Summary

Pages 1 – 14. In first person narration, dry cleaner Howard (early sixties, a lapsed Jew) describes how, four months after the end of his long term marriage, he begins a relationship with Svetlana, an attractive woman in her late thirties who comes into his shop. He discusses the situation with his daughter Beth, with whom he has been close, but who is now somewhat distant after her sudden conversion to Orthodox Judaism. Both Beth and her husband Ya’akov, (whom Howard refers to as “the fool”), are curious and cautious, but urge him to do what makes him happy.

On their first date, Howard and Svetlana discover a common background: they both are from Kiev in the Ukraine, Svetlana more recently than Howard, whose grandfather was an immigrant. Their closeness deepens, in spite of Howard making a thoughtless comment that, he says in...