I darted across the clay, frantic to get a racquet on that cross-court smash from Amanda Klarner. Ms. Smarty-Pants-Klarner couldn't possibly take the B'nai Brith Northside Senior's Tennis Championship from me after I'd held it for so many years! Suddenly, pounding across the clay surface, as heedless of the familiar twinges in my sixty-five-year-old joints now, as I had been swinging from that balcony in Israel this past summer, I felt myself stumble.

No, I thought. Not like this, not Fanny Zindel sprawled like an empty overcoat on the smooth clay while Ms. smarty-Pants-Klarner grinned and bowed to the crowd and accepted my trophy!

As I pitched forward, I batted at the ball with my last gasp. Unfortunately, I batted instead of trying to catch myself. I went down hard, bashing both knees and skidding on the heels of my hands, rolling onto my side as my new Donnay racquet went flying across the court in front of me. I had only one reaction. I looked for the ball.

It teetered on the top of the net. My side. . .her side. . .mine. . . . I couldn't even breathe, not for a million, unless maybe, breathing would push that ball over a bit. Moving like my Morris, he should rest in peace, on his way to get his bridge worked on, the ball dropped, at last, into Amanda's forecourt. Down the face of the net like a man in a barrel down Niagara Falls, and just as impossible to retrieve.

I felt tears in my eyes. From the pain in my arthritic knees, I can tell you, they weren't. The months of hard practice had paid off. "Game. Set. Match!" came over the loudspeaker. Yes!

The silence of several hundred people, each holding his breath, was broken with cheers, hoots, whistles. And all for me, Fanny Zindel, winner of the tennis trophy six times in a row. The ball girls rushed to help me up, ask if I was all right, but I was in no hurry to find out what I had scraped besides the frame of my Donnay Pro One and both my knees and palms which already burned like an oven being koshered!

As my hands gripped the trophy bowl, it's silver cool against my scraps, the director of the country club which was hosting our tournament pushed through the crowd and tugged at my elbow.

"Fanny! There's an emergency call for you. It's long distance."

"Long distance?" I nearly lost my grip on my trophy. Nobody pays those charges in the middle of the afternoon unless it's bad news, I thought. I shoved my trophy into my friend, Sadie's, waiting hands and hurried into the main building.

"Hello," I said, shakily, retrieving the receiver from the director's desk.

"Fanny Zindel?" It was a man's voice. I didn't recognize it.

My first thought was something had happened to Nathan. After all we had been through together in Israel, I had hoped his future assignments for Mossad would be less dangerous.

"Yes," I said.

"This is Joseph Bacha, Karin's husband."

Relieved I was, then he told me about Karin's health. "Her gallbladder?" I said. "So, when's the surgery?"

"That's the problem," Joe answered. "It's scheduled for Thursday, when Karin is supposed to be on a plane to England for the Clifford's Tower Memorial Service, in York."

"Such a shame. I know she was looking forward to being the delegate."

"Yes," he said, suddenly sounding as awkward as if he were asking for my daughter's hand in marriage. "We need you to be the replacement delegate" He rushed on before I could turn him down. "We really have no one else, Fanny. I know it's short notice, but you are the vice-president, and you mentioned you would be going to England again."

"Joe, I just got back from there. A few months ago, only. My own house I hardly know anymore, the Hanukkah things hardly put away, the Passover cleaning to be done, and the cats--"

"Fanny. We're desperate. You can have Karin's ticket, first class, if only you'll set her mind at ease. I know it doesn't get you to New York, but you were going to come for the national board meeting next month. If you come now instead, you won't have to come a second time. I'll even see to it that B'nai Brith contributes something toward your hotel bill in England."

Well, I thought, a trip back to see Susan and the famous Clifford's Tower Memorial for practically free, I could hardly turn down. On my budget, another trip like that I couldn't have afforded for two years, at least.

"It wouldn't do for Karin to go into surgery with worry on her mind, Fanny."

That did it. Guilt. I should have her life in my hands? Still, I could hardly believe my ears as I heard myself accept his offer. "I would love to go for her, Joe, but I have to see if Sadie could watch Susan's cats while I'm there. I can't just leave them to nosh on poor Mrs. Krepalski's canary."

I had been taking care of the little bird since my dear neighbor had started with the Alzheimer's and forgot her dear dead husband, the fact that she was ever married, and breakfast lunch and dinner for herself as well as the canary. Last summer she'd still been at home, but now she was in a full-care place, the Jewish Home for the Aged. So her children couldn't help it they all worked and lived too far away to look in enough.

Me, I did what I could, but if she fell, who could pick her up? A woman my size--a perfect ten just like when I used to model in Chicago--get Mrs. Krepalski, who was no size ten, I can tell you, up off the floor? Never. I realized Joe was shouting for joy in my ear.

"Oh, Fanny! Thank you, I was counting on your help.". He sounded less like Mr. Gloom and Doom now, even with his Karin practically on the gurney already. "When will you know for sure?"

"Hang on a minute, can you?" I set the phone on the glossy mahogany desk and went to the window. Through the Irish lace I could see Sadie still clutching my trophy and taking my bows as if she had dropped that shot into Amanda's forecourt herself. "Sadie!" I yelled, and leaning over the bright window boxes, waved my headband at her. "Come!".

As she trotted over, my trophy dangling from her hand, I shouted: "I need you to look after the animals, Sadie."

She looked curious, but she nodded and kept coming. "What's going on?" she shouted back.

I gestured for her to wait a moment and hurried back to the phone. "How long will I be gone, Joe?"

I ran to the window. "I need to be in York for about a week and a half."

