Esti spread her mind wider and wider around the synagogue until she inhabited every space of it in her slow breathing. She was in the puckered ceiling plaster and the tired blue carpet, in the grilles that covered the windows, in the red plastic of the chairs, in the electric wires within the walls, and in the throat-pulse of every man and woman. She breathed and felt the synagogue inhale and exhale with her. Dwelling within the congregation, she noted the familiar soup of thought and emotion. There were angers here, bitter hatreds, fear and boredom and resentment and guilt and sorrow. She saw
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