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happened?’
    â€˜With Jim? Nothing, really. I still think the world of him. But I woke up one morning and realized that I needed more in my life than kindness.’
    â€˜What else is there? Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.’
    â€˜â€œ
I have known the strange nurses of Kindness,
”’I quoted. ‘“
I have seen them kiss the sick, attend the old, give candy to the mad!
”’
    â€˜You’re a strange man, Harry.’
    â€˜No, I’m not. Strange men have strange aspirations. I dream of nothing but being normal.’
    Karen said, ‘These friends of mine …’
    â€˜The ones you’re worried about?’
    â€˜Yes. They live on East 17th Street. Their names are Michael and Naomi Greenberg. I’ve known Michael ever since school. They’re lovely people, really lovely.’
    I swallowed some of my Explosion, and gave an involuntary shudder, the same kind you give when somebody walks over your grave.
    â€˜So, what’s their problem?’ I asked her. ‘This problem that nobody can bring themselves to believe, even you?’
    Karen looked serious. As she spoke, she traced a pattern on the tabletop with her fingertip, around and around and around.
    â€˜It happened five weeks ago this Friday. Michael went tothe synagogue with his brother Erwin. Naomi cooked the supper and laid the table and had everything ready for Michael and Erwin to come home. But about half an hour before they were due to come back, all the furniture in the dining room slid across the floor by itself and crowded up against the wall. Naomi tried to stop it In fact she kept moving it back to the middle of the room but it still insisted on sliding towards the wall. In the end Naomi was quite badly hurt She broke one rib and fractured two more, and her left lung was lacerated.
    â€˜Not only that, the whole experience left her totally traumatized.’
    â€˜You went through worse than that,’ I reminded her.
    She shrugged, trying to make light of it. ‘I wasn’t alone, like Naomi. Besides, I didn’t even realize what was happening to me, most of the time. How can I put it? I wasn’t myself.’
    I leaned back in my chair. A young business type sitting close to me was laughing so loudly that I thought he was going to burst my eardrum.
    â€˜So, what’s the problem? The Greenbergs’ furniture moved by itself. There must be plenty of people who wish their furniture would move by itself.’
    â€˜Well, there’s more to it than that.’
    â€˜Let’s think about the moving furniture first. We have to consider the possibility that Naomi broke her rib in a different way — in a way that she didn’t want Michael to know about — and so she moved the furniture herself and concocted this story that it moved by itself.’
    â€˜She would never do a thing like that! And, anyway, how on earth do you break a rib in a way that you don’t want your husband to know about?’
    â€˜Who knows? Maybe your friend has a violent lover. Maybe she had an automobile accident someplace where she didn’t want her husband to know that she’d been.’
    Karen said, ‘No, Harry. Naomi’s not like that. I can tell you that sure-and-for-certain.’
    â€˜You can never be sure-and-for-certain about anybody. You know that.’
    â€˜Am I hearing you right? After everything that happened at the Sisters of Jerusalem — after all of that terrible struggle — you don’t believe that this could be supernatural, too?’
    I finished my drink. ‘Karen, think about it. It’s a question of scale. What happened at the Sisters of Jerusalem was virtually war — one people against another. One set of spiritual beliefs against another. At the very worst, what happened at your friends’ apartment sounds like nothing much more than a minor