He met her in acting school, one of those makeshift studios run by Broadway directors when they're between shows. Cesar went to class three nights and on weekends moved scenery for productions of Strindberg and Ionesco. He had no talent and disliked modern plays. But he was lonely, and at the studio there were girls like Jennifer.

Jennifer was set on becoming an actress, just as she had been set on becoming an archaeologist when she was at Vassar. She could indeed act but it was really her nerves, taken for spirit, and her Katherine Hepburn accent that won her roles more talented girls were denied.

One night she and Cesar were told to improvise a couple on their honeymoon. Cesar skipped the dialogue and began behaving like a klutzy Valentino. Jennifer reacted with playful slaps and laughter, jumping back and forth across the wooden plank supposed to be their bed. Until then she had scarcely noticed his bovine gaze in the wings. He had walked her to the subway once and kissed her hand, which pleased and amused her. But that was all.

Suddenly he knelt down, lifted the hem of her dress and kissed her foot. Jennifer turned bright red.

"What are you doing?"

"Worshipping you."

That was how they began. Cesar, who stood five-five and looked more Indian than Spanish, was fresh out of St. Johns and living in a tenement on East Tenth Street. Jennifer roomed in Flatbush and worked for a publishing house. She had no objection to bedding down with Cesar. She even alluded to previous "relationships" to assure him she was not a virgin. But it was precisely the virginal in her, the skittish Rhine Maiden, that kept him on her trail.

The night it happened looked like just another date until she ordered her third whiskey sour. He knew for sure something was afoot when she took his arm and squeezed it on their way out of the bar. By the time they reached his place there was no question of her taking the subway back to Brooklyn. Climbing the long dark staircase ahead of her, he felt a twinge of conscience. It came back after they had made love.

"Was it alright?" she asked, her arms wrapped tight around his chest.

"Sure."

He waited for her to say something else. But she only sighed and buried her chin in his ribs.

Soon she was staying over regularly, not just to make love but to talk, an intimacy they found even more urgent. They talked till all hours, sometimes till dawn, when they agreed, after once more making love, to get an hour's sleep. They were philosophical, anecdotal and sentimental, but they were never at a loss for words. Even their love-making, which grew more and more intense, was grist for the mill.

It was all new for Cesar. He had made love before. He had also dated some bright girls, mostly Catholic college girls with whom he had spent entire semesters, talking. But Jennifer was different. Lying beside her, her head nestled on his chest, he realized he could not, if he had to, decide if he would rather talk to her or make love to her.

One night she whispered, "I'm a pagan, you know."

"A what?"

"A pagan," she said, this time with a touch of defiance.

"Don't be silly. There are no pagans in this part of the world."

"But I am. I was never baptized. Isn't that what a pagan is?"

Cesar frowned at a patch of streetlight on the ceiling. Pagans were babies Catholic school children ransomed with pennies saved from their candy money.

"You must have been brought up in some faith."

"No. None," she said, her chin in her hand, her elbow digging painfully into his ribs. "My parents are atheists. At least, they _were_ until Mother started seeing a Jesuit priest in Boston a few years ago. She's a convert--is that the word? I'm an Emanologist."

"A what?"

"I belong to the Church of Emanology. You must have seen our posters in the subway. Emanalogy teaches you how to understand yourself and find spiritual fulfillment. I'm studying for my second degree. Next year I'll be made an Emanating Operative."

"When do you find time?"

"Sundays," she said. "We all study together. You ought to come."

Cesar liked to think of himself as religious but in an Old World way: He may not choose to obey the rules, but that didn't mean he quarreled with the dogma. In fact, his sins only reassured him that it was for sinners like himself that religion, _real_ religion existed.

He suspected that a phase of their relationship was ending.

"How can you believe in anything as simple-minded as Emanology?" he demanded a few days later. "How can someone with a brain like yours not see through such nonsense?"

"What do you mean, nonsense?" she replied, pulling the sheet over her breasts. Their love-making had fallen off since her declaration of faith. "You worship plaster saints and think a dead man's body is in a little piece of bread. And you call Emanalogy nonsense?"

"Don't compare claptrap with real religion."

"You don't know the first thing about the Church of Emanology."

"I don't care to."

"Then, how can you pretend to have an open mind?" She turned to face him. "Why, you're just as narrow-minded as my parents or anyone else. You're just a mouthpiece for the same old horseshit."

He flinched at her vulgarity but refused to let it show, even in the dark.

"Christianity is not...that word you said. And I'm sorry if I have failed to live up to your expectations."

His profile was rigid, his breathing rapid. She pressed herself to his thick chest and kissed him.

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I'm not hurt," he said.

