They had dinner that night in the hotel’s Harley’s Bistro, a large, modern room with huge windows overlooking the pool and Hamilton Harbor beyond, Rich, Kathryn, Lowe, and Ellen Kelly, who worked with Geoff but who was obviously more than that; they shared the same hotel room. Kathryn wished she and Rich could spend a week alone in romantic Bermuda, but that wasn’t in the cards. He’d been away for almost three weeks, returning to Washington from Israel only yesterday and announcing they were flying to Bermuda to meet Lowe and Ellen Kelly, who’d already been there a few days enjoying themselves.

Unsurprisingly, Lowe dominated the dinner table conversation, ranting about politics, which, Washington style, he seemed to feel only he had a handle on, and vilifying the current administration and president. Adam Parmele was in his first term and running for a second. Geoff Lowe was a short man, not much taller than Kathryn, who was five feet, four inches tall. He was chunky, with a large face dominated by a broad nose that would not be out of place on a professional prizefighter. Balding prematurely, he had strands of blond hair long at the sides. He was type A personality personified; even when seated he seemed to be in motion.

Rich and Kathryn had heard Lowe’s lectures too many times over the past year to react with anything but feigned interest, and she sensed a similar paralysis in Ellen, although Lowe’s colleague and girlfriend seemed to exhibit dutiful interest in his words. But the redheaded, green-eyed Kelly also seemed aware of Rich and Kathryn’s situation because she would turn the conversation around to them whenever Lowe took a break.

“How was Israel this time, Rich?” Ellen asked.

Marienthal laughed and sipped his wine. “Great place. Same as it’s always been,” he said. “I’ve been there so often lately I ought to start wearing a yarmulke.”

“Adam Parmele’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, if you can call it an approach, is ridiculous,” Lowe said, obviously not interested in learning more from Rich. “His whole foreign policy is a joke. Anybody with half a brain could have seen that when he was running-waffling, saying one thing one day, reversing himself the next.” He shook his head and sat back in his armchair. “Another four years with this liberal bumbler and we’ll really be down the drain-the economy, crime, foreign policy, all of it.”

Again, Ellen changed the subject out of deference to Rich and Kathryn, asking Kathryn a question about her job at the library, which led to a lengthy tale of how she’d only recently been promoted into the rare documents room, which answer carried them through dessert but stopped short of coffee with Sambuca.

They ended the evening in the lobby. At least Kathryn thought it had.

“Flight’s at noon,” Lowe said. “Airport shuttle leaves at nine-thirty. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

Marienthal looked at Kathryn, whose face said she wanted to get away from the other couple.

“Thanks, no,” Marienthal replied.

“There’s something we still have to go over,” Lowe said. “Why don’t you two gals browse the shops? Some of them are still open.”

Kathryn hoped Rich would remain firm in declining a drink with Geoff, but he disappointed her. If there were one thing about him that sometimes bothered her, it was how he always seemed to understand both sides of any debate. On the one hand, it was an appealing trait, often heading off potential arguments. On the other hand, it was waffling, and he was easily led at times, the most persuasive-or the last-voice heard having the most influence on him.

“We’ll make it quick, hon,” he told her. “Meet you in the room in an hour.”

Kathryn and Ellen watched the two men cross the lobby and disappear into the wood-paneled Colony Pub.

“I’m beat,” Kathryn said. “Think I’ll head up to the room.”

“Me, too,” Ellen said. “By the way, it’s great what Rich is doing, Kathryn.”

Kathryn’s curt nod did not convey what she really thought. She wished Rich had never agreed to Lowe’s proposal. If only he hadn’t. If only they could turn back the clock a year. If only she didn’t have this nagging feeling of foreboding that kept her awake nights. If only…

TWO MONTHS LATER

He sat in seat 16B, at the window. The seat next to him was empty. He hadn’t said much during the flight. When he’d asked for a glass of water or a pillow, the Delta flight attendant had had to lean close to understand him. He spoke in a soft, low, raspy voice, an old man who’d lost the ability to project.

“He’s so cute,” she said to a colleague as they stood in the galley of the jet. “Have you ever seen such a funny toupee?”

“I’ve never seen an orange one before.”

“It’s supposed to be red, I think. It looks like plastic.”

“I like men who accept getting bald and don’t wear them.”

She delivered the tomato juice he’d ordered.

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Sure. Anything you need, just ask.”

He sipped his juice and pulled his airline tickets from the inside pocket of the jacket of his wrinkled, ill-fitting gray suit, something he’d done dozens of times since taking off from Barcelona. He’d recently acknowledged-to himself, never to others-that he’d become forgetful lately, entering rooms without remembering why he’d gone there, misplacing things, throwing away important receipts.

He’d been afraid of losing his tickets since they had arrived by Federal Express a week ago, delivered to the door of the apartment he shared with Sasha on Basel Street, in the old city. He’d put them in his small, hard-sided suitcase and checked on them every hour, it seemed to Sasha, with whom he’d begun living since shortly after having arrived in Tel Aviv twelve years ago.

“Crazy old man,” she’d shouted at him in her native Hebrew when, after looking in the wrong section of the suitcase, he’d failed to find the tickets and panicked. She went to the correct pocket, yanked the tickets from it, and threw them at him. He reacted the way he’d been reacting to her for the past few years. He returned the tickets to the suitcase, locked it, and sat on the small balcony that overlooked the busy street. He’d become adroit at ignoring Sasha and her outbursts, which he knew was the most effective way of annoying her. He sat stoically, deep in thought, thinking of the past, which he did with increasing frequency. Although his memory of recent events had slipped, his long-term memory was still sharp.

She had come to the balcony carrying a glass of Italian wine for him. A large ashtray on a small table overflowed with spent cigarettes, and she added another to the pile.

“Todah,” he said, thanking her in Hebrew and taking the glass from her.

“Prego,” she answered in his native Italian and patted his hand.

“You should stop smoking,” he said. “You smoke all the time, day and night.”

“You smoked when I met you,” she said.

“Yes, but I quit, huh? Cold turkey. For my health.”

Rather than argue, she returned inside, lighted a cigarette, and sat at the kitchen table, on which another full ashtray sat. She knew he was right, but she also knew she couldn’t quit. Not in Tel Aviv, where it seemed everyone smoked, maybe to calm the nerves. What was a cigarette compared to a Palestinian suicide bomber?

He continued to sit alone on the balcony, reflecting on better days. Healthier days. “La vecchiaia!” he muttered, followed by a string of obscenities in Italian and Hebrew, cursing having become old.