“And you? When are you getting married?”

The sky was darkening outside the window.

“Next year, im yirtzeh HaShem.”

They went on talking. He asked her about Leonard’s work in Israel, and she told him about Tel Megiddo, formed by the remains of twenty-five civilizations that rose and fell, destroyed by earthquake or fire, until the next was rebuilt atop the ruins. How for twenty years Leonard had been uncovering these layers of destruction, destroying them in turn in order to discover the truths about the people who lived and died there. How? Avi asked, fascinated, and she described the slow and methodical work, the baskets of shards collected and sorted each day, the carbon-14 used to determine when a living thing, a seed or grain left in a cup, had ceased to live. As she spoke, she sensed in him the familiar shiver of wonder and fear she’d sometimes been struck with as a child, looking around her from the vantage of a distant future, and wondering what would be left to piece back together the rituals of vanished belief, vanished hopes and hungers, to solve the mystery of why she and all those near to her had passed out of existence.

He waited for her to say more, but she had run out of the words for things. Finally she put her fingers on the edge of the envelope that contained the judgment of divorce, then slid it across the table. Far away, her parents were getting on with their lives. Avi took it and held it for a moment in his delicate hands, then put it on the counter where the rabbi would find it. Noa stood up as if to go, but even as she stood she knew, from the depths of her body, that she wasn’t going. She remained standing, swaying on her feet. Avi watched her, full of amazement. At last she stepped toward him, and it seemed that her fingers were reaching for a very long time until at last they touched the blond hairs of his cheek. He closed his eyes, his lips moving. Gently, she covered them with her own, as if to still them, but instead she took into herself whatever they were saying in that ancient language, and felt the desire grow live in her groin. His eyes were open now, and moving her mouth away, she unbuttoned her shirt. It wasn’t much, but she felt it was a gift all the same, and took his trembling fingers and put them on her breast. His thumb moved over her nipple, and she held her breath and shivered. She undid her shorts and let them fall to the floor, and was about to step out of her underwear when he turned to the window in fear, as if someone outside might see into the wonders of what was happening within. As if the fires were nearly upon them, burning closer and closer, as uncontainable as all fires that sweep away the old order to make way for the next. He clutched her hand in his sweaty hand, and led her through the dark living room to his small bedroom at the back of the house. And there, in the narrow twin bed, she gave to him what she wanted to give, and took from him what she needed, and when the splitting pain shot through her, she bit into his shoulder to stifle her cry, and had no words for the blessing.