Suddenly all of Rachel’s concerns and decisions— should she marry Adam, get a Ph.D., teach or write, or get a job—were petty. Something heavy turned in her stomach that wasn’t the food she’d eaten, and she felt awe for this man and a terrible shame that she hadn’t shared his fate. Everyone at the table felt the way she did. They were silent . . . ashamed of how little suffering they’d done, and overwhelmed with respect for the man who’d done so much. He looked at each of them, then started to laugh. He poured wine for everyone, added seltzer, then leaned across the table and kissed Rachel’s father on both cheeks. Rachel’s father blushed purple and Levy went on laughing, his dark eyes reflecting the lights in the restaurant and the lights out in the street that came through the window until his eyes and face looked full of light.

“You all look so grim,” he cried, “you’d think I’d perished in the ovens after all. I didn’t,” he cried exultantly, “I’m here.” He raised his glass. “To being here,” he said. They all drank.

Sussman and Allan waited in the living room while Rachel made coffee. She brought in a well-­filled tray and put it on the coffee table. She poured for them and handed them plates of cookies and dried figs. Sussman ate while he talked, crumbs stuck in his mustache, and fig seed was trapped in the corner of his mouth.

“I’m not an alarmist,” he said, “but you people have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in your homes.”

“We paid eighty,” Rachel said, and Allan listened.

Rachel poured more coffee.

“Eighty, ninety, two hundred thousand,” the fat man said. “It isn’t the amount that matters, but the fact that the money represents your life savings . . . unless, of course, you’re rich.”

Rachel said quietly, “Get to the point, Mr. Sussman.”

Sussman put his plate back on the tray and looked hard at them.

“The Rosses who live half a block from here have just—against our advice—against, I may say, our pleas . . . sold their house to a black family.”

He paused again and in the silence Rachel laughed. Sussman stared at her; so did Allan. She felt her face get red and that old terrible anger crept up her neck like a flush.

“Are you signing people up for fire-­bombing?” she asked.

“This isn’t about race,” Sussman said, “it’s about property values. . . .”

Throw him out, Allan, she prayed. Throw this fat mother­fucker out of my house.