"Lena—" Mrs. Klapper began.

"I got a cousin"—Mrs. Wireman did not so much cut her off as run her down—"I got a cousin went to Florida, Miami Beach." She leaned closer to Mrs. Klapper. "She was there two weeks, bang!" She snapped her lean fingers. "Married like that. A rich man, too."

Well, you asked for it, Gertrude, Mrs. Klapper told herself. Next time, maybe you'll lay off Sarah. She took a deep breath. "Lena, I am not going anywhere, Florida or anywhere."

Mrs. Wireman squinted her eyes even more. "What are you saving up for, a big house with nobody in it? Better you should take a trip, have a good time."

"Lena, I don't want to go anywhere. I live here, I cook, I keep the house neat, I go for walks, I got you to talk to." God forgive you, Klapper! "Why should I go somewhere where I don't know anybody? Don't be in such a hurry to go rushing me off to Florida. I like it here."

"Look, look, how angry she gets!" Mrs. Wireman smiled, exposing long, wide teeth. "So who's rushing you? Just say a hello to your old friends once in a while."

Mrs. Klapper sighed. "I tell you, I'll drop in, a day or two, and we can sit and talk." She thought of a way to change the subject. "You can tell me about Sam, how he's doing."

The thin, orange and white face hardened into an expression of disgust. "About Sam and the bitch he married, I'll tell you nothing. Anything else we talk about. Not Sam."

"She looked like a nice girl, Eleanor." Mrs. Klapper remembered Sam's wife as a tall, pleasant-faced woman who had tried to help out in the store before she and Sam were married.

"A bitch," Mrs. Wireman said flatly. "Strictly no good, believe me." She looked at Mrs. Klapper as if daring her to say something in Eleanor's defense.

"I got to go, Lena," Mrs. Klapper said finally. "I got some more shopping to do." She began to edge around Mrs. Wireman, who made no move to let her pass. "Look, I'll come over soon, and we'll sit outside and schmooze a little, okay?"

"All right," Mrs. Wireman answered. "But you think about what I said, about Miami Beach."

Mrs. Klapper was safely past her. "I will, Lena. Take care of yourself."

"Sei gesund," Mrs. Wireman said, turning to go. "To your pretty daughter," Mrs. Klapper called after her, "say a hello for me."

Mrs. Wireman did smile then.

"Ya," Mrs. Wireman said, and went up the street. She walked faster than her husband, but her shoulders were hunched and crooked.

Mrs. Klapper stood in the middle of the sidewalk and watched her until she was gone. Then she half turned to go on down the block, stopped, and began to walk back the way she had come. She walked very slowly, taking small steps.

She could hear little Schwartz, who drove a fruit truck, crying his wares in the distance. His voice was high and musical, but he was too far away for her to make out the words. A woman she knew smiled as she passed and said, "Hello, Gertrude." Mrs. Klapper nodded and hurried past, not wanting to stop and talk.

To laugh at the Wiremans, she thought, this is easy. Lena is stupid, she knows from nothing, she's fun to talk to like a flounder. Wireman knows nothing but the store. His feet are flat from standing up all these years; sitting down he's forgotten. To both of them, money is God on earth. Sarah—she did not want to be hard on her—all right, so Sarah is smart. What good does it do her? In such a family, to be born smart is a curse. Better she should never have learned to read. She sighed. But I feel for them. Do me something. I feel for them. Am I so smart I should laugh at Lena? Am I so popular I should sit with the old women and say, "Lena Wireman sits by herself, good. Just so she don't sit with us"? Who are they? Her husband runs a store, he sells things to people. Are they so useful? Am I?

Mrs. Klapper was not an introspective woman, or, usually, a very analytical one. Thinking about Lena Wireman irritated her, and she walked quickly when she passed the grocery again, having no desire for a return match. She saw Sarah through the window for a second and wondered if she had seen her go by.

Some other time I'll go over to Ida's, she decided. Today I don't feel like walking. The baking-powder tin, atop the loaf of bread, caught her eye, and she tried to remember why she had bought it. I could bake a cake, maybe, and then call up Ida and say, "Look, come on over, we'll get fat together. Who can eat a whole cake?" She nodded. First she would bake the cake, then call Ida.

Passing the line of chairs—Morris had once called them "Murderers' Row"—she recognized old acquaintances. Sitting, as always, under the green awning of the corner candy store, which spot was hers owing to both seniority and squatter's rights, was a tiny gray-haired woman named Lapin. She had been old when Mrs. Klapper had moved into the neighborhood, and guesses as to her exact age ranged between eighty and one hundred. She was a dried-up comma of a woman, but Mrs. Klapper liked her and had found her good company.

"Hey, Lapin," she called loudly, Lapin's first name was Bella, but nobody ever used it. "Lapin, look up, say a hello."

Lapin looked up slowly from her omnipresent knitting needles and hank of black yarn. "Hello, Gertrude," she said in a surprisingly deep voice. "So how are you?"

"Managing. You look fine, Lapin."

The old woman tapped her chest. "I got a rattle in here two days now, and in my stomach it's all the time growling. Sit down already."

Mrs. Klapper shook her head. She had time, but the idea of taking even a temporary place in the row of chairs always frightened her. "I got to go in a minute, Lapin. Eat a little, so your stomach won't growl so much."

Lapin shook her head. "I been talking to the rabbi. He says at my age I got to be prepared. Why should I stuff myself? Any day—boom!" She smiled at Mrs. Klapper. "Any day."

"God forbid," Mrs. Klapper said. "You will outlive me and the rest of the buzzards. The rabbi too."

"Any day." Lapin's voice sounded a little petulant. She beckoned Mrs. Klapper close with a long-nailed forefinger. "But I'm ready, believe me. When I die the House of Sages will say Kaddish, regular like Rosh Hashonah."

Mrs. Klapper knew what question was expected of her. "So what about your nephews? Better the family should say Kaddish."

Lapin's mouth twisted, and she wrinkled her nose. "Kaddish they don't believe in, my nephews. For their children they wouldn't say it." Her face relaxed again. "For me the House of Sages will say Kaddish."

For at least thirty years, Mrs. Klapper knew, Lapin had lived off the sums her three nephews sent her every month. She needed very little to live, and so she kept a steady current of five-dollar bills flowing into the House of Sages. Once or twice Morris had been prevailed upon to send ten dollars in her name, and Mrs. Klapper had done so more often than she had let Lapin know.

"The House of Sages will give me a good funeral," Lapin said contentedly.

"Lapin," Mrs. Klapper said, "I only got a few minutes. Talk about something else, please."

The old woman went on, her eyes closed. "I will be buried in my robes." She had fallen into Yiddish. "And there will be some earth from Israel in the coffin."

"Why is it with you always funerals?" Mrs. Klapper asked a little nervously. Lapin kept on in Yiddish, her voice low and droning.

"And I will live in a beautiful house of my own. I will live forever. I will live in God—"

"So?" Mrs. Klapper's voice was harsh and querulous. "So how many floors will there be in this house, Lapin? And who will be the landlord?"

Lapin seemed to withdraw into her shawl. "Don't make fun. I don't care how many floors."

Mrs. Klapper regretted her words. "I'm sorry, Lapin. So have a beautiful funeral, live in a beautiful house. You got it coming."