But there is no Messiah of Sitka. Landsman has no home, no future, no fate but Bin. The land that he and she were promised was bounded only by the fringes of their wedding canopy, by the dog-eared corners of their cards of membership in an international fraternity whose members carry their patrimony in a tote bag, their world on the tip of the tongue.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union