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the future.
    In the beginning they never talked politics or worried about the fate of nations. When they met she was a struggling musician, trading as much on her looks as on her talent, which she had in modest abundance along with so many other young cellists. He saw her at an evening concert at one of the downtown churches. He was seated in a side gallery at the front, the musicians almost close enough to touch. The three cellists sat on low stools behind metal music stands, two middle-aged men in tuxedos and Karla in black trousers and a black turtleneck sweater with a long white silk scarf, the ends of it reaching to the small of her back. She had a wide forehead, her face divided by sharp planes, without doubt a central European, foreign born. Her hair was so blond it was nearly white and cut short with little reverse commas where it touched her shoulders. When she leaned forward to arrange her score, her hair swayed with the movement of her fingers, the whiteness of her skin and hair brilliant in the glum light of the church. She wore high-heeled back leather boots and handled her cello as if it were featherweight. Her instrument was of a richer, darker wood than those of the men. They were cracking jokes in muffled voices, leaning back casually on their stools as she bent forward; but they were looking at her provocative bottom, as purely defined as if she were nude. Sydney could not see the expression on her face but he thought she was smiling.
    And then they began to play, gathering the instruments between their thighs. Karla's right boot was planted on the floor, her left hooked on the first rung of the stool. Her legs formed a figure 4 and he thought her graceful as a dancer, disappearing into her music as a dancer disappeared into the dance. When the cellos were silent she wound her arms around the cello's neck, resting her fingers on the purfling. When she turned her head sideways, Sydney noticed no emotion in her face; and when things got off track in the fifth movement she neither frowned nor sighed, only stared at the score, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the musician on her right and the administrative yawn of the one on her left. The conductor seemed momentarily to lose his way, though he never looked at the score. The cellos came in again and she bent to her task, the fingers of her left hand throbbing when she touched the heavy strings, the sound dense as the earth.
    They were playing Brahms's grief-stricken German Requiem, the requiem in which, if you listen hard enough, you can hear the anxious souls beseeching God, struggling to enter the gates of heaven.
    The applause was prolonged and when the orchestra was asked to rise and she slipped wearily off her stool, Sydney noticed that her sweater clung to her skin and her face glistened with perspiration, even though it was damp and chilly in the church. When she moved to pick up her cello she faltered, shivering. Now it had the weight of an anvil. She looked around but her colleagues were already gone. Sydney stepped forward to hand her his coat, which she accepted with a distracted nod of thanks, and then she disappeared into the dark space behind the altar where the other musicians were. The audience began to disperse. He waited for fifteen minutes but she did not reappear. The others said she had gone home. Karla always left at once when the concert ended. No, they did not know where she lived. Her address was never to be given out.
    The next day she telephoned.
    I seem to have your coat, she said.
    How did you find me?
    A letter in the pocket. Who's Babs?
    My sister, he said.
    Hmmm, she said, and laughed.
    Well, he amended. She's someone's sister.
    She signed it ex-ex-ex oh-oh-oh. What does that mean?
    Hugs and kisses, he said.
    She laughed again. She said, You were sweet to give me your coat. I'm afraid I forgot I borrowed it. At the end of these things, I'm out of it. I'm kaput. I don't know where I am. The church was so close, like a sauna. And the