She was so shocked she missed her step and almost tumbled into the hydrangeas. "Something's happened to Susan?" she shrieked, and began running and asking HaShem's help before she even knew. From shouting it all out the window, I didn't have the strength or desire. Sadie, always thinking the worst, I thought, and shook my head as I turned back to the phone and told Joe I'd see him in New York late the following afternoon. While he went on thanking me some more, I looked around the director's office until he ran down. Such blessings as he was calling down on me I wouldn't want to interrupt, just in case God, HaShem, was listening for a change.

Like a palace it was. Paintings. Knick-knacks of glass and china in fancy-shmancy cases with glass doors and locks! On one side was a wet bar with a solid brass sink and bottles, as many as the clubhouse restaurant I would have bet my Susa-le's favorite cat. And from cut crystal glasses? Enough to put a good chandelier to shame. Such a club we used for our tournament. Such a club some of our members belonged to! Me, I couldn't afford to have a glass of tea in their patio. So impressed I was, I almost missed Joe saying he had made a reservation for me to New York.

"Yes, I'll be sure to call and confirm the flight. Thank you for thinking ahead." I wondered if he had been so sure of my help, or if he had made a reservation because he knew he would find someone to take Karin's place no matter what.

I hardly had the phone back in its cradle when Sadie burst into the room. "So, what kind of trouble is Susan in this time?" Worried as she was she looked around at the office with her mouth hanging open like a door on a refrigerator when my son Marvin is around. A composer, sitting all the time at the piano and stuffing his face, he should be five-hundred pounds. Feh! Like a rail that one. Maybe that was the trouble with his marriage. His wife, Sharon, would have had to be in the kitchen twenty-four hours a day just to fix him noshes.

I gave Sadie my offended look, like Alfred Hitchcock announcing a commercial. My granddaughter may have left her boarding school for a summer holiday my Larry, her father, hadn't exactly approved, but she was a good girl and Sadie had no call to think the worst. Of course, later, I wished I had known an omen when it sank its teeth into my ankle.

"My Susa-le is not in any trouble!" I said, taking my trophy from her and buffing her fingerprints from the inscription with the hem of my tennis skirt. I should have recalled what a knack my granddaughter had, trouble was to Susa-le what dill was to a pickle.

As we walked back to the clubhouse where the celebration banquet was being held, I explained everything to Sadie. She was happy to watch the cats. Well, at least willing, she said, trying to look a little put upon. An actress Sadie wasn't. Didn't Charlie Dickens, Susan's favorite Himalayan, jump into her lap every time she sat down in my house? Of course. And that one knew who liked him. The same with the rest.

The banquet hall was almost full and we had to weave our way to our seats at the head table.

I looked around the Viewridge Country Club. Fancy-shmancy like the office, and everything done up like an old English estate. Soon, I would be seeing the real thing. And Susan. I felt my kishkes, insides, flop over with excitement. Travel my life had not been exactly filled with. Of, my Morris would take me to the Catskills every year or occasionally to one resort or another around the country, but outside the U. S. of A.? Not until last summer when I finally got my wish to see the Holy Land. Now, here I was, off again.

Shpilkes I had through the luncheon, so I couldn't sit still. I could hardly wait to get home, call my granddaughter, and pack. Winter clothes I would need; March in England is no place for tennis shorts and a tank top. But I would take my playing things. You never know when you might get invited to a match, and wasn't England the home of Wimbledon? At last the endless luncheon was over and I hurried Sadie through the crowd of well-wishers.

I had hardly set my trophy in its place of honor on my mantel when the phone rang.

"Mother Zindel?"

Oh, good. It was my daughter-in-law, her Royal Kvetchness. She thought maybe the cats answered the phone? Putting on my sweet mother-in-law voice, I answered, "Yes, Judy." She hates that name.

"You still keep a kosher kitchen, don't you, Mother Zindel?"

She should ask? A little less observant I might be now, because of my arthritis and since Morris was gone, but kosher I'd kept for sixty-five years, why would I change? "Yes, Judy, since before you were born," I said, trying to remain sweet, for Larry's sake. "Why?" As if I didn't know. Something there was she wanted I should make for her. God-forbid she should break her own nails.

"Well, Mother Zindel, I was thinking." That alone was an experience I'm sure she would find different, but she soon went on talking. "You know that noodle kugel you make so well. . ."

"You mean the same noodle kugel I made so well for your sisterhood last year, and the year before and the year before that? The one you told them you had slaved over for days?"

"I never exactly told them I made it, Mother Zindel. I merely said it was an old family recipe."

From my old family, I thought. In spite of all my years on the stage, I really had to fight to work some sympathy into my voice. "I'm sorry, Judith, I'm going back to England tomorrow. I'm afraid I won't have time to make you a kugel." I hung up.

The phone rang again almost immediately.

"Yes, Judith?"

"England? You can't afford another trip on your own."

"I'm going as the B'nai Brith delegate to the Clifford's Tower Memorial. The president's sending me in her place. I have to hurry and pack Judith, goodbye."

I hung up again, and this time when she called back, I didn't answer.

Later, I would phone her husband, my Larry, at his law office and tell him. Maybe he would want to send something along for Susan. My granddaughter I would call when the rates changed.

I carried on with my packing. Tomorrow, I would be in New York. The day after in old York. It seemed only yesterday that I was taking my granddaughter back to her school from our Israel tour. Tour? From tours like that one I never want to know. Guns, spies, fraud, blackmail and kidnapping, never mind murder. The only good thing was Nathan. And him I wasn't so sure of right off, I can tell you.

While I packed, I made a few notes so I shouldn't forget anything in my rush. I wanted to be sure and call my cousin, Doris, when I got to England. A country estate, she had now, up near Easingwold, an hour north of Susan's school. Tourists came from everywhere to see her gardens and her Henry the Second gothic chapel. Besides, Doris was widowed now, although she and her husband, Bernard, had been touring when I was there last. My sympathies I should offer. Close we were, and just a card doesn't do.