For a while they avoided the subject. That Sunday, and the one after, Jennifer slipped off to her meeting without saying a word. While she was gone Cesar read mysteries and South American verse. But he kept seeing Jennifer in the arms of the suave San Francisco detective and imagined it was secretly to her that the Argentinian poet wrote his sonnets. Even when he applied himself to the cold logic of his computer manuals, he thought of her.

One Monday morning Jennifer said she had something important to discuss.

"Remember I told you I was studying to be an Emanating Operative? Well, last week I received my Second Degree, and yesterday I was assigned to an analyst," she said, her arms folded around a cup of steaming coffee. She spoke precisely, as if she were rehearsing a role or addressing a mental defective. "I go to therapy three times a week. So I'm dropping acting class for now."

Cesar was shocked. Her commitment to acting--along with her burning cheeks and long dark hair--was her most admirable quality. It seemed he had never been committed to anything that way himself.

"Of course, later on, after I become an EO, I may resume my acting career. But right now it's more important that I get free," she said, sipping from the cup which she held like a bowl in her palms. "That's what it's called when you get rid of all your inhibitions and hang-ups. When you're free you have no blocks to just being yourself and emanating self-understanding to others."

She lowered her eyes.

"There's just one thing," she said. "An Emanating Operative--even a candidate for EO--is supposed to keep her spirit clear of psychic pollution. That's why," she said, taking a quick sip, "that's how come we can't...sleep together anymore."

Cesar was still sipping his own heavily creamed and sugared coffee, staring blankly at the table top.

"An Emanalogist is not supposed to have sex with anyone except another Emanologist," she said.

Cesar grinned painfully. "No mixed marriages."

Jennifer lowered her eyes.

"Right."

There was only one alternative to breaking up. But, apart from the psychological blackmail (not to mention the sizeable fee) involved, he just could not accept an ideology that used terms like Emanating Operative and psychic pollution. When Jennifer argued that immaculate conception and transubstantiation were not exactly street jargon, he explained calmly that these were dogmas based on demonstrable truths any reasonable person could accept. When she told him to go ahead and demonstrate, he looked as if she had asked him to lasso the moon.

"I can't explain two thousand years of doctrine just like that. You don't have the basic concepts. You're not even baptized."

"That's what I thought you'd say. But you can pass judgment on Emanology without attending a single meeting. You already know everything there is to know."

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to. I can see your mind is already closed. Why don't you stop pontificating and come to one of our services?"

Cesar's eyes narrowed, but Jennifer refused to look away.

"Anyway," she said, her shoulders jerking the way they did when she was trying to get the feel for a new dramatic role, "what have you got to lose?"

"Services" were held in the grand ballroom of a big midtown hotel. The walls were hung with posters like the one on subway platforms: a pretty blonde running naked through the surf, her private parts obscured by the breakers. The caption urged, "Be Free, Be Loved, Know the Joy of Emanology." At the edge of the room sat smiling Emanologists, dispensing pamphlets and information. Most were young, but quite a few were over fifty. They all had a gleam in the eye that reminded Cesar of street preachers and door-ro-door salesmen.

"Please try to behave," she urged as they crossed the dance floor, her hand trembling on his arm. She excused herself to greet a tall silver-haired man with remarkably bright blue eyes. As they spoke her hands did a tug-of-war behind her back. Cesar wished he had not agreed to come.

Nearby was a display of Emanology literature. He had avoided the pamphlets Jennifer brought home--"A New and Better You," "Freedom Through Emanology." Some of those on display were in hardcover. He picked up one called The Emanology Story.

Emanology is not new. Great thinkers of all ages have realized that the Great Psychic Life Force rules every- thing we do. That is why they have urged us to put ourselves "in tune" with this power. Some have called it Reason, some Nature, others call it God. In reality these are all the samethe Ruling Consciousness which emanates itself throughout the universe. It is only by putting ourselves in touch with this mystical force that we can find happiness and true personal fulfillment. That is what Emanology is all about.

Phrases like "Great Psychic Force" and "Ruling Consciousness" jarred. But he was more concerned that Jennifer was mixing with strange men at the other end of the room. He could almost hear what she was saying --- she was not one to speak softly. But he felt she had stepped through a looking glass where he could not follow.

He looked down at the jacket of the book. Another blond, wholesome beauty grinned ferociously back at him. He glanced again at the opening paragraph. Its tone at least was not irrational. Aquinas, he recalled, taught that truth is one and that anyone can attain it. When he looked up he saw Jennifer laughing at something Blue-Eyes was saying. Cesar plunked his two dollars down and hurried off before the vendor had a chance to thank him.

For a full week he buried himself in Emanology. It seemed a jumble of every philosophy and theology imaginable. The author and founder of the Church of Emanology, its legal name (for tax purposes, Cesar suspected), mixed Plato, Freud and Norman Vincent Peale like so many eggs in a blender. Jennifer called it eclecticism. By Friday he was only pretending to read, hoping she would not quiz him before the next Sunday service.

