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had reached out and taken Adam's hand. Adam had drawn away hastily.
    "What do you think, Adam?" Razz had asked. "Think I'm making a pass at you? Relax. I'll read your palm."
    De Kuff sat tensely and let the divination proceed.
    "Did you go to church yesterday?" Raziel asked when he had seen the man's hand. De Kuff raised his free hand to his forehead. It was as though he had forgotten, at first, to be surprised at Melker's question.
    "I went to
a
church. Not
to church.
No longer."
    "They do put on a show," Melker said. Still studying De Kuff's hand, he added, "You must be so lonely."
    The older man had turned bright red and begun to perspire. "Is that there too? Well, I've learned solitude," he said. "Though neither solitude nor fellowship suits me." The muezzin's second call came from across the valley. De Kuff closed his sad elephant's eyes. "I envy them their prayers. Yes, the Arabs. Are you shocked? I envy anyone who can pray."
    "I know why you can't pray," Melker said. "I can imagine what happens when you do."
    "But how?"
    "Have you told Obermann?"
    "Yes. I've tried."
    "Obie's good, you know? But I don't think he's ready for you."
    "But surely," De Kuff said, smiling, "I'm just another unhappy individual." He seemed suddenly in the grip of an elegant gaiety. Then, seeing Raziel's face, his smile faded.
    "How'd you like being a Christian?" Raziel asked.
    "I don't know," De Kuff said. He looked stricken with shame. "I felt I had to do it."
    "I also," Razz said. "I was a Jew for Jesus." He turned in his chair and took hold of his knee and stretched it. "Hey, I'm still for Jesus. You gotta love the guy."
    De Kuff stared at him in confusion.
    "I believe I know the roots of your soul," Raziel told him. "Do you believe me?" The older man looked into his eyes. Now I have you, Raziel thought. "Think because I met you at the shrink's I might be crazy?" Raziel asked.
    "It does occur to me."
    "You went and had yourself baptized," Raziel informed him. "You were a Catholic. Your mother is part Gentile."
    "I'm afraid I'm very tired," Adam De Kuff said. "I'll say good night."
    "Would you like to sleep?" Raziel asked him.
    De Kuff looked at him in trepidation. Raziel got up and stood behind his chair. He put his hands on the heavy man's neck and twisted. For a moment Adam seemed to lose consciousness. Then he stiffened in the chair and tried to stand.
    Raziel held him down gently but firmly at the shoulders.
    "Learned it from a kundalini
yogin.
Never fails. Kundalini
yogins
don't sleep much, but when they do, they're very good at it. Have a bath and you'll sleep until dinner."
    "I do have trouble with sleep," De Kuff said, getting awkwardly to his feet.
    "Of course." Raziel patted his new friend's round shoulders. "Someone woke you. Who knows when?"

4
    M ISTER STANLEY'S was behind the Hotel Best, on the second floor of a concrete building with tinny metal facings and opaque glass windows that presented an art deco curve to the street. It was very late when she finally arrived, a little after three on a weekday morning. The cab driver who brought her from the bus station told her he was from Bukhara. He spoke good English and wanted to know about Los Angeles. L.A. was not a place well known to Sonia. He shook off her questions about Bukhara and the Jewish drummers native to it.
    The street on which Mister Stanley's stood was two blocks long. It was the second street from the beach, lined with the back doors and service entrances of oceanfront hotels and postcard shops and snack bars, all shuttered and dark.
    A mist of small rain dampened the empty, littered street, and getting out of the cab, Sonia shivered in its unfamiliar salt chill. She had become a Jerusalemite, accustomed to the dry hills. For the trip to Tel Aviv she was wearing her bohemian Smithie getup: a denim skirt, sandals, a black top with her turquoise necklace, an expensive black leather jacket. Crossing the street, she heard laughter from the shadows, low laughter of