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a holy man. Everything in your path has something to teach you.”
    Sol reaches down and scoops a palmful of snow. He shapes it into a tight ball and holds it in his ungloved hand. As the chill seeps in, he thinks about how Walter smiled at him. There were other students in that room; what was Walter trying to say? Rosalie would have an answer, of course; something vaguely mystical and very silly. He was Elijah the prophet. He was the Messiah. He was the hearing that Sol lost in one ear. And of course Rosalie would think that; his fiancée was the daughter of a Hasid.
    “I wish your father had liked me,” says Sol.
    Rosalie laughs. “Oh, sweetness. My father knew my heart. You have nothing to worry about.”
    She pulls the snowball out of his hand, carries his fingers to her lips, and blows warm air on them.
    “Soon,” she says.
    “Eight more months.”
    “No time at all.”
    Barely enough, yet just enough, thinks Sol. Time enough for the last shaping of the clay before he drives out to a pulpit and puts his hand on a lectern and imparts meaning to a sanctuary full of congregants. Time enough to complete the final revisions of his boyhood self, to grow into a proper groom for his bride. Enough time, barely enough. It would take him a lifetime to be ready.
    “Did you choose yet?” asks Sol.
    “I’m still deciding.”
    “A bride needs a dress.”
    “I’m holding out for a flapper.”
    “I can’t make you do anything,” says Sol.
    “Then we understand each other perfectly.”
    Sol’s hand wraps around Rosalie’s and she laces her fingers between his. “She’elah and teshuvah ,” says Sol. “Question and answer. Want to play?”
    “I’m always up for a round of Ask the rabbi,” she says.
    Rosalie remembers how one of her father’s students would show up at the apartment, sit beside her father, and lean close. The student would whisper a she’elah —a personal question about faith or practice. After a few moments, her father would respond with a teshuvah —a ruling, an explanation, or a sideways answer that left the student hungry to ask something more.
    “Remember: the answer lies between the lines,” says Sol.
    “Of course. My father taught me. So, rabbi, what’s your she’elah?”
    “How does a man know if he is intended to be a rabbi?”
    “Teshuvah,” says Rosalie. “If the man yearns to live in the place where the words of the texts brush up against real life, maybe it’s meant to be.”
    “Good one!” says Sol.
    “And how would you answer the question, rabbi?”
    “Teshuvah,” says Sol. “ Do not ask if the man knows his way around a text. Better to ask if he burns with passion for his intended wife. As it is written, the only calling is the calling of love .”
    Rosalie laughs. “You sound like some kind of romantic. Did those strange visitors sprinkle you with fairy dust?”
    Sol takes her face in his hands and kisses her nose.
    “I’m in love,” he says. “With you.”
    In the Radish’s intermediate Talmud class, the students are required to stumble through an entire Aramaic passage aloud, correct each mistake, read through the text again, then offer a translation. Sol sits in the front row. He is the only student who does not refer to Rabbi Radnitsky as the vegetable he most resembles, especially when a passage in the text—usually concerning bodily emissions—makes him blush.
    Walter sits in the last row, leans back in his chair, and stares out the window.
    “Read, Westhaus!” yells the Radish. “Take a turn with your brethren.”
    Walter slowly articulates the first three words, the easy ones that bear no message but announce the opening of a gate:
    “Rabban Gamliel omer . Rabbi Gamliel says.”
    Walter looks up at the Radish. “That’s all I know.” He stands, closes his book, and exits the classroom.
    Sol casts his eyes around the room, waiting for someone to follow Walter, but no one moves. The Radish continues with the class, and Sol stares at the page