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4

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    Standing on the center of the stage, in front of the orchestra, Gil Shaham moved the bow across the strings of his violin with confidence and intensity. The glorious music of Bach's Violin Concerto in A Minor that emerged testified to the young man's genius. No other sound was heard in the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv other than Gil's playing until the Israeli Philharmonic picked up and joined him, meshing perfectly. In the sold-out, richly wood-paneled auditorium, everyone in the audience sat spellbound, entranced by the music. Well, almost everyone.
    In row K of the center section, Jack Cole wasn't hearing a sound. Unable to shake off Sam's visit, his mind had taken him thousands of miles and years away to the north side of Chicago, to a block of simple middle-class homes, the Coles on the corner, and the Goodmans, Sarah's family, next door. To his hardworking father, Joe, who covered the metro beat, which usually meant crime and corruption stories for the Trib. To his mother, Miriam, raised in a Zionist family, who never tired of working for Jewish charities. To Friday-night dinners, the only night that his father would come home for dinner on time, no matter what crisis was breaking over at city hall. Sometimes relatives joined them, but usually it was just the four of them, Joe at one end of the table, Miriam at the other. On the sides, sitting across from each other, Jack and the little guy, Sam, the miracle child who was born years after doctors told Miriam there was no chance. Sam was the brother Jack desperately wanted during all those years he had been an only child. All his friends had siblings. He had given up hope by the time his mother became pregnant. From the minute they brought Sam home, Jack had loved the little guy so much.
    Now Joe and Miriam were gone. Other relatives had perished in Europe in the Holocaust or were scattered throughout the American West. Jack had never seen or heard from any of them since his mother's funeral. It was just Jack and Sam now. Jack and the little guy.
    "Damn you, Sam," he muttered under his breath. "How could you have put me in this position?"
    There was a pause in the music before the orchestra began the last movement of the Bach, the final piece of the evening. Next to Jack sat Chava, the world-renowned opera singer, whom he had been dating for a year. Chava, tall and sensuous, with coal-black hair, was dressed in a low-cut red dress that showed off her striking décolletage. Chava whispered in Jack's ear, "Isn't Gil marvelous?"
    But Jack didn't hear her. Nor did he respond when she put one hand around his back and rubbed his thigh with the other. The orchestra began playing again. Jack wasn't with them.
    He was deep in thought. Anger and guilt vied to dominate. He was furious at Sam for not appreciating the raw nerve he had struck. It was unconscionable that Sam didn't accede to what Jack had asked and back off.
    It wasn't merely Sam. Jack was still bitter at Sarah and Terry—even after all these years. Terry had been such a patently obvious phony, and she a ridiculous fool for not seeing it.
    Despite all of that, Jack couldn't repress the guilt that he felt. Sam had pushed the right button. He kept hearing in his mind his brother's bitter rebuke: When it comes to the family, you were a shit then; you're a shit now.
    The words had stung yesterday. They stung even more this evening. Well, you're wrong, Sam. I'm not like that at all.
    The orchestra moved toward the crescendo in the last movement. Jack began to wonder whether his anger toward Sarah and Terry had pushed him to an irrational result. Ann and Robert hadn't done anything to him. He had no score to settle with them.
    Thinking about Robert made Jack feel horrible. He knew what had happened to Israeli soldiers who had been captured, how cruelly nations in the Middle East treated their prisoners. He could imagine the tortures that they were inflicting on Robert. If there was anything he could do to help