The righteous men

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Friday, 4.10pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

His first reaction was confusion. He got off the subway at Sterling Street and walked straight into what looked to him like a black neighbourhood: Ebony, Vibe and Black Hair on sale at the news-stand, murals on every other wall, knots of young black men standing around in baggy combat clothes.

But once he crossed New York Avenue, he felt his pulse quicken with a reporter's sense that he was getting nearer to the story. Signs appeared in Hebrew. Some of the words were written in English characters, though their meaning was no less opaque. Chazak V'Ematz! promised one, enigmatically.

Another word appeared several times, on bumper stickers, on fly posters, even on notices collared to lampposts, like flyers seeking lost cats. Will soon learned to recognize the word, though he had no idea how to pronounce it: Moshiach.

Next he passed a black man the size of a large refrigerator, with a little girl in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Will's confusion returned. He was now on Empire Boulevard, noticing Indian restaurants and vans decked out in the national flag of Trinidad and Tobago. Was he in the Hassidic neighbourhood or wasn't he?

He turned off, into residential streets. The houses were large brownstones or made of a firm, red brick, as if once, in a long-ago Brooklyn, they had been positively posh. Each had a few steps up to the front door, which sat alongside a porch. In other American homes, Will guessed, these porches might feature a swing chair, perhaps a few lanterns, certainly a pumpkin at Hallowe'en and very often, the Stars and Stripes. In Crown Heights they looked mainly unused, though even here Will spotted that word again — Moshiach — on window stickers, and once on a yellow flag with the image of a crown, which Will took to be some kind of local symbol.

Directly above each porch, one storey up, was a veranda, complete with wooden balustrade. Will thought of Beth, held behind one of these front doors: his legs suddenly tensed with the urge to run up the stairs of each house and knock down door after door, until he had found his wife.

Coming towards him was a group of teenage girls in long skirts, pushing strollers. Behind them were perhaps a dozen, maybe more, children. Will could not tell if these girls were older sisters or exceptionally young mothers. They looked like no women he had ever seen before, certainly not in New York. They seemed to be from a different era, the 1950s perhaps or the reign of Queen Victoria. No flesh was exposed, the sleeves of their white, prim blouses covered their arms; their skirts fell to their ankles. And their hair: the older women seemed to wear it in a preternaturally neat bob, one that barely moved in the wind.

Will did not look too hard; he did not want anyone to think he was staring. Besides, he no longer needed confirmation.

This was Hassidic Crown Heights, all right. As he walked, he honed his cover story. He would say he was a writer for New York magazine doing a piece for its new 'Slice of the Apple' slot, in which outsiders wrote dispatches from different segments of New York's wonderfully diverse community, blah, blah. He would pose as the safari-suit explorer, sent to note down the curious ways of the natives.

And this was certainly an alien landscape. Will searched desperately for something that might give him a handle — an office perhaps, where he might discover who ran this place.

Maybe he could explain what had happened and they would help him. He just needed a foothold, something in this strange place he at least understood.

But there was nothing. Every bumper sticker seemed to convey a message that might be worth decoding, but was indecipherable. Light Sabbath candles and you 'II light up the world! There was an ad for a show: Ready for Redemption. Even the shops seemed to be part of this religious fervour. The Kol Tov supermarket carried a slogan: It's all good.

He kept walking, stopping at a store front whose window was full of notices rather than goods. One leapt out at him straightaway.

Crown Heights is the neighbourhood of the Rebbe. Out of respect to the Rebbe and his community we request that all women and girls, whether living here or visiting, adhere at all times to the laws of modesty, including:

Closed neckline in back, side and front. (Collarbone should remain covered) Elbows covered in all positions Knees covered by dress/skirt in all positions Proper cover of the entire leg and foot No slits Girls and women who wear immodest garments, and thereby call attention to their physical appearance, disgrace themselves by proclaiming that they possess no intrinsic qualities for which they should garner attention…

So that explained the dress code. But the word that leapt out at Will had nothing to do with necklines or slits. It was 'Rebbe'. This sounded like the man Will had to meet.

