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possible.
    He heard the rustling that implied his daughter was in motion.
    —Where are
you?
he asked.
    —Home.
    More rustling. Then it stopped.
    —Is your mother there?
    —You didn’t call to speak to her, did you?
    —No, I called to speak to you.
    —Rabbi Gedalia is here. He’s with her in the other room. They know I’m talking to you.
    —How is she?
    —How do you think? You hurt her, Papa. She didn’t deserve it.
    —You’re right. She didn’t.
    —But you did it anyway.
    —Dafna, those are two separate things. The first is not something for a father and daughter to discuss. As for the second, you will have to believe me that I had no choice.
    —I don’t want to talk with you about sex either, but I’m not a child and I’m not naïve. And don’t forget, we live in Jerusalem, the most sex-crazed place in the world, where half the people wear wool sacks to keep from having sex with everyone else. So you didn’t wear a wool sack and you surrendered to your desires.
    Your desires.
The words spoken boldly and neutrally, as if to rise above her disgust at the squalidness of her father’s passions.
    —I won’t even say her name. It makes me sick to think of all the times she was in our house pretending to be loyal and respectful. Pretending to be my friend. She should have had some shame. But it doesn’t matter now, does it?
    —What do you want me to say, Dafna?
    —Are you planning to marry her?
    —I don’t know my plans. Not about that, not about other things.
    —I don’t understand. If you don’t even know your plans, why did you allow this entire mess to happen?
    —As I said, Dafnaleh, I had no choice.
    On the other end of the line, his daughter fell silent. A simmering, frustrated silence. Kotler imagined her in her room sitting cross-legged on her bed, glaring at the wall with her dark, intelligent eyes. What could be said about a father’s love for his children? You loved them entire. You loved even their anger at you. For what was this anger if not a frustration maddeningly entangled with love?
    Kotler waited for Dafna to speak again. She was in her room, in the familiar space. He could imagine her, but she couldn’t have imagined him. At that moment he could hardly have imagined himself. In the distance was the bold black silhouette of the Crimean Mountains set against the moonlit sky. There was the quiet road, raked occasionally by the headlights of a passing car. There were the low-slung houses, even in the darkness, haphazard and needy, making their emotional appeal. And in front of him was the bright windowpane, offering a view of the conventional tedium of his landlords’ lives. He saw Svetlana rise from her seat and cross the room, carrying a folded newspaper in her hand. She stopped and said something over her shoulder to someone who wasn’t visible to Kotler. The Jewish husband, Kotler assumed, returned from his communal duties.
    —When you say you had no choice, Dafna finally said, what are you talking about? I don’t understand. What exactly didn’t you have a choice about?
    —Blackmail, Dafnaleh, Kotler said.
    —Blackmail?
    —I still believe in the policy that one doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.
    —What did these terrorists want?
    —It shouldn’t matter what they want. Whatever they want is what you cannot allow them to have.
    —But what did they want?
    —My silence.
    —And what did they promise you for your silence?
    —Their silence.
    —Their silence? About you and her.
    —I didn’t bother to ask.
    —But that’s what it was.
    —That’s what it turned out to be.
    —And you didn’t understand that’s what they were threatening you with?
    —I understood well enough.
    —You understood and still you let them do it? Dafna nearly shouted. Didn’t you know what it would do to us?
    —Yes, Dafna, I knew, but one thing has nothing to do with the other. There are matters of principle where you cannot compromise. Under any circumstances. If I’d