A collection of linked stories that follow Raphael Nachman - a simple, aging mathematician whose sensual needs are satisfied by working out maths problems and playing the violin. From touring Cracow's former Jewish ghetto with a young female guide who may or may not be a government agent, to a barbershop in Santa Monica, where Nachman uses his unwitting hairdresser as a therapist, to a mysterious corporate cryptology conference in Manhattan that makes Nachman long for the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean outside his bedroom window in California.