He looked up to get his bearings, noticing for the first time the street sign. Eastern Parkway. He had barely walked ten yards when he saw another sign: Internet Hot Spot. He had arrived.

His stomach heaved as he walked in. This was surely the scene of the crime. Someone had sat at one of these cheap blondwood desks, surrounded by fake wood panelling and grey floor tiles, and typed the message announcing the theft of his wife.

He stared hard at the room, hoping his would suddenly become a superhero's gaze, magically able to absorb every detail, seeing with X-ray vision the clues that must be here.

But he only had his own eyes.

The room was a mess, not like the latte-serving internet cafes he knew from Manhattan or even his own patch of Brooklyn. There was no espresso or mocha here, no coffee of any kind in fact. Just bunches of exposed wires, peeling signs on the wall, including a picture of an elderly, white bearded rabbi — a face Will had now seen at least a dozen times. The desks were arranged haphazardly, with flimsy partitions attempting the separation into individual workspaces.

At the back were a stack of empty computer cartons, still leaking their Styrofoam packaging, as if the owners had simply bought the equipment, unloaded it and opened for business the same day.

Will got a few upward glances as he came in, but it was not nearly as bad as he had feared. (He had visions of his occasional student forays into out-of-the-way pubs in big English cities, places so hostile the locals seemed to fall into an instinctive, sullen silence the moment a stranger was among them.) Most of the customers in the Internet Hot Spot seemed too preoccupied to be interested in Will.

He tried to assess each of them. He noticed the two women first, both wearing berets. One was sitting side-saddle on her stool, allowing her to keep one hand on her pram, rocking her baby to sleep as she typed with the other. Will ruled her out immediately: a pregnant woman could surely not have kidnapped his wife. He eliminated the other woman just as quickly: she had a toddler on her lap and wore perhaps the most exhausted expression he had ever seen.

The rest of the terminals were either empty or used by men. To Will, they all looked the same. They wore the same rumpled, dark suits, the same open-necked white shirts, and the same wide-brimmed black trilby hats. Will looked hard at each one in turn — Did you kidnap my wife? — hoping that a guilty conscience might at least send one of them blushing or rushing out of the door. Instead they kept staring at the computer screens and stroking their beards.

Will paid his dollar and sat at a screen himself. He was tempted to log onto his own email, so that anyone checking him out and reading over his shoulder would immediately know who he was. He half-wanted them to know that he was here, that he was onto them.

Instead, he took time to absorb what was in front of him.

Each terminal was programmed to show the same home page, the website of the Hassidic movement. There was a tracker on the left of the screen, scrolling birth announcements:

Zvi Chaim born to the Friedmans, Tova Leah to the Susskinds, Chaya Ruchi to the Slonims. At the top of the screen was a banner, showing the same face that hung on the wall, though this time it appeared to be dissolving into a picture of the Jerusalem skyline. Underneath ran the slogan: Long Live the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach forever and ever.

Will read the line three times, as if trying to crack a cryptic crossword clue. He had no idea about melech but Moshiach was now very familiar, even if he had not seen it in this form.

The word that mattered was Rebbe. The man in the picture that hung everywhere — an ancient rabbi with a biblical white beard and a black trilby pressed firmly on his head — was their leader, their Rebbe.

To Will, it felt like a breakthrough. All he had to do was find this man and he would get some answers. A community like this, he was sure, would be hierarchical and disciplined: nothing would happen without the nod of the top man. He was like a tribal chief. If Beth had been taken by the men of Crown Heights, the Rebbe would have given the order. And he would know where she was now.

Will left hurriedly, anxious to find this Rebbe as quickly as he could. As he got back onto the street, he noticed that others were moving at similar speed; everyone seemed to be in a rush. Maybe something was going on? Maybe they had heard about the kidnapping?

Within a block or two he found what he was looking for: a place where people gathered to eat or drink. For reporters, cafes, bars and restaurants were essential locations. If you needed to talk to strangers, where else could you start? You could hardly knock on people's front doors; stopping people in the street was always a last resort. But in a cafe, you could start a conversation with almost anybody — and find out plenty.