When my son Larry and his wife, Judith, had first decided to send Susan to a boarding school near York, it was Doris who sent them a list of good girl's schools. Of course, I had complained about the location at first. But my rabbi had assured me that the legendary Rabbis's curse on York and the threat of Harem, Hell, for Jews who went there, were only superstitions. I folded another sweater into my suitcase. How things change.

It's almost funny now, remembering how happy I was to be traveling to Clifford's Tower, with Rabbi Schecter's assurance that despite rumors, everything was safe. Feh! Safe my rabbi didn't know. From now on, if I want safe I'll stay home and crochet, feed the cats, maybe play a little tennis.

CHAPTER TWO

Such a deal, first class from New York to England. I remembered trading my first class ticket to Israel for a coach and never regretting the money I'd saved for shopping in the markets of Jerusalem's Old City, but for trading there had been no time on this trip. Lucky I was my flight to New York was on time.

Even so, it had been such a rush, with Joe handing me Karin's ticket practically as I was boarding the plane for England. From catching my breath, I can tell you, I didn't know. So first class gave me a little luxury and a lot of rest before I had to run for the connecting flight to Manchester. And would I need that rest. From the length of the check-in line here at the conference, I was going to need all my strength just for waiting. I dug a bagel out of my everything bag; it would keep up my energy. I chewed slowly, who knew how long my supplies would have to last?

The line inched. I sighed heavily but no one notices anymore, offers you a seat, nothing. When I was a girl, no one under the age of thirty would have sat while someone the age I am now stood. I looked down at my size seven pumps. Were my ankles a little puffy? I eased my heel out of the right shoe and stuffed it down again. Good. Tired, a little sore, but no problems.

Occasionally, I had to pamper my ankles, what with my arthritis. Crippled I didn't want to be with so much walking ahead. York was a city of walking. Such narrow streets who could drive? Yet there was always someone who tried and sent pedestrians scattering up onto the shop-front stoops to avoid being run down.

Suddenly, from up ahead somewhere, such a commotion. A geschrei like that you hear from a caged animal, but here at a religious conference? I raised up on my toes and cricked my neck trying to see. Looked like trouble, and for the only person who had been nice to me since I got to York.

I pressed through the crowd and touched the attractive blond lady's elbow. "You need some help, maybe? I could return your kindness."

She turned her head, tears starting down her cheeks. "Oh, Frances, isn't it?"

"Fanny," I said, patting her shoulder. "Fanny Zindel, you helped me find the check-in." I could see she remembered me. "If this man--I won't say gentleman--is bothering you, I can go for a policeman." I fixed the fellow with my best Charles Bronson glare. He backed off a bit. It surprised me, a gun you would need for this one, so mean he looked. Tall, with a suit that could have been a size bigger and still would have pulled at the buttons. Squinty eyes--I never liked squinty eyes in a man, or a woman either--so that I could hardly tell their color, and dishwater blond hair that waved and kinked thinly across his balding scalp.

"Police won't be necessary, Fanny. He'll leave now, won't you, Kenneth?"

"Janet, we have to talk. You're my wife. You can't do this to us." He was getting all upset again, I could tell from the way his fingers gripped the bowl of his pipe. The knuckles were white and the tips left sweaty smears against the dark wood.

I stepped between him and my new friend.

Janet hurried to explain. "We're divorced, Fanny. Kenneth has a hard time understanding that. We've been apart for almost two years. I never expected him to come to the conference and make a scene." She gave him a look. A pretty good imitation of Tipi Hedren backing down Sean Connery in Hitchcock's Marnie, if I did say so.

Kenneth shoved his pipe into a jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper which he flung at her. Then he turned away. "This isn't the end of it, Janet." He marched off into the crowd.

I patted Janet's shoulder as the clerk at the check-in stared and stuttered something about assigning her a roommate for the conference. I could see this upset her. "Look," I said. "You're going to need someone to help keep that lunatic away from you. Why not let me share with you? We'll get on fine, and I can help if that meshuge comes back." I whipped a knitting needle from my everything bag and poked it into the air, narrowly missing the desk clerk who jumped back. "Sorry," I said, and held the needle out to Janet. "A good thing to have a defense with someone like that running around loose. I can teach you how to use one. I've got a spare."

Janet burst into laughter and gave me a hug. "You are wonderful, Fanny. I'd be happy to share a room with you." She took my papers from me and handed them to the clerk, but refused my offer of a knitting needle. No matter, I knew I would get her to change her mind. I hadn't been taking that self-defense class at the park with Sadie for nothing. I had signed up as soon as I got back from Israel. Who would know travel could be so dangerous these days?

We collected our luggage and headed for our room. So many stairs and the lift was slower and older than I ever wanted to be. Janet insisted on carrying my heaviest bag for me. I took one of her small ones, and after huffing and puffing up two flights, I was reminded of a similar climb I had made in Tiberias to deliver the letter that got me in so much trouble.

"Oh, what a pleasant room!" Janet said, dropping the bags and throwing open the drapes.

"And so big," I added. It looked out onto a court, wonderful gardens, and across I could just see the spire of the famous York Minster. "Such a lovely view." I set my everything bag on the bed nearest the door.

"You take the one by the window, Fanny. You'll love waking up to that in the morning light."

"Thank you very much, but me, I've been here before. I have a granddaughter in school not far from here. You take the view."

Janet picked up my everything bag and plunked it firmly on the bed by the window. "I, too, have been in York, Fanny. And if you take the window, you and your knitting needle can defend me against Kenneth if he should take a romantic turn and decide to play a scene from Romeo and Juliet."

I looked at her. "You really think he might try something." I whipped out my needle and looked down into the gardens. When I turned back, Janet was crying softly. I hurried to comfort her.

