shed my teeth, splashed lotion on my cheeks, and came back to the kitchen. I'm ready, I said. Marko looked at me slowly, and suddenly, as I saw his bloodshot eyes, it crossed my mind that I shouldn't trust him. It's a horrible moment when you doubt a person you think of as your best friend, especially when it's not you doubting him over facts, but something inside you, some minuscule signal warning you, so at first you want to ignore it, persuade yourself that it is all a mistake, a short circuit, a disturbance sending you a false image as a foil. But had I not already decided not to tell Marko everything, especially when it came to Margareta? Now my intuition was merely confirming something my subconscious had known for a long time, as it knows everything else, both what has already happened and what is to happen. I am not talking about destiny here; I am not a believer in destiny, I have always favored the notion of free will and the freedom of choice. The blind given, a life spent in writing out an unchanging destiny, I never found such notions appealing — they reduced me to an automaton who goes through life simply to acknowledge that he's but a grain of sand swept along by events, stripped of any meaning. That biologist, I can't recall his name, hit the nail on the head when he said that destiny does exist but is not predetermined, we are the creators of our destiny, but what we choose to do, seen in retrospect, becomes an inevitability, not because of divine intervention but because the past can no longer be altered. Enough of that. Marko waited patiently for me to get ready, then got impatient. He kept hurrying me along, urging me to walk faster, he grew nervous and agitated as if he had snorted cocaine. He was taking me straight into the lion's den, I remember thinking at the time, though now I have to laugh, because there were no lions nor did the place we went to resemble a den. I was still hung-over, and I had the feeling that my stomach was an inflated balloon that I was carrying on a string, high above my head, and my head throbbed whenever we hit the bright sunlight. At the same time, I admit, I was figuring out how to run away at the slightest sign of danger, and I kept lagging a few steps behind Marko. Of course, this bothered him, so he'd grab me by the elbow and pull me along, cursing, though he never once explained why the rush. Even so, we made progress: we passed by the Faculty of Agriculture, entered the city park, then left the park near the hospital and turned onto a street that led to the synagogue. Once long ago, when a discotheque was located in that building, Marko and I went dancing there, as we used to say, to reel a girl in on our fishing line. The past few years there had been quite a public controversy over the synagogue, because the municipal authorities at the time were accused of having illegally taken over the building, but then it turned out there had been no violation of the law, though the story about the scandal resurfaced from time to time, always tinged with political overtones. As we approached the building, I wondered what Marko had in mind: a nostalgic return to the discotheque where Zoran Modli used to be the disc jockey, if I am not mistaken, or an attempt to draw me into some resurgent political dispute. It turned out to be something altogether different. We stepped into the courtyard. Though it was not an enclosed space, I felt a change from the street, as if the air was denser, no, as if something was in the air that could not be felt outside that space, a condensed sanctity, as Marko later said. He was surprised that I hadn't felt that change when I entered the courtyard of the Belgrade synagogue, though that didn't necessarily mean anything, since our reaction to the sanctity of a place, he said, need not always be the same. When he visited famous monasteries, he said, he seldom felt a thing, while, on the other hand, the pressure of sanctity would be nearly unbearable in a ramshackle little church in a village off the beaten track. Everything can be explained, he said, all you need is the will to do it. We were standing in the yard in the increasingly warm sunlight, looking at the synagogue as if expecting it to address us. I still felt a fast-paced throb in my head, but the pain had mostly subsided. I was even able to look at a window refl ecting the rays of the sun, and the glare didn't make me nauseous. Marko called me over closer to the building and pointed to a rock with the number 1863 carved in it. He said he wasn't sure what that number meant, but that it probably was the year the synagogue was built. I knelt and touched the number, as if it could tell me something by touch. The number said nothing, instead it scratched the skin on my fingertips with its rough edges. Marko mentioned that the sum of the first two numbers was nine, as was the sum of the second two, and he was convinced that between those two sums there was a connection. I thought of Dragan Mišović. But why would every combination of numbers have an additional, hidden meaning? Couldn't a number be a number and nothing more? How could each number seem mystical, as if filled with secret missives, while words seem like a parody of reality, and the more words there are, the more ridiculous they are? Perhaps I should have wondered how Marko had discovered that number, what he had been looking for in the synagogue courtyard, or, who knows, in the building? I was passing by here the other day, said Marko, and suddenly it looked to me as if someone was waving to me from the corner