There were no cafes here, no bars either, but Marmerstein's Glatt Kosher would do. It was more of a dining room than a restaurant. It looked like a canteen, with hot food at a counter served by large, grandmotherly women. Their customers seemed to be gaunt, pale men, wolfing down chicken schnitzel, gravy-soaked potatoes and iced tea as if they had not eaten for twenty-four hours. It reminded Will of the refectory at his public school: big women feeding thin boys.

Except this scene was much more bizarre. The men might have stepped out of a picture book of seventeenth-century eastern Europe and yet several of them were yammering away into cell phones. One was simultaneously tapping into a BlackBerry and reading the New York Post. The collision of ancient and modern was jarring.

Will queued up to get his own plate, not that he felt like eating; he just needed an excuse to be there. He hesitated over his choice of vegetable, overcooked broccoli or overcooked carrots, and was soon upbraided by one of the babushkas behind the counter.

'Hurry, I want to get home for shabbos,' she said without a smile. So that explained the rush: it was Friday afternoon and the Sabbath was coming. Tom had mentioned something about that as Will left, but he had not taken it in: he literally did not know what day it was. This was bound to be bad news. Crown Heights would surely close down in the next hour or two; no one would be around and he would find out nothing. He had no choice; he would have to move fast, starting right now.

He found what he needed: a man sitting alone. There was no time for English circumlocution. He would have to deploy the instant, American approach: Hi, how you doing, where do you come from?

His name was Sandy and he was from the West Coast. Both of which facts caught Will by surprise. He had, half-consciously, assumed that these men with their beards and black hats would bear alien names and speak with thick Russian or Polish accents.

That had been part of the culture shock of the last hour, the realization that a corner of what could have been medieval Europe lived and breathed in the here and now, in twenty first century New York. He felt like a novice swimmer who discovers he can no longer touch the bottom.

'You Jewish?'

'No, I'm not, I'm a journalist.' Ridiculous thing to say. 'I mean, the reason why I'm here is that I'm a journalist. For New York magazine.'

'Cool. You here to write about the Rebbe?' He pronounced it Rebb-ah.

'Yes. Well, among other things. You know, just writing about the community.'

Sandy turned out to be relatively new to Crown Heights.

He said he had been 'a surfer dude' on Venice Beach, 'hanging out, taking a lot of drugs'. His life had been a mess until six years ago, when he had met an emissary of the Rebbe who had established an outreach centre right on the oceanfront.

This Rabbi Gershon gave him a hot meal one Friday night and that was how it started. Sandy popped in there for the next Sabbath and the next; he stayed overnight with Gershon's family. 'You know what was best, better even than the food and the shelter?' said Sandy, with an intensity Will found awkward in a man he had just met. 'They didn't judge me.

They just said that HaShem loves every Jewish soul, and that HaShem understands why we sometimes take a roundabout path. How sometimes we get lost.'

'HaShem?'

'Sorry, that's God. HaShem literally means "the Name". In Judaism, we know the name of God, we can see it written down, but we never say it out loud.'

Will gestured for Sandy to carry on. He explained that he had put his life in the hands of the Rebbe and his followers.

He started dressing like them, eating kosher food, praying in the morning and evening, honouring the Sabbath by abstaining from all work or commerce — no shopping, no using electricity, no riding the subway — from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.

'And did you do anything like that before?'

The? You gotta be kidding. Man, I didn't know what shabbos was! I ate everything that moved: lobster, crabs, cheeseburgers.

My mom didn't even know what was kosher and what was treif; 'And what does she think about, you know, this?' Will gestured at Sandy's clothes and beard.

'You know, it's kind of a process?' Upspeak, even here.

'She found the kosher thing hard; me not being able to eat with her when I visit with her in her home. And now that I have kids, that gets kind of tricky. But the toughest thing for her, without a doubt? When I became Shimon Shmuel, rather than Sandy. She couldn't get her head round that.'

'You changed your name?'

I wouldn't really call it changing my name. Every Jew has a Hebrew name already, even if he doesn't know what it is.

It's the name of our soul. So I like to say that I discovered my real name. But I use both. When I visit my mom, or when I meet, you know, someone like you, I'm Sandy. In Crown Heights, I'm Shimon Shmuel.'

