hall. Mrs. Rosenblatt was waiting. She patted him. “Good to see you, Roger. It’s been too long . . . call.” She went into the bathroom and he opened the door to Adam’s room and went inside.

The horses looked down; young, beautiful Levy smiled at him from the bedside table over a big wedding chalah. He went to the aquarium; the fish sensed his presence and came to the top waiting to be fed. “Your master’s dead,” he told them. They hung there for a time, angels, and gueramis, the sweet black mollies with the bug eyes that never fought or bit other fish.

“Dead,” he told them. Tears filled his eyes. Adam, he thought. Adam, my friend. I can’t imagine what it will be like without you on this earth, without being able to think of you living somewhere. To call or see . . .

The fish had waited long enough, and they swam away.

He found Rachel in the big bedroom that had been Levy’s; she sat on the bed crying and holding the edge of her skirt in a wad in her hand. The dress was black with long sleeves and a high neck, and a scarf covered her hair.

“I can’t get up,” she said. Her face was pale, shining with sweat and tears. The scarf pulled at the sides of her face, making her eyes slant.

“Help me,” she said, rocking from side to side, still trying to get up on her own.

Her scarf was damp, and he wanted to take it off and dry her hair for her. He wanted to loosen the neck of the dress and help her take off her shoes and stockings. He suddenly thought of a French movie he’d seen with Mo when they were young. Jeanne Moreau was in it, and everyone said it was hot stuff because this guy went down on her on camera. He and Mo tried to get dates, and couldn’t, but they went anyway. He could see the actress’s mouth right now, fat, bitten-­looking in the front. He could see her lying back on the bed, naked except for a string of pearls around her neck. He could see her in a white nightgown, walking through a field of tall grass with gauzy movie light shining on a lake in the distance. The graceful reeds bent as she moved, and her voice was soft and exquisite as she said in French, with the English printed in white on the gray screen, Love can happen in an instant.