of the building. And you wondered, I said, whether it was me? Exactly, answered Marko, how did you guess? Who else would have been waving to you, I said, from the synagogue courtyard? Whatever the case, he went into the courtyard and looked behind the corner of the building. No one was there. He had noticed the rock with the numbers, bent over to take a closer look, then heard a voice behind his back. He turned and saw an old woman in black: she even wore black lace gloves and a little hat with a short black veil. She raised her hand and pointed to the top of the synagogue. There, she said, by the chimney, you can see a light at night and those who know how to listen can hear a banging, rattling, and garbled words. Marko tried to ask for details, but she said the light was like no other light, it sometimes burned all night, and the sounds would become so loud that sleep was out of the question. Suddenly she fell silent, pointed up at the roof of the synagogue again, and with quick small steps, left. And you, I said, you came the next night to see what was going on, didn't you? Yes, said Marko, but I didn't see anything, I didn't hear anything, some commotion and the cooing of pigeons. And what did he expect from me now? I wanted to know. I have enough mysteries going at the moment, I said, that I don't know what to do with, I don't want to add one more to the burden. And besides, I continued, isn't there a bar here that stays open until late at night? All those sounds, the racket, the trembling light, doesn't that sound like a bar or club making noise and music? To a lady in black lace gloves, that might seem like the devil's work. Clearly I had not convinced him. He shook his head, blinked, wiped his nose. I suggested we find a café, and reluctantly he agreed. He stared up at the roof and stood on tiptoe, as if that would help him reach the attic. We set out along Dubrovačka Street, but at the first corner we bumped into a man, someone Marko knew, who apparently had something more attractive in mind for Marko than the planned cappuccino, because after conferring briefly they headed off in a different direction. I was left alone. I looked to the left, I looked to the right, then turned to look back at the synagogue. I thought of Dacca's story about making a golem or finding some other Kabbalistic weapon; could there be a better place for work on that assignment than a synagogue? Then I remembered Volf Enoch, the water carrier, who passed through these same places more than two hundred years before, changing names the way someone else might change hats. Perhaps he was still walking around, under yet another name and with another occupation. What if, I said to myself, I am Volf Enoch, and that thought made me stop. I am Volf Enoch, I said aloud, and I didn't feel that I was not speaking the truth. But, I went on to say, how could I be Volf Enoch when I'm not a Jew? How do you know, I asked myself, that you're not a Jew? Just as I was about to voice my response, I noticed a little boy and girl staring at me, probably happy to see a crazy man talking to himself. I turned and started running. I don't know why I was running, but when I stopped, my head was clear, as if the increased amount of oxygen that had entered my lungs and blood as I ran absorbed every remaining trace of the discomfort from the hangover. And not just my head; my vision was sharper, more precise, so that I saw everything, as they say, as clearly as if it lay in the palm of my hand. My palm was sweaty, however, and so was my forehead, my lungs were still huffing with effort, my leg muscles quivered, my knees were buckling gently. I looked around: I didn't know where I was. I didn't know how I'd arrived there, obsessed with the thought that no matter how it had happened, I was in fact Volf Enoch. To the left of me was a toolshed, to the right a rickety fence, in front of me were tended garden beds. I was standing in the backyard of one of the old Zemun houses, that much was clear, all I had to figure out was how I'd got here, if I'd got here. I turned again and saw the house to which the backyard belonged. The door was closed, the curtains drawn, a broom and shovel lay next to a cracked set of stairs, a washbasin with a hole in it was on the roof of a vacant doghouse. I saw a pair of old slippers, though I couldn't tell whether they were a man's or a woman's. As I took note of all that, the door opened and an old man appeared, with a rag in his hand. The rag had probably served for dusting, because as the door creaked open, he thrust out his hand and shook it out. When he caught sight of me, he lifted his other hand and waved, as if strange people walked into his backyard every day and stomped around his garden. We exchanged glances until my breathing had slowed and he had shaken out the dust rag, and then I moved slowly toward him. The whole time, however, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was sleeping and that none of this was happening, but when I got closer to the house, the old man, instead of vanishing as in a dream, came down the worn steps and held out his hand. I took it, expecting my fingers to find only air, but his hand was real and warm. He asked if I'd like to come in. I answered that I didn't know, because I genuinely didn't: I had not the slightest idea how I got there, so how could I know what I'd like to do now? The only thing I wanted was to ask where we were, but I couldn't bear to ask the question, because, as usual, I was embarrassed by my ignorance. So I stood in front of the old