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Broadway?”
    â€œOf course, I pass it all the time. The one with novels and history mainly. Rosens?”
    â€œYes, Rosens.”
    â€œWhat about it.”
    â€œWell ... well ... do you know Mr. Rosen?”
    â€œI don’t know him, but I assumed it was a Mr. Rosen who owns the store. After all, it is called Rosen’s Bookstore.”
    â€œIt is called, ‘Rosen, dash, Books,’ as in Russia.” bo on.
    â€œGod it’s so cold. It’s so cold now.”
    â€œGo on, Biferman.”
    â€œRosen had a daughter. Her name was Katrina, or Katrin’. Katrina Rosen. She was born in Russia. They didn’t come until after the war. Rosen lost his wife in a camp. He is a broken man. He is my friend. I forgot to say that. He
is
my friend. I was in high school and I used to go when school let out and buy a book at Rosen’s. I read a book every night. Of course I took from the library, but I would buy a book each week from Rosen and it usually took me about two or three hours in the store to decide which to buy. Rosens daughter, Katrina, worked in the store. She sat on a high stool behind a desk and catalogued books on white cards she put in a file. I was eighteen.
    â€œShe was seventeen. And she was a most beautiful, delicate girl. She had red hair which fell to her waist, and the finest white skin, and such beautiful eyes. She was always so delicate, and when I came into the store she turned very red and stared excessively at her cards, making deft meaningless motions with her pen. I pursed my lips when I looked at a book, acting serious and scholarly. I don’t know how I did it for two or three hours at a stretch. Half the time I was interested in the book, the other half was just a game since I thought only of her.
    â€œFor three or four months, all during the fall of my senior year, I did not say a word to her, not a word. If I wanted a book I couldn’t reach or had to make an inquiry I asked Rosen himself and he would drag out his ladder or go to the card file, and it would be done. I thought about her all the time. I knew her name because I heard him call her Katrina. ‘Katrina,’ he would say, ‘have you written up the Poliakov book yet?’ or ‘Katrin’, my dear, did Barons Social and Religious come in yet?’ and she always turned very red because she knew I was listening and answered, ‘Yes Father, yes my dear father.’
    â€œI walked in the park each Saturday, dressed as nicely as I could manage, for miles, hoping I would meet her in the afternoon. I never did. Everywhere I went I thought I would come across her but I never saw her outside the store.
    â€œOne day I went into Rosen’s, and old Rosen had a cold. He was not there. She ran the store. A carton of Hebrew books had just come in. You know how the old people still buy Hebrew books, and Yiddish. Well Rosen usually handled the Hebrew books, but he was sick, so she had to do it and her Hebrew was atrocious—charming, but atrocious. I began my little game of leafing, trying for the courage to speak to her, until I noticed she was looking all the time in a dictionary. I walked very quietly to the desk, and in the yellow light saw all the books, and a few badly written Hebrew index cards.
    â€œ ‘Tov is with a tet’ I said, and she looked up at me, her face shining in the light.
    â€œ ‘Do you know Hebrew well?’ she said.
    â€œâ€˜Oh yes,’ I said, Very well.’
    â€œ ‘I didn’t think you were Jewish,’ she said.
    â€œâ€˜I am,’ I said.
    â€œ ‘Will you help me?’ she said.
    â€œâ€˜Yes,’ I said.
    â€œâ€˜What is this then?’ She pointed to an underlined passage.
    â€œâ€˜Shir HaShirim,’ I said, ‘The Song of Songs.’
    â€œâ€˜Oh yes, I see it now.’
    â€œ ‘Can you read it?’ I asked.
    â€œâ€˜Not really.’
    â€œâ€˜Try this