Meanwhile their lovelife resumed. Where carnal matters were concerned, a candidate was apparently as good as a full-fledged Emanologist. Cesar asked no questions. He had Jennifer back, and that was all he cared about. If he chose to intellectually cross his fingers, that was between him and his conscience.

Then, in the third week of his candidacy, she told him something had come up in analysis.

"What sort of thing?" he said, draining a pot of spaghetti into the kitchen sink.

"Sex."

"I thought that was all ironed out. I'm still a candidate for EO, aren't I?"

Jennifer took hold of the back of a kitchen chair and frowned.

"That's just it. You're not doing so well. It's not your fault. Ric says we always have trouble with Catholics. They come up negative on the attitude tests."

Cesar dumped the spaghetti back in the pot, turned and folded his short arms.

"Who's 'Ric'?"

"Ric Johnson." Her eyes shone innocently. "My analyst."

"All of a sudden you're on a first-name basis. Until now he's been Doctor Johnson."

"Don't be ridiculous, Cesar. Everyone calls their analyst by his first name."

"Then, why have you always referred to him as Doctor Johnson?"

"I didn't always refer to him as Doctor Johnson."

"Yes, you did. I never heard you call him Ric until this minute."

"Well, maybe it seemed appropriate to call him Doctor Johnson because he seemed so much older than me."

"But now he doesn't."

"No," she said. "I mean... What are you trying to suggest?"

Jennifer had turned pink, but it was the crimson in Cesar's own complexion that signified.

"I guess I don't have to suggest anything. I gess you've done that already."

Jennifer exited to the bathroom, leaving Cesar to imagine Jennifer and Blue-Eyes copulating in his office, or himself strangling Jennifer with a dishtowel. Suddenly she reappeared.

"Listen," she began, "Ric --- Doctor Johnson --- says it isn't good for us to go on seeing each other. He says your're only faking it. You don't really want to be an Emanologist. You're only doing it to keep me. Also, I didn't want to mention this, but I've developed a rash. It's okay, it isn't what you think. But it won't go away. Ric says it's an allergy."

"Allergy?"

"Yes. Ric says I'm allergic," she said, "to you."

It made perfect nonsense. He started to say something, but began to laugh and then to laugh harder and harder, wishing eventually he could stop but so convulsed by the absurdity and then by the abyss of loneliness he saw ahead that he could only double up and try to keep from laughing himself to pieces.

"Stop!" she cried, covering her ears. "Stop! It isn't funny! This is my life, not some intellectual exercise. I have the chance to be happy, to get free of all the things that've held me back. But you think it's some kind of joke. That's because you don't care if you live or die. You don't feel anything, so you don't want to believe anyone else can feel anything either. Well, I'm not made like that. I have to feel. I have to be free!"

Cesar took a handkerchief from his pocket and dried his cheeks.

"You know, Cesar," she said more quietly in her Miss Julie voice, "I haven't said we can't be friends.

He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "And do what? Discuss the Great Psychic Life Force?"

"Not necessarily. There are plenty of other things to talk about."

"As long as we don't get...carnal."

"Sex isn't everything, Cesar. It's possible for two adults to conduct a relationship on a higher level."

"You have no business saying that to me," he snapped.

Her eyelashes fluttered nervously. Suddenly he wanted to hold her the way he did when they first made love. He stood up. She stiffened. He kissed her forehead.

"Don't."

He tried to draw her closer.

"Don't." She pulled free, colliding with the table. "Can't you see that's not enough?" she said, her eyes glistening.

"It was enough when that was what you needed. It was enough before Ric Johnson came along! Jennifer," he said, wishing he didn't hear the pathos in his voice, "I love you."

She nodded wearily as if finally admitting to some long- concealed transgression. Her face was pale and drawn. There were lines between her nose and mouth. This is how she would look in twenty years, he thought.

But she was right about him. Why couldn't he get excited about freedom and happiness the way she did? The best he could manage, it seemed, was to love someone who could, someone like Jennifer.

She was gone the next day. She left a note saying she hoped they could still be friends. He had taught her "many valuable lessons." She signed it "Love, Jennifer." He folded the note and slipped it into a drawer where he kept twine, thumbtacks and other odds and ends.

Six months later he got a letter postmarked London. The envelope contained a single sheet of onion skin.

Dear Cesar,

I have been made an Emanating Operative. I have come to England to receive my Third Degree. Soon I will leave for France where I will try to trace what I believe to be my previous identity or incarnation, a German soldier killed at the Battle of the Bulge. Please always think well of me and believe that things work for the best.

Sincerely, Jennifer