"Janet, you should only calm down a little. We'll go to the police and alert the desk. He won't get near you, I promise."

"No. No police, Fanny. Please."

"All right. For now. But he gets violent and I don't keep my promise to you." I stared at her a moment before I filled the teakettle and plugged it in. She nodded and I knew we had a deal.

Setting out cups, I dug in my everything bag for my bagels and some of the jam containers I took from the plane. "What you need is something in your stomach," I said. "Then we can talk."

I found out, to my surprise, that Janet was a reverend from New Jersey. True we had female rabbis, but not many. Janet assured me that it was just as hard being a lady reverend as it was being a lady rabbi. The men, it seemed, controlled all the religions in the old way.

"My new synagogue, back home," I said, hoping to make her feel better, "is what they are calling 'egalitarian.' I can participate in my own religion just like the men always have. My Morris, he would be spinning in his grave, but me, I like it better this way. A second-class citizen of my own faith I always felt sitting off behind the mechitza, the barrier, for the women. Sometimes we would get to kiss the Torah, sometimes not, but always, we got it after the men."

Janet shook her head. "I know. Times change slowly. There are so many congregations who won't have a lady reverend, even today. I'm lucky, but still the older parishioners have gone elsewhere. It saddens me to see the families broken up like that. They should all be able to come to their own church. I feel quite guilty sometimes."

"So, such a strong lady you are, what is this business with your husband." I refilled her cup and nudged the bagels closer.

Janet took one with the raspberry jam. A good choice.

"Kenneth is Jewish. We had a reform rabbi perform an interfaith service. To make his parents less angry." She unfolded the paper Kenneth had hurled at her in the lobby. "Kenneth even had a ketubah, a marriage contract, done up by a private artist. It did no good.

"He was so angry at his parents, he even decided to convert for me. That really caused a commotion. Always I was the ruination of their baby boy. Finally, it caused a split."

I looked at the copy of the marriage contract he had tossed at her. "Why would he do this?"

"It's not the first time."

"If he doesn't want the divorce, someone should tell him not to throw the ketubah at his bride," I said, smiling. A little joke sometimes helps.

Janet did try to smile. Tough she was. With a husband like that, who could be soft? "I know, Fanny. But I guess Ken thinks that if the rabbi isn't present when he throws it, it isn't official."

"A gett, a divorce, you get with the Beth din, the group of rabbis, as witnesses. For a Jew, he doesn't sound like he knows too much."

"He knows, Fanny." Janet wiped her eyes and sniffed. "As a matter of fact, I studied a lot about Judaism when I was in seminary school. Kenneth was still teaching me things right up to the day I packed my bags. It was never enough for him that I wasn't willing to convert. I know, I see your face. You're going to say that interfaith marriages never have a chance. Well, maybe you're right."

"Me, pass a judgment. Judgments are for HaShem, but I can tell you, two devout faiths in one marriage don't usually work. You have children?"

Janet shook her head. "We wanted some, but until we settled the religious questions. . ."

"Very wise." I patted her hand. "So here, at the conference, maybe you'll find someone with your own beliefs."

Janet laughed. "I'm not looking, Fanny. There's no one out there for me anymore."

"Feh! You're a beautiful woman, smart, and most important, nice. Don't tell Fanny Zindel there's no one out there for you. I'll find him myself if I have to!"

I began unpacking some of my things. "I'm meeting my granddaughter, Susan, tomorrow for lunch. You'll come with me. And maybe one afternoon we can go to see my cousin Doris at her country estate. You like gardens, she's got gardens!"

"That's a nice idea, Fanny. Thank you. Is Susan coming into York?"

"No, she can't leave the grounds. I don't know what kind of a mess she got herself into, but knowing my pretty Susa-le, it's probably a boy. We'll take a cab out to Taddington."

"Taddington Agricultural Boarding School?"

"You know it?"

Janet hesitated a moment. "My sister opted for several semesters at Taddington while I went to school in Switzerland. It's built incorporating the ruins of an old abbey?"

"Yes. That's the one. There's still some old stone arches out behind the school buildings. Susan seems to like it there.

"Even the food isn't too bad, but I would rather be able to take Susan to one of the little bake shop coffee places in the old town. Of school food I'm sure she has enough." I picked up my purse and my everything bag. "I'm going down to get a newspaper, would you like to come along?"

Janet shook her head. "I'll just rest a bit, if you don't mind, Fanny, thanks."

"Right. Better you shouldn't take a chance of running into your crazy ex so soon again. You want I should get you anything?"

Janet shook her head and sat on the edge of her bed. As I closed the door behind me, I could hear her using the telephone. So, if she wanted a little privacy for a personal call, I could give it. She had only to ask me.

Downstairs, the lobby wasn't quite as crowded as it had been before, but there were still a lot of people walking in and out, clutching their conference packets and talking in small groups.

Like camp it seemed, only for grownups. So clear it came all of a sudden, Camp Herzl and eight of us squealing girls and Harvey. Harvey, a senior counselor, was to die for. Three of us, Rachel Green, Sharon Fefferman, and myself, all had such a crush. We all followed him everywhere, our knees melting, our tongues hanging out, chalishing, drooling we were, and Harvey ignoring. Until Rachel came back on a parents' day and brought him a cake she said she made.

Feh! A cake that nice Rachel still can't make, but it got her a real date with Harvey. Sharon and I weren't ever going to speak to her again. A week we lasted, until he threw poor Rachel over for a long-legged blond water skier who was really more his age.

I sighed and wondered what ever happened to Harvey and his skier. Did they ever marry? Were they the smiling grandparents of lots of little water-skiing grandchildren? Reunions they should have for camp like they have for high school, so you can find out.

