Her parents had let lapse their membership at the synagogue soon after Noa’s bat mitzvah, at which she sang tunelessly of Jacob’s dream to a roomful of dry eyes. So a rabbi had to be rustled up who could undo the Orthodox wedding they’d had at the insistence of her mother’s Viennese parents a quarter century before. His hole-in-the-wall synagogue had once been beautiful, but over the years had fallen into disrepair. The roof had problems, said the young rabbi who let them in, when he saw Monica peering up at the peeling plaster and the stained-glass skylight covered with plastic sheeting. His sparse blond beard barely covered his cheeks; he couldn’t have been much older than twenty and did not seem experienced enough to unravel her parents’ long and complicated marriage. Rabbi Shemkin was on the way, the young rabbi explained, he was only the assistant. This last statement he directed at Noa, as if sensing her distrust.

The four of them sat in a row on a hard bench in the sanctuary while the young rabbi arranged a table and chairs. A back door stood open to a room where children’s toys and books were strewn across the floor. They didn’t believe in tidying up, these people, Leonard said. Order would be found only in the world to come. He absently tapped his foot while Monica commented on the stained glass. He was wearing nice shoes, and he hated nice shoes, preferred to stride through life in his rough hiking boots dusted with the Iron Age. The nice shoes that stiffly held his feet were a nod to a disagreement between her parents that had grown like a stalactite over the years, fed by a distant, mysterious source until it had come to hang like a dagger over their heads.

At last Rabbi Shemkin arrived in his black suit, followed by a fat, slovenly scribe wearing a tallis draped over his white shirt and clutching a ragged portfolio under one arm. Behind him trailed a tall and skinny rabbi with a biblical beard, who would serve as a witness.

“Good!” Rabbi Shemkin exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Everyone is here.”

Leonard moved to take a seat next to Monica at the table, but Rabbi Shemkin clucked his tongue and motioned to the place opposite Noa’s mother. Clearing his throat, Leonard strode to the other side of the table. Noa stood with Rachel until the young rabbi hurried forward and ushered them into the front pew.

“Jesus,” Rachel muttered under her breath when her flip-flop snagged on the leg of a chair.

Photocopies were passed out with a script for Leonard and Monica to read. Jews had been performing this procedure for two thousand years! the rabbi announced with a smile. Two thousand years of acrimony! Noa added mentally. The scribe opened his portfolio and removed a large feather. With a retractable blade he began to sharpen the nib, the keratin scrapings falling into the folds of his shirt. When Leonard announced that he had a few questions, the scribe plucked a whole handful of feathers out of the portfolio and set to work on these. What kind of feathers were they? Monica asked politely. Turkey, the scribe reported. The tall, lanky witness purred appreciatively, and concurred that turkey was the strongest. The scribe took out a piece of paper and a board strung with gut. Whose gut? Noa wanted to ask. When he pressed the paper over the board and rubbed it with his hand, the page was creased with straight lines. These were used to guide his careful writing of the Hebrew letters that would undo what their parents had decided, without consulting them, that they no longer wanted done. While the scribe wrote, her mother made conversation. She would feel the need to make conversation at a beheading, too. Did she hear him say that his father had been a scribe before him?