The Yiddish Policemen's Union

“We did what seemed right at the time, Meyer. We had a few facts. We knew our limitations. And we called that a choice. But we didn’t have any choice. All we had was, I don’t know, three lousy facts and a boundary map of our own limitations.

Landsman has no home, no future, no fate but Bina. The land that he and she were promised was bounded only by the fringes of their wedding canopy, by the dog-eared corners of their cards of membership in an international fraternity whose members carry their patrimony in a tote bag, their world on the tip of the tongue.

“He’s a bad man,” Landsman says. “And he always was.” “Yes, but he made up for it by being a terrible father.”

He’s feeling a little giddy, a little tragic. He is ripe for the grand gesture, the operatic mistake. Manic is probably the word.

There is no doubt that her snoring has not changed in two years. It has a double-reeded hum, the bumblebee continuo of Mongolian throat-singing. It has the slow grandeur of a whale’s respiration.

“It wasn’t a chess game,” Landsman says after a moment. “On the board in Shpilman’s room. It was a problem.

“I can’t believe I did that,” she says, availing herself of a tissue from her endless stash. “That is the kind of thing you would do.” “People I know keep having that problem,” Landsman says. “Suddenly acting like me.”

I use the term ‘innocent’ very loosely.” “As do I,” says Bina. “No doubt about it.”

“Ever make a mistake?” Bina asks the boundary maven. “Tell someone he can carry where he’s not allowed to carry? Draw a line where no line needs to be drawn?”