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morning.
    David didn’t call for two weeks. Ilana thought she’d lost him, deservedly. To avoid thinking about what had happened she brooded over the consequences: the very real possibility that she had damaged herself professionally. By involving David in a public scene which might easily have become a scandal, she had violated the strictest canons of her trade. The men she went with were serious men, solid, wealthy businessmen, not playboys who thrived on scandal. If David was harmed and word got about Ilana could find herself facing a career crisis.
    David’s belated but loving call, which should have relieved Ilana’s anxiety, only exacerbated it by eliminating the cause without eliminating the effects. She knew her body as well as any athlete could, and knew now that it wasn’t right. Moreover, the symptoms gave cause to suspect that this particular not-rightness was of a female order.
    She waited a few more days, then called her doctor.
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    Chapter Three
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    â€œI am shocked,” said Caspi. “I am appalled. I always believed that for all your manifold faults you retained a modicum of style, if not decency. Suddenly I see that I am married to a stranger.”
    â€œThen you are beginning to see the light.”  
    â€œBut no, what am I saying? No stranger would behave as you did. No stranger would deliberately set out to embarrass me in public, making a fool of herself in the process. I don’t know how you’re going to face the world after this, Vered. Everybody’s laughing at you.”
    â€œAt me?” she asked. “Do you think so?”  
    â€œYou bitch.”
    They sat at the kitchen counter, at right angles to one another. Caspi was dressed to go out; Vered wore a kimono over pajamas. They had an oblique way of talking, avoiding names and direct glances. Caspi harangued; Vered analyzed. “Anyway”—she shrugged— “you’re exaggerating, as usual. You talk as if I’d stripped naked and strolled down Dizengoff, instead of just sitting for an hour in Nevo.”
    â€œOn a Friday afternoon, when you knew damn well I’d be there with Dory. That’s exactly what you did: stripped naked for all the world to sneer.”
    â€œThen it’s strange that of the two of us, you’re the one who feels humiliated.”
    Caspi jumped up and threw his cup into the sink. It shattered. At the door he turned back. “If you think you will goad me into giving you a divorce, you’re out of your mind. It will never happen.” He pulled open the door and stumbled into Jemima. “Damn you, woman, have you been listening at keyholes?”
    â€œNo need for that, Caspi. I could hear you down the block. Good morning, Vered.”
    â€œGood morning, Mother.”
    â€œIf I’d known you were coming, Jemima, I’d have left an hour ago. As long as you’re here, you might as well give your daughter a few lessons in decorum. She’s just made a laughingstock of herself.”
    â€œHow very trying for you, model of decorum that you are.”
    â€œGive little what’s-her-name my best regards,” Vered called. Caspi slammed the door behind him.
    â€œCoffee, Mother?” Vered said.
    â€œThank you.” Jemima took Caspi’s place at the counter, crossing one elegant leg over the other. She wore a crisply tailored pearl-gray linen suit of her own design; her blond hair was gathered in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. While Vered silently cleaned up broken glass, Jemima cast a bleak eye about the room, pausing on the back of Vered’s kimono and the proud set of the neck rising above it.
    â€œWhere’s Daniel?” she asked.
    â€œPlaying at a friend’s.” Vered prepared the percolator, set out the cups.
    â€œI seem to have come at an inconvenient moment.”
    â€œIt makes no difference.”
    â€œAre you wise to antagonize him?”
    â€œNo. But