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turn, because I had no desire whatsoever to see A. Taugwalder again any time soon.
    “That damned girl. I told her, you know? I told her she could have her say, but then she had to back off so I could explain things to you. But she’s headstrong and so used to getting her way. Are you all right, Scott?”
    “No.”
    “Too bad. Where was I? At the beginning. OK. I was born in McPherson, Kansas. My father owned a hardware store, and our whole family worked there. One day, when I was behind the counter, a man I’d never seen before came in and asked for a pair of pliers. We got to talking, and he told me his name was Gilbert, Nolan Gilbert. I was fifteen years old. Do you know anything about the mystic Jewish?”
    “You mean Jewish mystics?”
    “Right, that’s them.”
    “Well, something. I’ve read—”
    “They came closest. Ever heard of the Lamed Wufniks!”
    “Beenie, what are you talking about?”
    “These mystics believed in Lamed Wufniks. Thirty-six righteous men whose job is to justify the world to God. Or, looking at it another way, they’re supposed to explain to God why man has a right to be here. Now, if one of these thirty-six ever discovered who he was, he immediately died, and somebody else, in another part of the world, took his place. Because, you see, even though they don’t know it, they’re the secret pillars of the universe. Saviours. Without them doing this justifying, God would get rid of the whole bunch of mankind.”
    “Wup—”
    “ Wuf. Lamed Wufniks. Which is not so far from wrong. The big difference is, we don’t do any justifying, because we are God.”
    “ You’re a ‘Wufnik’?”
    “No, I’m God. Or one thirty-sixth of Him. They got the number right.”
    A bird flew in over the water and out again. I looked at Beenie, the ground, Beenie, the ground. What was I supposed to say?
    “You don’t believe me. And what about Annette? You need more miracles? I can give them if it’ll help, but I thought she’d be enough. You’re a tough audience, Professor Silver. Here.” With her left hand, she pulled a silver dollar from behind my neck. With her right, she held something up. In her palm was one of those plastic, dome-shaped doodads you shake up, and fake snow flutters and falls over a scene like Paris or the North Pole. Only, in this one, real-life tiny people were sitting on a bench, moving—and after staring, I realized it was us in there, doing what we out here were doing, move for move.
    “For God’s sake, stop it!”
    “OK.” She closed her hand around the snowy dome, and it disappeared.
    I half stood. “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?”
    She pulled me down again. “Just sit back and listen to the rest of my story. I was fifteen when I met Nolan Gilbert. He was about seventy. First he told me, then showed me, who he was, like I’m doing with you. Then he said he was dying, and I was supposed to replace him.
    “That’s how it works, see. You live your life normally, even after you know. But like everybody else—and you are like everybody else, Scott; you got to know that. Sooner or later, our time to die comes, too. A normal lifetime—sixty or seventy years, usually. But the difference is, when our time comes, we have to find a replacement. Some are luckier than others—they know who it is that they want years before they die. Like me with you.”
    “You knew me before?”
    “Sure. I’ve been cleaning your room at the university for years, but you never really saw me, because I worked the night-shift. Sometimes we’d pass each other in the hall if you worked late.”
    “You’re telling me God is man?”
    “No, no, no! I am not saying that at all. Man has God in him, but he’s not God! No, the absolute simplest way to put it is this: man is man, but there are thirty-six chosen men who, together, are God. That’s why normal people feel close to Him—because He’s them in many ways. Nolan told me about the Greeks. You know about