from us, the middle-aged Black woman in the orange vinyl-upholstered chair, her eyes red and swollen, gripping a tissue that has been disintegrating for the last two hours into bits of dust that dot her pants and the floor beneath her. A Palestinian family—I hear the word —huddles in the corner; the women, keening with worry, pull their seats into a tight circle while two men pace around. Near the window overlooking the East River, three black-hatted Jewish men stand and sway, tiny leather Talmuds in hand, while the only woman among them, young and massively pregnant, sips C is a small windowless room across the hall. Three chairs, a table, a box of tissues, an abandoned, half-empty bottle of water, its neck ringed with fuchsia lipstick.