I stepped around a clump of people in front of the phones and dug Susan's number out of my everything bag. As I dialed my Susa-le to let her know I was here safely, I wondered why Janet had used the phone in the room. Didn't she know they charged you an arm and a leg for the convenience? Made of money, she could have been for all I knew, but it wasn't from being a reverend, that I was sure. Of course a lot of people didn't know that it costs so much more from the room. I made up my mind to tell her. Maybe she had to watch her pennies.

After arranging to meet Susa-le at her school the next day, I wandered over to the small gift shop, where I got a paper and a box of chocolates, just in case my sweet tooth put in an appearance during the evening.

Peeking out into the cool night air, I decided I would take a walk before returning to the room. After all, last time I was visiting York with my granddaughter, I hadn't really explored the city much.

Going outside, I looked at my map and then hurried across the bridge and entered the cobblestone streets by the Micklegate. As I walked, I took the little tape recorder out of my everything bag and clapped the headset on. What would it be this evening, Israeli folksongs or the music of the Big Bands? Tommy Dorsey, I decided, and snapped the tape into the player. The sound of strings backed by an old fashioned orchestra swelled through the ear pieces. I hummed as I stepped along toward Bridge Street and the crossing for the Ouse River. St Michael Spurriergate loomed to my left. I jumped when it's bells started tolling the eight o'clock curfew. I thumbed my guidebook again.

A benefactor, it said, decreed the curfew to toll in honor of that bell guiding him into York from the forests of old when he was lost. Loud right next to it like that, I can tell you it was, enough to guide me all the way from the States.

The darker Nessgate Street caused me to remove my headset and turn off my music. I needed all my senses alert, no one was going to sneak up on Fanny Zindel in the gloom. I felt for my knitting needle. I was almost at the junction to Castlegate, the final leg of my pilgrimage to see Clifford's Tower with its dramatic evening lighting, when I heard shouting.

I hurried toward the noise, my knitting needle out of my bag and at the ready, in case someone needed help. As I rounded a corner, steel glinting in my hand, I caught words from the argument. A woman's voice was saying she didn't love the man. Realizing this was private and I was being a butinski, I turned to go back the way I had come, sheathing my needle in my bag.

Suddenly there was a thump, as if someone fell against something. I stopped cold and heard a sound like my mallet makes when I pound chicken breasts for schnitzel. A real slap it was. Then a shadow broke from the dark of the doorway and ran down the side street.

Calling out, "Are you all right?" I hurried toward the sound of sobbing. Before I could see more than a mop of blond hair, and an expensive coat with one sleeve ripped open at the armhole seam, the woman was up and running from me.

"Wait," I cried, "let me help you. Get you to a doctor."

I chased for a moment, but the woman didn't stop. If she could run like that, how bad could she be hurt? Since my heart was pounding worse than in the final set of my tennis match, only the day before yesterday, I decided she could do without my help.

At sixty-five, I should run like a gazelle, over cobblestones, maybe twist my ankle in the dark? Feh! For what? But still, I was uneasy as I walked back to the hotel.

Janet was sound asleep when I got to the room, so I spent some time soaking in the big claw-footed bathtub, and thinking about that fight I had seen, before getting into bed. I tossed and turned until late, hoping that with any luck I would be able to sleep in and recover from jet lag and my restlessness.

Sleep in I did, but not too late. Janet was up and asking me to have breakfast with her in the hotel restaurant. Leisurely, it was, and a good way to relax after all the rushing and get to know my roommate a bit better.

A nice surprise it was at breakfast when Janet told me she'd rented a car for our trip to the school. "After we visit with Susan," she said, "I thought we might tour a little. I'd love to see the town of Acaster Malbis where the evil Baron Malabestia plotted the 1190 massacre. After all, that's why we're here."

"That suits me just fine, Janet. Better than a taxi it will be, but can you drive on these roads? Everything right to left and back to front?"

Janet laughed and led the way to the parking lot. "I took my Masters degree in England, Fanny. I'm rusty, but driving on the left isn't such a big deal." She grinned at me. "Of course if your afraid to trust me. . ." She started the engine and looked out at me.

My roommate was beginning to know me already. Nothing like a challenge. "Fanny Zindel isn't someone who distrusts her friends," I said, smiling at her and winking to let her know I knew what she was up to. I got into the passenger's seat and we were off.

On the way, Janet asked me if I had spent much time at the school when I was here last.

"Oh, yes. It's a nice boarding school, as those things go. For me, I would have kept her in the States but my daughter-in-law, Judith, was determined to see that Susan had some polish.

"Feh! A veterinarian that one will be like her aunt, my daughter, Deborah. I know all the signs. So what does she need with so much polish? Sterling from plated she'll only know because of the decorations on her bridles in the tack room. Judith would have her telling her horse which leg he needs to use to eat his hay." I shook my head.

Janet laughed.

"Stop!" I said, as she turned down a pretty side road.

She slammed on the brakes. "What's the matter, Fanny?"

I jumped out of the car and sloshed through the dirty snow under the trees. "Here baby," I said, holding out my hand to the skinny black Labrador. It froze, then bolted away a step or two.

"It's okay, baby." Slowly, I reached into my everything bag and pulled out a bagel. "You need a little something," I said. "Every rib I can count on you."

The dog raised his ears and cocked his head to one side.

I tore off a piece of the bagel and threw it at his feet.

He jumped away, then came slowly back to sniff the food. He wolfed it down.

"More?"

He whined and came a step closer. I held out the rest of the bread, flat on my palm. He wouldn't come closer. He cried and danced around in the snow.

"Okay," I said. I set the bagel, complete with the tuna filling, on the ground and moved away.

The dog didn't even sniff this time. He dived in, grabbed the roll, and fled. I walked back to the car. I had done what I could.