'So what can you tell me about this Rebbe, then?'

'Well, he is our leader and he is a great teacher and we all love him and he loves us.'

'Do people do whatever he tells them to do?'

'It's not really like that, Tom.' (Will had had to think quickly.

In all his preparation he had forgotten to make up a pseudonym.

So he had borrowed Tom's first name and his mother's maiden name: Sandy thought he was talking to a freelance reporter called Tom Mitchell.) 'The Rebbe just knows what's right for all of us. He's like the shepherd and we're his flock.

He knows what we need, where we should live, who we should marry. So, yes, we listen to his advice.' Will's hunch was being confirmed. This guy pulled every lever.

'And where does he live?'

'He is right here in this community, every day.'

'And can I meet him?'

'You should come to shul tonight.'

'Shut?'

'Synagogue. But it's more than that. It's our headquarters, our meeting house, our library. You'll find out all you need to know about the Rebbe there.'

Will decided to stick with Sandy. He needed a guide and Sandy would be ideal. Not much older than Will, he was not a rabbi or scholar, not some authority figure who would require ingratiation, but a burned-out hippy who, Will guessed, had simply cried out to be rescued. If the Moonies had got there first, Sandy would have gone with them; he was a man who needed someone to catch him when he fell.

They talked as they walked the few blocks to Sandy's first stop.

'Tell me something, Sandy. What's the deal with this clothing? How come you all dress alike?'

'I admit, I was pretty freaked by that at first. But you know what the Rebbe says? We are more individual because we dress this way.'

'How does he work that out?'

'Well, what makes us different from each other is not the designer shirt we wear or an expensive suit, something on the outside. What makes us different from each other is what's inside: our true selves, our neshama, our souls. That's what shines out. If the outside becomes irrelevant, if we all look the same, then people can truly start to see the inside.'

By now, they had arrived at a building Sandy referred to as the mikve and which he translated to Will as 'ritual bath'.

They joined the line paying a dollar to the attendant at the door, Will handing over an extra fifty cents to get a towel, and headed downstairs into what seemed to be a large changing room.

As soon as Sandy opened the door, they were hit by a cloud of steam. The air itself seemed to be dripping; Will had to blink three or four times to adjust his eyes. When he finally regained his vision, he stepped back as if he had been punched.

The room was packed with men and boys who were either naked or about to be. There were bony teenagers, large bellied men in their fifties, their beards frizzing in the humidity, and wrinkled geriatrics — all of them removing every last piece of clothing. Will had been to the gym enough times, but there the age range was narrower, there were fewer people and nothing like this volume of noise. Everyone in here was talking; if they were kids, they were screaming.

'We have to be entirely unadorned when we enter the mikve,' Sandy was saying, 'if we are to become pure for shabbos. Our skin must make total contact with the rainwater that's collected in the mikve. If we wear a wedding ring, we have to take it off. We must be as we were the day we were born.'

Will looked at his own finger, at the band that Beth had given him. At their wedding ceremony, she had placed it on his finger whispering a vow that was for his ears only. 'More than yesterday, less than tomorrow.' It referred to the depth of their love for each other.

Now he was standing surrounded by naked men, some taking off tasselled vests — which Sandy explained were worn by order of a religious commandment: a reminder of God, even under your shirt — others putting them on, where they instantly became stained with the moisture of skin not yet dried, several muttering prayers in a language Will did not understand. How strange the world is, Will thought surveying this scene, that my love for Beth could bring me to this place and this moment.

'Coming?' Sandy was gesturing towards the pool.

Something told Will that if he was going to win this man's trust, he would have to show respect and go along with whatever ritual the hour called for.

'Sure,' he said, taking off his own clothes; even the wedding ring. Gingerly he followed Sandy, reminded of his school days and the walk to the communal shower after a winter afternoon of rugby practice. Then, as now, he felt self-concious, taking care to cover his private parts with his hands. The setup here looked a lot like those old school baths, down to the puddles of blackening water and the random pubic hairs on the white-tiled floor. There was a sign: love your neighbour, take a shower before the mikve. Will took his lead from Sandy, who stood under the jet of water for just a few seconds.

