DC By the Book

Excerpt: They walked down Newark in the darkness, took a right at the Cleveland Park branch of the public library. Silently, more like sleepwalkers than Mossad agents, they padded down Connecticut, over the Klingle Valley Bridge (which Jakob was incapable of crossing without imagining jumping), past the Kennedy-Warren apartments.

Excerpt: They were awake, but it was a dream. They came to the verdigris lion and the large concrete letters: zoo. Tamir had been right: nothing could have been easier than hopping the waist-high concrete barrier. It was so easy as to feel like a trap. Jacob would have been happy enough to cross the border, make the transgression official, and turn right back around, newly acquired trespassing badge in trembling hand. But Tamir wasn't content with the story.

Excerpt: To make up for the crappy lunch they went to Armand's that evening for "the best Chicago pizza in D.C.," then had sundaes at Swenson's, then watched a dull action movie at the Uptown, just to experience the awe of a screen so big it felt like the opposite of being buried, and maybe even the opposite of dying.

Excerpt: We whispered wishes to the elephant at the zoo (an old birthday ritual, origin unknown), collected leaves in Rock Creek Park for pressing into the Book of Years (another ritual), ate lunch at one of the outside tables of her favorite Greek restaurant in Dupont Circle. We went to the Phillips Collection, where Sam and Max feigned interest so earnestly and poorly, Julia was moved to tell them, "I know you love me. It's OK to be bored."

Excerpt: Jacob and Max got McNuggets for themselves, too. They almost never ate meat in the house -- again, Julia's decision -- and fast food ranked just below cannibalism on the list of things not to be done. Neither Jacob nor Max missed McNuggets, but sharing something Julia disapproved of was a bonding experience. They pulled over at Fort Reno Park and made an impromptu picnic.

Excerpt: So the Bar Mitzvah would be at the synagogue they would pay twenty-five hundred dollars per visit to be members of, and officiated by the hip young rabbi who wasn't, by any reasonable definition, hip, young, or a rabbi. The party would be at the Hilton where Reagan was this close to be being put out of our misery, and where Julia and Sam were representing Micronesia. The band would be capable of playing a good horah and good rock. Of course, such a band has never existed in the history of live music, but Jacob knew that at a certain point you just crunch the capsule you've been hiding in your cheek and hope not to feel too much.

Excerpt: When he and Deborah didn't read the books they were staring at in the waiting room of George Washington hospital, and Jacob almost pushed the doors off the hinges, his face covered in tears, his scrubs covered in blood, and did his best to form the words "You have a grandson," Irv closed his eyes, but not to darkness, and said a prayer to no one without any content, only force.

Excerpt: There is an eruv in nearly every Jewish community in the world. "In D.C.?" "Of course." "I've never seen it." "You've never looked for it." She took him to the intersection of Reno and Davenport, where the eruv turned a corner and was most easy to see. There it was, like dental floss. They followed it down Davenport to Linnean, and Brandywine, and Broad Branch. They walked beneath the string as it ran from street sign to lamppost to power pole to telephone pole.