"My God, Fanny, I thought something was wrong."

"Something is wrong when a dog stands by the road, starving and digging in the snow!"

"Fanny, he probably lives on one of the local farms."

"Lives, no. Starves, he does."

Janet sighed. "You're a bleeding heart, Fanny. It can get you in trouble."

I shrugged and we drove on. Since when was feeding the hungry a crime? I tried not to think less of Janet, telling myself that perhaps it was just all her worries with Kenneth that were hardening her heart.

Soon we were turning into the wrought iron gates at Taddington. My Susan was sitting out in front of the stately English Tudor home that served as the administration building. Across the grassy area to the left and right, newer structures built in the style of the original home served as classroom and dormitory buildings. The barn, farther away in a field with a large paddock attached and white fences bright against the green, was obviously part of the original estate. Not that it was shabby. Nothing at Taddington was shabby. Old, but kept up nice.

Glad I was, that Janet was driving, because I would have had a hard time keeping my eyes on the winding cobblestone drive and Susan at the same time. So tall she seemed. Had she grown so in just a few months, or was my grandmother's mind refusing to remember how tall she was now that she was turning seventeen? A joy it would be to celebrate her birthday with her on Friday. Especially if I could do something about her restriction to the grounds.

Susan ran to me before I was completely out of the car, nearly knocking me back into the seat with her hugs and kisses. "Faygele!" I cried, and embraced her. "You're not such a 'little bird' now are you? More like a beautiful swan!" I held her away from me to look at her while she blushed at my compliments and then stared at my new friend.

"Oh, Janet Percy, this is my granddaughter, Susan Zindel. Susan, I met Janet at the conference and we're roommates at the York Hotel."

After making all the right noises, Susan insisted that we come to the barn and see her favorite horse. Alexander, she said, was almost her very own horse here at school, and one of the main reasons she wanted to be at Taddington. A beautiful thoroughbred he was, tall and sleek, his gray coat shining even in the dim light of the barn. Such a good smell, horses, hay and leather. I breathed it in and smiled. Then I sneezed as the dust got to me.

Susan grinned. "I love it too, Bubbe." She twitched her nose and inhaled deeply. "I could live in here."

"If I know my granddaughter," I said to Janet, who was being a good sport about it all, "she probably does." Susan leaped up onto the sleek back and trotted Alexander out the barn door into the paddock. Without any tack but a halter, Susan put the big horse thought his paces for us while we looked on, amazed.

At last, she jumped down and put Alexander back in his stall, shoving a carrot into his eager mouth before leaving to take us on a tour of her room at the dorm. Then Susan led us into the refectory for lunch.

A big hall it was, with tapestries on the walls and a dozen different family crests displayed with crossed swords or spears. So warlike, it nearly took my appetite to think of what those symbols really meant.

I was hardly in my seat when Susan nearly gave me a heart attack.

"Oh, guess what Bubbe, Nathan will be here sometime later today."

"My Nathan?" I clutched my chest. "What would my Nathan be doing here?"

"Well, when I spoke to him on the phone, I happened to mention that you would be coming over for the Memorial service and he. . ."

"Faygele! Just who called who?" I gave her my Columbo stare.

Susan laughed, "Oh, Bubbe, Nathan called me." She paused. There was a Zindel twinkle in her eyes. "After I left a message for him."

"A shochetkin, a regular little matchmaker, she is," I said to Janet, and shook my head. Janet was smiling into her napkin.

I had only started explaining to her about Nathan, the adventure in Israel, and the offer from Mossad, when Susan put a finger to her lips. So quiet it got all of a sudden that the whole room would have heard me if I'd whispered. I looked up to see a stern-faced man in black broadcloth stride to the front and stand behind the heavy dark oak podium..

Susan's headmistress, Miss Gwendolyn Kentworth, who had been so gracious about Susan's and my delay in Israel last summer, introduced him as the Reverend Malbys who would lead grace.

We bowed our heads, but I was to get a crick in my neck before that man said amen. He managed to work in everything from the birth of Christ to the present day Middle East crisis, not to mention comments about the memorial and the 1190 massacre before he wound down. Like a river he was, running on and on until all the hot food got cold and the cold food warmed up.

I was watching my iced tea glass lose the last of its frosty coat when he finally called a halt. The room echoed with grateful amens and forks went to work.

"Isn't he something, Bubbe?" Susan whispered, and made a face. "We have to tolerate him every weekend and all special occasions." She passed me a covered basket of rolls.

As I suspected, cold. I took two anyway. I'd put them in my everything bag, just in case I should need a little something to settle my stomach from the winding roads later on. Maybe I'd leave one for the little black dog on the way home. "Yes, Faygele, he is something, but I don't quite know what."

She giggled, then fell silent as the headmistress came up with a handsome young man.

"Mrs. Zindel, may I introduce Mr. Hamilton Craig, our Latin professor. He also teaches a course in the classics and tutors the girls in English when they fall behind. We can't have our girls getting so horsey that they muddle their more academic studies, can we?" She gave me a grin much like those horses she spoke of, unfortunate teeth, but I guess maybe the National Health doesn't do orthodontia.

Mr. Hamilton Craig took my hand and bent low over it. I never trusted hand-kissers much, too stuffy. But a nice smile he had--for a hand kisser. "My pleasure, Mrs. Zindel. I see Susan gets her budding beauty from the parent rose."

"Thank you, Mr. Craig. I'm sure the girls are learning a lot from you." He got a smile out of me, but pretty words were not exactly an expense. I hoped he didn't try to charm all these young girls by spending his manners on them. My Susan, I could

tell, liked him, but a schoolgirl crush on this one? I hoped not. To tell the truth I was glad to see them move on. Miss Kentworth continued around the dining hall.