Then to the mikve itself. It was like a small plunge pool and plunging was what you did. Down the stairs, wade a step or two and then down — a complete dunk, so that not a hair on your head remained dry — then twice more and out. The temperature was comfortable but no one lingered. They were not having a dip or a Jacuzzi, they were there to be purified.

As Will sank below the surface, holding his breath, he was filled with an unexpected anger. Not at the men around him, not even at Beth's captors, but at himself. His wife was missing, in who knew what kind of danger, and here he was, butt naked. He was not where he should be, in a New York Police Department command centre, surrounded by flickering computer terminals manned by kidnap specialists, each of them working round the clock to trace phone calls and decode emails using state-of-the-art encryption technology, until finally one officer turns around and announces to the room — 'We've got him!' — prompting everyone to pile into squad cars and a couple of helicopters, surrounding the criminals' den with a SWAT team of marksmen who then emerge with a trembling Beth, wrapped in a blanket, and her evil abductor in handcuffs or, better still, a body bag. All this raced through Will's mind as he held his breath in the rainwater that was meant to sanctify his body. I've seen too many movies, he thought as he came up, breathed deep and shook the water from his hair. But the core feeling persisted. He should be hunting for Beth and here he was instead, bathing with the enemy.

As he dried off and put his clothes back on, he could not help but see the men around him differently. What dark secrets did they carry? Were they blamelessly ignorant of this plot or were they all in on the snatching of his wife? Was it some kind of conspiracy, starting with the Rebbe but involving all of them? He looked at Sandy, fidgeting with hairclips as he returned the black yarmulke to his head. He certainly came across as a wide-eyed innocent, but maybe that was just a skilful pose.

Will thought back to their first conversation at the diner.

Will imagined he had sought out Sandy, but maybe it was the other way around. What if this 'Sandy' had been following Will since he had arrived at Crown Heights, contriving to be sitting alone in Marmerstein's at just the right moment? It would not be such a hard trick to pull off. After all, weren't these people famous for their cunning…

Will stopped himself right there. He could see what was happening; he was panicking, allowing a red mist to descend when he needed clarity. Hoary old stereotypes were not going to rescue Beth, he told himself sternly. He needed to use his head. Be patient, stay polite and you will get to the truth.

They popped in briefly to Sandy's house which, Will guessed, had simply been allocated to him. It was decorated in a style that belonged to their grandparents' generation: white Formica cupboards which would have looked modern in 1970, a linoleum floor which seemed to hail from the Kennedy era. The kitchen had two sinks and there was a large, industrial-looking urn of boiling water, complete with its own dispensing tap, in the corner. On every wall, in varying expressions, were photographs of the man Will now knew to be the Rebbe.

The living room provided the only clue that young people were in residence. It was dominated by a play pen, and cluttered with the bright red and yellow plastic of children's toys.

A toddler was among them, wheeling a dumper truck. Close by, sitting in the corner of a very basic couch was a woman bottle-feeding her baby.

Will was gripped by a feeling he had not expected: envy.

At first, he thought he was envying Sandy for having his home intact, his wife still safe. But that was not it. He was envious of this woman for having children. It was a new sensation, but now, as if on Beth's behalf, he coveted this baby and toddler: he saw them through Beth's eyes, as the children she wanted so badly. Perhaps for the first time he understood his wife's need. No, it was more than that. He felt it.

The woman's hair was covered by a small white hat that was singularly unflattering. Underneath was a dark, thick bob — the same style worn by every woman in Crown Heights as far as Will could see.

'This is Sara Leah,' Sandy said distractedly, heading for the stairs.

'Hi, I'm Tom,' Will said, leaning forward to offer a hand.

Sara Leah blushed and shook her head, refusing to offer a hand of her own. 'Sorry,' Will said. Clearly, these rules about women and modesty went beyond the simple matter of clothing.

'OK, we're going to shulV Sandy was shouting as he raced back downstairs. He sized up Will. 'You won't need that,' he said, gesturing towards the bag Will had slung over his shoulder.

'No, that's OK, I'll just keep this with me.' Inside were his wallet, BlackBerry and, crucially, his notebook.

