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Show 250 less worrisome than this, of giggling in a high voice. A convert himself, Zaret tended to sit by reflectively while his companion did most of the talking, as though trying to remember at which point in which discussion he had himself turned the corner and could he have held out longer. Brother Oakley was next. He had a long reach, and placed his hands just to the left of the branch president's hands on her forehead. Sorenson, who was the shortest, had to kneel on the bed to reach across Oakley's and the branch president's hands and place his own hands on her hair to the left of the part. There was no longer an unoccupied quadrant of her head. Lorin and Elder Burton looked at each other across the bed. "Go ahead," said Burton. "No, no, go ahead," said Lorin. Burton climbed onto the bed, tilting against Oakley, and laid his hands gingerly across Oakley's and the branch president's, and Lorin, after wiping his palms against the sleeves of his jacket, placed them across Burton's, the heels of his hands resting clear, however, over her eyes. He was able to keep his balance with only one knee on the bed. "I don't need anything," she said. Her voice was whiny. There was the barest hint of an ugly slyness at the corners of her mouth, and she was in obvious discomfort at the hands placed on her head. She squirmed once under the quilt as the branch president cleared his throat. Lorin felt the sweat drip down the leg of his pants as the branch president began the blessing. The very phrase "We the Elders of Israel"- though spoken by a small man in a rumpled suit without a tie-savored of mysterious ancient powers to bless and curse. It hooked the present into a dim chromatic past filled with bearded men in tents, and brassy cities on the desert through whose streets roamed harlots and lepers. He imagined stone passageways and labyrinthine staircases leading to veiled rooms with |