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don’t like it, but actually you’re the first one to notice.” He was a living embodiment of Israel itself—its violent machismo, its shy longing for general approval. While he spoke he tried desperately to remember everything he knew about the Shetland Islands. Ponies, that was it. Extremely small ponies. But how small? He punched a quick query into the web browser he wore on his wrist, disguised as a wristwatch, and came up with a world record height, fully grown, at the shoulder, of three hands one inch—that is to say, thirty-two centimeters. How could such tiny animals work in coal pits? What brute would expect something like that to pull a wagon loaded with slag or ore or whatever it is they have in mines, or even a very small cart with just oranges, or even eggs? His heart filled with pity, and as Mary looked up, she saw his look of tender sorrow and realized that they would definitely sleep together at some point, probably very soon, assuming he wasn’t with somebody. She took a look around.
    â€œDid you ever see The Secret of Roan Inish ?” she asked. “That’s a really great movie, about islands in Ireland where they believe some women are actually silkies, these seals that put away their skins for a while and take on human form.”
    â€œAre you one?” the spy asked. His name, as you may have guessed, was Avner Shats. No, really it was Yigal.
    â€œActually I’m one of those mermaid people, and every step I take is like walking on sharp knives. Maybe I should lie down.” She led him to her room upstairs. As she turned off the light he noticed a large, furry, damp skin hanging over the back of a chair.
    Yigal had trouble sleeping that night. He was worried about the turn his spy operation would soon take. He got up to inspect the sealskin. It smelled musky and the inside was thick with cold, gelatinous fat. His operation called for the utmost in discretion and daring. He had to locate the heir to the Israeli throne and kill him.
    The next night, as they lay oblivious in a booth near Schaffhausen, a Trident missile had fallen through my coffee table, shuffling a few papers, and detonated in Yigal’s office. The significance of this was not immediately clear, but was widespread and started a sort of chain reaction, complicating Yigal’s life in ways he could not have anticipated. For one, he had kept his insurance policies in his desk—not a bright idea. But the complications were slow in emerging, and had little effect on his state of mind as he lay dozing on the slippery concrete next to a beautifully ordinary-looking Shetland girl.
    â€œOrdinary looking” in romantic fiction of this kind denotes a certain understated classic beauty. Mary’s flaw was her hair, which was on the frizzy side and what they call “dishwater blond.” Her skin was slightly yellow so that the red spots shegot when running around outside in cold weather made her look better instead of worse, and she had stubby fingers. But none of that really mattered anyway, since she was really a silkie, and had quietly shipped her sealskin ahead to London by way of the concierge.

CHAPTER 2
    IF THERE IS AN HEIR TO THE ISRAELI throne, it follows that he must be located where all other such long-lost items are located: the Great Library of Alexandria.
    There is a certain sort of drunk who, once loaded on martinis, begins to reminisce about the Great Library. “Of all the works of Euripides, we have only those beginning with the letters A and B, ” the drunk says, a long ash from his cigarette falling to his right knee. With the heel of his hand, unconsciously, as from long habit, he rubs the ash into his pants. When I was an undergraduate, these drunks were already in their fifties, and unless well-fed and cared for by long-suffering wives, they were not destined to live much longer.
    In the late 1970s a younger generation of drunks, heavily influenced by a book