They agree that this was the hardest climb so far, and gobble down some wafers and biscuits. “We have to get some food soon,” they remind each other, and Avram gets up to show her how much weight he’s lost over the past few days. He’s impressed at having slept through the night for the first time, four hours straight without a sleeping pill—“Do you know what that means?” “This trip is good for you,” she says, “dieting and walking and fresh air.” Avram agrees, although he sounds surprised: “I really do feel pretty good.” Then he says it again, like someone taunting a sleepy predator from a place of safety.Chiseled stone ruins sprawl behind them, remnants of an Arab village or perhaps an ancient temple. Avram—who happened to flip through an article not long ago—believes the stone is from the Roman era, and Ora welcomes his theory. “I can’t deal with Arab village ruins now,” she says. But a momentary illusion in her mind, composed instantaneously from the ruins, projects a tank roaring down a narrow alleyway, and before it can trample a parked car or ram the wall of a house, she moves her hands in front of her face and moans, “Enough, enough, my hard drive is overloaded with this stuff.”Broad Atlantic terebinths spread their branches and sway meditatively in the breeze.
