In the meantime, she would treat Dr. Kosárek with the appropriate professional courtesy and respect, but otherwise keep him at arm’s length. Arm’s length was fast becoming the measure of all relationships. That was the way of things now: everyone—every new contact, every encounter—had to be analyzed, assessed as a threat. Something that had always been there in her life without dominating it—her Jewish heritage—now had come to overshadow her interaction with everyone around her. Everyone and everything had now to be seen as a potential threat.