man, smiling, waiting for his next question. The old man asked if I'd like something to drink. This must be a dream, I thought, only in dreams do things like this happen, but if this is a dream, how could I have fallen asleep midstride, and if I really am asleep, then am I back there, still running? The old man was patient. Two or three times he rubbed his hands together, he coughed once, he scratched himself once, but he didn't rush me, just as he didn't prompt me to answer. Thank you, I said finally, a little water. The old man clapped his hands, and went back into the house. He closed the door and I heard him turn the key. A minute ago he was inviting me in, I thought, and now he is doing everything to make sure I don't follow him. So I stood there and waited for him and got more and more thirsty. The old man didn't reappear. I suddenly recalled the pump in the courtyard at Zmaj Jovina Street, and the thirst became unbearable. I went up the steps and knocked at the door. There was no sound, even when I leaned my ear against the peeling surface. I knocked again and pressed my ear even more closely to the door, and stayed there until my ear began to smart. I'll be going now, I said to the door, and stepped back. When I turned around, meaning to go down the stairs, I saw that I was in a city park. I sat down on a bench near a children's playground, a little dog sniffed the leg of my pants, two girls were making a sandcastle, a flock of pigeons waited at a safe distance, a woman on the next bench over was embroidering or crocheting, I was never sure which was which, and when I looked up, I saw blue sky and curly clouds. To this day I have not been able to figure out what really happened — had I run, or had I been sitting on that bench the whole time, and if so, how did I get there, and did it all happen because I, or at least something inside me, was truly Volf Enoch? But how could I have become Volf Enoch, and why me, of all people? Perhaps that was why I'd suddenly found myself caught up in these events, as Marko would say, though helpless to extricate myself from them. The universe is a weird place, said Marko, and there is so much stuff in it that makes no sense, which never bothers us except when the lack of sense comes crashing down on us. I had always felt this was empty talk fueled by cannabis smoke, but as it so happened I had personally experienced how emptiness can turn into fullness. I sat on the bench, wondering whether to approach the woman who was crocheting or embroidering and ask if she knew how I'd got there. Of course I didn't, but I could imagine how she'd have looked at me, and who knows, thinking I was attacking her, she might have brandished her crochet hook or embroidery needle, or whatever the device was that she was holding, as a weapon. So I sat there quietly, looking up from time to time at the clouds and waiting for my muscles to stop twitching. The little dog had by that time sniffed his fill of the fragrance in the cuffs of my pants and started sniffing other things in the vicinity. Volf Enoch, the water carrier, I repeated to myself, and tried to imagine what his work had been like back then. Did he have a barrel he filled with water, then lugged on his back from house to house? Where did he fill it? Did he receive a wage for his labors from the Zemun Jewish community, or did he charge by the water flask, bucket, or trough, depending on what he poured the water into? Later, of course, the leeches had their day, and when I remembered them I shivered. It was agonizing enough for me to be the person I was, and now I had to be a water carrier and a leech gatherer, too. That was not all, as it turned out. I stopped by the courtyard of the Belgrade synagogue on Saturday morning, hoping I would find Dača there and perhaps learn more about Volf Enoch. Dacca was indeed there: he was sitting at the table, under the tree, wearing the hat. For two days now, he said, he'd been waiting for me to get in touch, and had I not turned up that morning, he would have gone out looking for me. Where would he have looked for me, I asked, since he didn't know where I lived? He would have looked for me where he'd find me, he said. He raised the hat, wiped his brow, then lowered the hat onto his head. I sat on the other bench, right across from him. Crumbs were visible on the table, left there after a meal. The crowning success in the first Serbian uprising, said Dacca, was the taking of Belgrade, as any historian would agree, but history is always a mother to some and a stepmother to others, he said, and it was stepmother not only to the Ottomans, but also to the Jews, who were accused of having served the Ottomans, for which some were killed, others forcibly baptized, and some crossed over into Zemun. And now, said Dacca, there are documents in which a certain Solomon Enoch is mentioned as the person who brought the ransom for the group, mostly women and children, though in the registers at the time of the Jewish families of Zemun there is no mention of a single Enoch. There is, however, a Jakob Volf, a widower and trader in used goods, but he surely could not have played that role because it is said of Solomon Enoch in one place that he was very young, while this trader must have been older if he had had the time to marry and, regrettably, bury his spouse, who died young. So who is Solomon? asked Dača, taking his hat off and looking at me as if I knew the answer. I don't know, I said. Of course you don't, replied Dača, but we can believe in the possibility that it might have been Volf Enoch, or, h