Sunlight came in through the window. Hushed voices filtered through the closed door. He lowered his feet to the floor. The bed screeched under him. His old bookshelves lined the wall, heavy with tall volumes of Talmud. He stuck his hand behind them, but there was nothing hidden there. He rubbed his face, chuckling at the memory of Benjamin’s stunned expression at the sight of the novel he had pulled from behind the Talmud volume. They had been teenagers, budding Talmudic scholars in Neturay Karta, a sect dedicated to God’s worship, where secular novels, like all forms of alien entertainment, were strictly banned. But Lemmy’s secret relationship with Tanya, and the books she had lent him, had penetrated the walls of isolation, planted doubts in his mind, and eventually led to his blasphemous rebellion and his excommunication. He touched the first volume of Talmud—Baba Metziah—and wondered how things would have turned out if there had been no place to hide Tanya’s novels in his room.He washed and joined Benjamin’s family for breakfast.