Susan jumped up and hurried over to another nice- looking hunk of a man. She began leading him toward our table. A large woman in a severe tweed suit followed closely behind him.

"Bubbe, I'd like you to meet my history professor, Myron Glassenberg, and Ms. Westenbury, who is our games mistress."

We all shook hands and said our hellos, Ms. Westenbury having, by far, the firmest grip.

"Professor Glassenberg has arranged our field trip to the opening ceremonies of the memorial."

"How nice," I said, beaming at the young man, wondering if he was married and who I could fix him up with. Too old he certainly was for any of these girls, but maybe Sadie's oldest, the one who's husband just took a hike, the momzer. Such a bastard to betray a loving wife and mother like Rochelle.

I saw Susan looking at me as if she knew what I was thinking. "His finance is going to help chaperone us at the ceremonies."

I sighed. You win some, you lose some. Susan giggled. She knew me too well.

"I understand you're here as the B'nai Brith representative from the States, Mrs. Zindel. I'm impressed, and Susan must be very proud."

"I am," Susan said, hugging me. "And you should see her tennis trophies. Six times now she's won the West Coast Seniors Tournament."

Ms. Westenbury grinned like the famous Cheshire Cat and stuck out her formidable grip again. "A woman after my own heart. Well, done."

My arm I could hardly get her to stop pumping. "Is tennis your game also, Ms. Westenbury?" I asked, smiling and pulling my hand away to save it, my lunch I would be needing it to eat yet.

"Call me Millicent. Yes," she said, drawing back her arm, and executing a powerful forehand stroke that threatened to take my water glass off the table. "Maybe we can play a set or two while you're visiting."

I smiled politely, glad that the rest of the food was coming around. I gave Ms. Westenbury the number at my hotel, and excusing ourselves we turned out attention to the meal..

Before we had finished our salads, another gentleman tapped Susan on the shoulder. I looked up. Tall he was and nicely built, long-waisted and longer-legged, with a neatly trimmed red beard and a Scottish brogue. He introduced himself as Susan's mathematics instructor.

"So nice to meet you, Mr. MacMurray. I hope you're not going to tell me all about how much my Susan dislikes your courses."

"No, actually, she does quite well. It's no love I've been able to foster for the subject in her highly resistant heart, but I have m' hopes up. We Scots are a stubborn lot." He grinned and patted Susan's shoulder. "I hurried over here because I couldn't believe that such an attractive and youthful woman could be Susan's grandmother."

I nodded my acceptance of his compliment, but shook my finger at him. "And I thought the Irish were supposed to have all the blarney, Mr. MacMurray."

He laughed, a hearty happy sound as he held a match to the bowl of a handsome Meerschaum. How my Morris would have envied him that pipe. A Sherlock Holmes style was the only lack in my late husband's collection. Unfortunately, he had died before the Hanukkah I had planned to give it to him. Now, Morris's entire collection belonged to my nephew, Raymond.

"Actually, I believe a smooth tongue to be a Gaelic trait in general, Mrs. Zindel." He excused himself to talk with some of the other visitors.

I took a deep breath of the aromatic tobacco Mr. MacMurray was smoking. What memories. "Such a nice looking man," I said.

"Aren't they all just hunks, Bubbe?" Susan had a dreamy smile on her face.

"Yes," I said, "they are. Older hunks."

Susan made a face at me and started on the main course. "I just had fish yesterday, Bubbe. Don't be upset."

"Upset? Me? Maybe when you're older you'll change your mind about kosher. For now, you live your life."

Nice it looked, the meatloaf, but obviously not kosher. I had the salmon, so fresh, I wondered if Mr. MacMurray caught it on a recent trip home.

I was about to ask Susan why she couldn't get time off to tour with me, when I saw her giving such a look as I wouldn't have turned on my worst enemy.

Curious, I glanced behind me. All I could see was Miss Kentworth leaning forward over a gorgeous young lady at the end of the next table. The girl stood up. A figure she had, it should never be owned by one so young. I looked back at my Susan.

Before I could ask her what was wrong, the pretty blond hurried from the room. She met a young man by the refectory door and as she bent her head to talk with him, her thick hair fell over one eye, like a young Veronica Lake. Maybe that's why the girl looked familiar, so many old movies the cats and I had watched since I got that American Movie Channel on cable at home.

There was a scraping clatter and a piece of Susan's meatloaf shot across her plate and onto the table cloth. Some gravy spattered into my lap. "Susa-le!" I said, mopping at the stain with my napkin. "Your manners that one took when she left the room, maybe?"

Susan blushed, hung her head. "I'm sorry, Bubbe." She dipped a corner of her own napkin into her water glass and helped me with the gravy spot. Suddenly tears were rolling down her cheeks. I hugged her and the dam burst.

"You want to take a little walk with me, maybe?"

Susan sniffled and pulled herself together. "Later, Bubbe. Mary Louise just makes me so mad."

Hurt I knew she was, but I also knew better than to keep after her, a nudzh, I wouldn't be to my own granddaughter. I chatted pleasantly with Janet until the lunch was over, but one eye I kept on my Suse-le.

We were almost out the door of the refectory, when Mr. Craig offered to show Janet and I around the grounds. "You go, Janet," I said. "I want to visit with Susan until her class starts." Besides, I thought, Mr. Craig did not really look too young for Janet. Maybe he could help her forget that nastiness with her ex.

Alone in Susan's room, I insisted she explain her actions at lunch. "It's not like you to have such a temper, Faygele. With such short notice, I didn't pack enough skirts for you to spill on out of anger."

Susan didn't look at me but stared across the narrow space between her bed and the armoire. "I'm really sorry, Bubbe, but that spoiled little prig just makes my blood boil. She's practically failing all her subjects and she got called out of lunch to work with Joshua."

