The kettle now let out a shrieking whistle from the kitchen. Social Services turned expectantly to the husband from upstairs, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, Me? then frantically looked around for a place to put the miserable baby. At that moment the old man by the window opened his arms wide, as if to accept the baby, and the husband, so startled by the gesture and, frankly, by the whole scene, handed her over and hurried off to deal with the screaming kettle. As soon as the old man began to bounce the baby on his knee, she became quiet, and her eyes widened in wonder. His lips began to move, and a moment later, when the kettle suddenly went silent as well, the only sound in the apartment was the first sounds that came from the Husband’s mouth, a quiet, wordless song that went: Lyla ly, lyla ly la la la ly.

And that is as far as her mother gets with her story, because now Tamar’s own buzzer rings, and she tells her mother to hold while she lifts the receiver to ask who is there, and pushes the button that allows her patient to enter the lobby. As she does, juggling between her cell-phone headset and the ancient receiver connected to the door buzzer in the office, she could swear she hears her mother say, very quietly, The chicken will be ready in twenty minutes.

What? says Tamar.

Nothing, says her mother.

She tells her mother she’ll call her back.

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