'Tom, I don't want you to be uncomfortable in shul and it's shabbos and we don't carry on shabbos.'

'But this is just keys, money, you know.'

'I know, but we don't have those things with us in shul or anywhere on Friday night.'

'You don't carry house keys?'

Sandy pulled up his shirt to reveal the waistband of his trousers. Around it was a string, threaded through the belt loops, carrying a single silver key. Will needed to think fast.

'You can leave your bag here. You're having shabbos dinner with us, I hope: you can pick it up then.'

Will could agree, dump the bag and just hope that Sara Leah did not take a peek: one glimpse of his credit cards and she would know that he was no Tom Mitchell. She would discover that he was Will Monroe and it would not take much detective work to know that he was the husband of the kidnapped woman, whose fate all these people were surely aware of. She would alert the Rebbe or his henchmen and Will would doubtless be hurled into a dungeon just like Beth.

Calm down, that's not going to happen. Everything's going to be OK. 'That's fine. I'll leave it here.' Will took off his bag, placed it alongside the pile-up of shoes and strollers by the front door, slipped his notebook into his breast pocket and followed Sandy out the front door.

They walked just a few blocks to reach the synagogue.

Clusters of men in twos and threes, friends or fathers with sons, were heading in the same direction.

The building had a kind of piazza in front of it but was entered by walking down a couple of stairs. Just outside, a man sucked heavily on a cigarette. 'Last one before shabbos,' Sandy explained, smiling. So even smoking was banned for the next twenty-four hours.

Inside was what Will would have described as the very opposite of a church: it resembled a high school gym. At the back were a few rows of benches and tables, backing on to bookshelves. In this area, like a large schoolroom, every seat was taken and the noise was rising. Will soon realized this was not a single class, but rather a cacophony of different conversations. Pairs of men were debating with each other across the tables, each man hunched over a Hebrew book.

They seemed to be rocking back and forth, whether they were speaking or just listening. Next to them might be an eavesdropper or, more likely, another pair engaged in equally intense dialogue. Will strained to listen.

It was a mixture of English and what he took to be Hebrew, all delivered in a sing-song rhythm that seemed to match the rocking motion, beat for beat. 'So what are the Rabonim trying to tell us? We learn that even though we might wish we could study all the time, that this is the greatest mitzvah and greatest pleasure we could ever know, in fact HaShem also wants us to do other things, including working and making a living.' That last word was on a down note. Now the tune was about to go up again. 'Why would HaShem want this?

Why would HaShem, who surely wants us to be full of wisdom and Yiddishkeit, why would He not want us to study all the time?' The voice was getting high-pitched. 'The answer-' and a raised finger, pointing at the ceiling emphasized the point '-is that only by experiencing darkness do we appreciate the light.'

Now it was the turn of his friend, his study partner, to pick up the thread — and the tune. 'In other words, to fully appreciate the beauty of Torah-' Toy-ra '-and learning, we have to know life away from learning. In this way, the story of Noach is telling every Hassid-' Chossid '-that they cannot spend their whole life in the yeshiva, but must fulfil all their other duties, as a husband or father or whatever. This is why the tzaddik is not always the most learned man in the village; sometimes the truly good man is the simple cobbler or tailor, who knows and really understands the joy of Torah because he knows and understands the contrast with the rest of his life. Such a Jew, because he is one who knows darkness, truly appreciates the light.'

Will could barely follow what he was hearing; the style of it was so unlike anything he had ever heard before.

Perhaps, he thought, this was what monasteries were like back in the Middle Ages, monks poring over texts, frantically trying to penetrate the word of God. He turned to Sandy. 'What are they studying? I mean, what's the book they're looking at?'

'Well, usually in the yeshiva, you know, the religious academy, people will study the Talmud.' Will looked puzzled.

'Commentary. Rabbis debating the exact meaning of each word of the Torah. A rabbi in the top left of a page of Talmud will pick a fight with one at the bottom right, over the two dozen meanings of a single letter of a single word.'

'And is that what they are reading now?' Will indicated the two men whose teach-in he had been following. Sandy craned his neck to check what book they were using.

