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when I got there, Bloomberg was occupying his bed, prone, on top of the blanket, hands folded behind his white neck — the lone unsuntanned member of the squad. There were two beds,two chairs, two desks, a window, a closet. His white skin was remarkable. Some dietary law perhaps. An overhead light, two wall lamps. Consume only those foods that do not tint the flesh. A desk lamp, two bureaus, a wastebasket, a pencil, six books, three shoes. Bloomberg himself. Harkness himself or itself.
    “Milwaukee is spared,” I said.

10
    H OURS LATER , after we had both missed dinner, Bloomberg rolled over on his back. He managed this without taking his hands from their position behind his neck. He used his elbows as levers and brakes, as landing gear. It seemed some kind of test — to move one’s body 180 degrees without changing the relationship among its parts. Finally he settled himself and stared into the ceiling. I was sitting on my own bed, my back against the wall. This placing of bodies may seem inconsequential. But I believed it mattered terribly where we were situated and which way we were facing. Words move the body into position. In time the position itself dictates events. As the sun went down I tried to explain this concept to Bloomberg.
    “History is guilt,” he said.
    “It’s also the placement of bodies. What men say is relevant only to the point at which language moves masses of people or a few momentous objects into significant juxta-position. After that it becomes almost mathematical. Theplacements take over. It becomes some sort of historical calculus. What you and I say this evening won’t add up to much. We’ll remember only where we sat, which way our feet pointed, at what angle our realities met. Whatever importance this evening might have is based on placements, relative positions, things like that. A million pilgrims face Mecca. Think of the power behind that fact. All turning now. And bending. And praying. History is the angle at which realities meet.”
    “History is guilt. It’s mostly guilt.”
    “What are you doing here, Anatole?”
    “I’m unjewing myself.”
    “I had a hunch. I thought to myself Anatole’s being here has some spiritual import. It must be a hard thing to do. No wonder you’re so tense.”
    “I’m not tense.”
    “You didn’t even go down to dinner tonight. You’re too tense to eat. It’s quite obvious.”
    “I’m trying to lose weight,” he said. “I’m like a bridge. I expand in hot weather. Creed wants to get me down to two seventy-five.”
    “Where are you now?”
    “An even three.”
    “Don’t you sweat it off in the grass drills or when we scrimmage?”
    “I expand in this weather.”
    “Anatole, how do you unjew yourself?”
    “You go to a place where there aren’t any Jews. After that you revise your way of speaking. You take out the urbanisms. The question marks. All that folk wisdom. The melodies in your speech. The inverted sentences. You use a completely different set of words and phrases. Thenyou transform your mind into a ruthless instrument. You teach yourself to reject certain categories of thought.”
    “Why don’t you want to be Jewish anymore?”
    “I’m tired of the guilt. That enormous nagging historical guilt.”
    “What guilt?”
    “The guilt of being innocent victims.”
    “Let’s change the subject.”
    “Also the predicate and the object,” he said.
    He did not modify his expression. He seemed sublimely sad, a man engaged in surviving persistent winters at some northernmost point of the compass. I thought that winter must be his season, as it was mine, and it did not seem strange that we had come to this place. Even now, long before the snows, there was some quality of winter here, converse seasons almost interspersed, a sense of brevity, one color, much of winter’s purity and silence, a chance for reason to prevail.
    “Anatole, do you ever think of playing pro ball?”
    “I’m not quick enough. I don’t have