At that moment Ron Azrak got up, straightened the pleats of his khaki pants, cleared his throat, came to her side, and with a gentle smile, laid his hand on her arm.

You see, he said, gesturing to the wrinkled old man sitting by the window, we’ve found him at last.

Who? her mother asked, pulling her arm away and patting her head for her reading glasses.

You must have given up hope.

Hope? For what? she demanded, not bothering to hide her growing aggravation.

Your husband, he whispered, his eyes fluttering lightly as if to protect themselves from violence.

My husband? she nearly bellowed. What about him? To which Social Services, who must have been used to the frustration elicited by the ways and means of his agency, replied:

Here he is.

Laughter shoots from Tamar’s mouth as her mother delivers this line. Her mother had also laughed, she tells Tamar, she laughed so loudly that it must have sounded like a scream, because suddenly the husband—not the one sitting by the window, and not the one who has been dead five years, but the one from upstairs—burst through the door, cradling the baby with her red, grimacing face.

What’s going on here? he shouted, looking from the curly-haired Turk to the old man to her mother. She tried to explain, but every time she opened her mouth to speak, she collapsed back into peals of laughter. The baby spiked the air with a balled fist and let out a shriek. The husband from upstairs began to jiggle her, and when that didn’t work, he began to bounce from foot to foot, still waiting to know whether his help was needed.

It’s okay, her mother finally managed to get the words out, dabbing her eyes with a crumpled tissue from her pocket. There’s been a misunderstanding, that’s all! This man has confused me with someone else.

Hearing this, Social Services didn’t balk, only offered another of his calm and pleasant agency smiles.

I assure you we haven’t confused you with anyone.

Oh, but you have, Mr. Azrak, her mother said.

Ron, he insisted.

I’m sorry you’ve had to waste your time on me, her mother said, but my husband isn’t missing at all. I know exactly where he is: buried in Yarkon Cemetery, next to his mother.

The husband from upstairs looked wide-eyed from her mother to Social Services, who wiped his palms on his pants, snapped open the brass latches of his briefcase, and removed a thick file. Through all of this, the old man continued to sit silently under his hat, rubbing his thumb and forefinger as if in the universal symbol for money. In the short time that he had been there, her mother observed, he seemed to have shrunk just the slightest bit.