'No, these are commentaries written by the Rebbe.' The Rebbe, thought Will. Even his words are studied with the fervour of holy writ.

While they spoke, the room was filling up, people arriving in big numbers. Will had been at a synagogue once before, for the bar mitzvah of a schoolboy friend, but it had been nothing like this. On that occasion, there had been a single central service and a degree of quiet (though not the pin drop silence he was used to in church). Here there seemed to be no order at all.

Strangest of all, he could only see men. There seemed to be thousands of those white shirts and dark suits, unbroken by so much as a splash of female colour.

'Where are the women?'

Sandy pointed upwards, at what looked like the balcony of a theatre. Except you could see no one sitting down, because the view was blocked by an opaque plastic window. You could just make out the outline of the people behind, like glimpsing a projectionist in his booth. But they seemed to be shadows, revealed only in the small gap below the Perspex window.

Will stared hard, trying to make out a face. Giving up, he realized that he had been searching for Beth.

It gave him the creeps. He felt as if he was being watched, as if these blocked-off, unseen women were spectral spectators, observing the antics of the men below. He imagined their vantage point: he would stand out in an instant. The one man not in black-and-white, but in chinos and blue shirt.

From nowhere, a hand-clap began. Rows of men were forming into two lines, as if clearing a path for a procession.

The rhythm became faster as the men started singing.

Yechi HaMelech, Yechi HaMelech

Sandy translated. Long live the King.

Now people were stamping their feet, some were swaying, others were actually jumping in the air. It reminded Will of that old, archive footage of screaming girls waiting for the Beatles. But these were grown men, working themselves into a frenzy of anticipation. One man, his face flushed, was jerking from side to side, inserting two fingers in his mouth to make a wolf-whistle.

Will took in all the faces, crushed in the crowd before him.

They were not identical after all. He guessed several were Russian; a few more, their clothes somehow less formal, were dark and looked Israeli. He noticed one man, his beard wispy, whom he took to be Vietnamese. Sandy followed Will's stare.

'Convert,' he explained concisely, his voice rising to be heard above the din. 'Judaism doesn't exactly encourage conversion, but when it happens the Rebbe is really welcoming. Much more than most Jews. He says any newcomer is as good as someone born Jewish, maybe even better because they chose to be a Jew-'

Will missed the rest, as he was squeezed between two men pressing forward, part of a large, surging huddle which, without cue or instruction, was now turning. The children seemed to be pointing the way. Several boys, who could not have been more than eight years old, were on their fathers' shoulders, waving their fists in the same direction, again and again. They looked like underage football hooligans, pointing the finger at a reviled ref. But they were not looking at a person. Their energies were directed instead at a throne.

That was the word that came to mind, without prompting.

It was a large chair, covered in plush red velvet. In a Spartan room like this, it stood out as an item of lavish luxury. There was no doubt, this seat was being venerated.

Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu v'Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach Volam va 'ed.

The crowd were singing this one line, over and over, with a fervour Will found both exhilarating and terrifying. He leaned into Sandy's ear, shouting to be heard. 'What does it mean?'

'Long live our master, our teacher, the Rebbe, King Messiah forever and ever.'

Messiah. Of course. That's what this word daubed everywhere meant. Moshiach was Messiah. How could he have been so slow? These people regarded their Rebbe as nothing less than the Messiah.

Now Will was desperate to raise himself to full height, to see above the crowd who were all staring so intently at the throne, their voices hoarse with anticipation. Surely the Rebbe would make his entrance any second now, though how his followers would top their current levels of ecstasy to mark his arrival, Will could not imagine.

The noise was becoming deafening. Will tried to find Sandy's ear again, but he had been shoved forward in the melee.

Will's face was now uncomfortably close to a different man, who smiled at him, recognizing the humour of their sudden intimacy. What the hell, thought Will.

'Excuse me, can you tell me, when does the Rebbe come in? When does everything begin?'

'Excuse me?'

'When does everything begin?'

At that moment and before the man had a chance to respond, Will felt a hand clamp tightly on his shoulder. In his ear, a deep, baritone voice.

'For you, my friend, it all ends right here.'