"The boy who met her at the door?"

"No! That's the groom. Joshua is a horse. A hunter-jumper I've been taking care of since he hurt his leg. Now they call in Mary Louise who couldn't put a Band-Aid on a cut without screwing up!" Susan jumped up and paced. So cramped it was I had to pick my feet up so she could pass.

"So, maybe they think she needs the practice?"

"She sure needs something. She had to cheat to pass her last two math tests."

"So, it's skin off your nose if she's not getting the education her parents are paying for?" I patted her shoulder. "What are you really so mad about?" I lifted my feet again so she shouldn't step on my pumps.

Susan whirled around with such a look I wouldn't have recognized my own granddaughter. "That bitch got me gated!"

"Gated?"

"You know, Bubbe, restricted. That's why I can't tour with you. She reported me to Miss Kentworth. My grades are all As. I could have had time off with you but for that little whore."

I flinched at the term. "And what were you doing that she should report you?"

"Geoffrey and I were just kissing goodbye near the entrance way--"

"Must have been some kiss," I interrupted.

"Well. . ." Susan blushed. "You'd like him a lot, Bubbe. Really."

"What I'd like is for you not to be caught necking by your headmistress."

"I wasn't necking! It was just one kiss. But the boys aren't allowed on the grounds during the week."

"He snuck in? This I should like him for?"

"No. You should like him because he's the first boy I've gotten close to since Israel!" Her eyes were dark with hurt and I felt ashamed for pushing her about this.

She was right. I should have been happy to have her back to normal where boys were concerned. "You're therapist approves?"

She nodded. "Geoff was nice enough to come to meet Doctor Schneider without making me feel like a complete fool. You don't know what that means over here." She looked a bit frantic.

I shrugged. "It's such a big deal to meet your doctor and learn a little bit about a girl he's supposed to care for?" This didn't sound like such a hot prospect to me.

"Bubbe! People over here frown on psychiatry. It isn't like home."

I gave her a look. "For heaven's sake, Susan. Home everyone and his dog has a shrink. Even I know the English don't rush their pets to a doggy psychiatrist with once-a-week regularity."

"Bubbe, over here, people don't go with once-a-week regularity. It was a big thing for Geoff. I think he's sweet."

She looked angry. I decided I'd better change the topic. "So, what was he doing sneaking into a girl's school?"

"It was just for a minute, Bubbe. He wanted to give me something." She went to her drawer and took out a pretty filigree Star of David on a thin gold chain. "His parents brought it back from Israel for my birthday."

I nodded. "But your birthday isn't until Friday."

"He won't be here then." She looked stricken. "His parents are picking him up at noon Friday after half-day session and they'll be in London for the whole weekend."

My granddaughter's emotions were loosening her grip on the facts. I gave her a little nudge back toward the real world. "So, you two did something wrong and you got caught, and now you're paying for it. This is something to get so mad at someone else for and call her ugly names?" I held up my hand so she shouldn't interrupt me. "True, she shouldn't go telling tales, but you did break the school rules. That's no one's fault but your own."

"It isn't just that, Gram. Mary Louise Malbys gets away with murder and it's not just because her father's the Vicar. Maybe I was kissing Geoffrey, but she does a lot worse. I didn't just call her a whore. She is one. She sleeps around, Bubbe."

"Susa-le! What a thing to say. Do I have to remind you about Lashon Hora? You know the spreading of gossip about another is against our religion." I was shocked at her behavior.

"It's not gossip when it's the truth!"

"You have proof of what someone does in private? You bug her room, maybe?"

Susan sighed and sank down on the edge of her bed. "Oh. Bubbe! It's not just boys she plays around with. It's anything in pants! And the Vicar doesn't have the kind of money she spends."

"You're sure that isn't maybe your grudge talking. Susa-le? A little jealousy?"

"You don't understand." Susan turned her back on me. Me, her grandmother. After all we had been through just a short time ago in Israel? This wasn't like my Susan.

"I do. But we'll talk about something else so I can have a nice memory of this trip, all right?"

"All right, Bubbe," she said with a sigh. "We do get to go to the opening service at Clifford's Tower on Thursday morning It's for history class. Maybe we can meet before that."

There was a knock at the door. It was Janet, back from her tour. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she said, looking from Susan to me and back again.

"No," I said quickly, to cover the awkward moment. "Susan was just saying that she wants to meet us for the opening services, maybe a little breakfast beforehand."

"Oh, good."

"And tomorrow I have a half-day off, Bubbe. Would you and Miss Percy like to go riding with me? I'm sure I can get permission to use extra horses."

Janet smiled. "What a lovely offer. But I don't ride, Susan."

"So, neither do I," I said, hoping to encourage her. "So we'll all have an adventure. It'll be fun, and we have Miss Expert Horsewoman here to help us." I waved at my Susa-le.

Janet shook her head. "Sorry, it's not my idea of adventure anymore. Not since I took a fall and didn't get right back on. You go with your granddaughter, though."

I shrugged. "So, maybe I'll do it. Years it's been since I rode in the park with your grandfather, he should only rest in peace, but maybe it will come back to me. You'll get a tame one, yes?"

Susan laughed and hugged me. "Yes, Bubbe, a tame one."

"Good. What time should I be here?"

"About six?" She looked at me.

"The horses are awake so early?"

It was good to hear my Susan laugh. "You always told me you were a morning person, Bubbe."

"I am. I just want to make sure the horse is a morning person as well. One of us should have his eyes open when we ride. Mine I'll have closed from fright."

"I'm sure you'll do splendidly, Fanny," Janet said.

That wasn't what I would have called it. Splendid I knew my first time back on a horse wouldn't be. It wasn't until after our outing that I knew what a disaster a simple picnic could become.

©