Leora was a tourist too—or, to be precise, she had recently become one. After Naomi’s death Leora stopped talking to people. She had never been particularly friendly, and Naomi had been one of her only friends. After Naomi died, Leora stopped speaking and instead simply looked at things, examining her surroundings as if she were a visitor, someone passing through on a long journey. Objects and people, barely distinguishable from each other, froze before her eyes in little panels: students laughing in a school hallway, a fish swimming in an aquarium, her parents, her brother, a bowl of soup in front of her, a pile of old snow by the side of a road.

In the hopes of pulling her out of her silence, Leora’s parents had taken her and her brother on a long summer vacation, a tour of several cities in Europe, parts of North Africa, and some of the Middle East. They were thrilled when Leora seemed interested in what she saw, and that fall Leora even won a local essay contest with an entry she had written during their trip, something about Jewish historical sites in Spain. Her parents congratulated themselves, privately declaring her cured. But in fact the trip had only made things worse. Leora had immersed herself in hundreds of years of history, in thousands of miles of places and faces that required nothing more of her than that she click the shutter.

The town paper printed an article about her prizewinning essay on an inside page where all of the other articles were either announcements concerning the local senior citizens’ group or obituaries. And that was where Bill Landsmann spotted her, a wandering youth among the ruins, and tracked her down.

“I think we have very similar interests,” he told her in his delicate accent over the phone. He introduced himself as Naomi’s grandfather, explained that he had met her at a few of Naomi’s birthday parties, said that Naomi had spoken of her, often. Leora remembered Naomi mentioning him: a strange man, retired, an amateur photographer who had been around the world. Beyond that Leora remembered nothing about him. “We both are interested in Jewish history, and we both like to travel. Would you like to come visit me? With your parents, they are invited too. I could show you some slides from my travels.”

Leora said yes, she would be happy to see the slides. That was her first mistake concerning Bill Landsmann.

“IT’S KIND of strange that Naomi’s grandfather would be so interested in Leora, isn’t it?” Leora’s mother asked.

The family had leased the station wagon a few months before—for some reason, buying a car didn’t seem worthwhile anymore—but it still had the New Car Smell. Leora sat in the back, perched on the edge of the hard vinyl seat, and she felt like she was four years old, being discussed by her parents in spelled-out words they thought she didn’t understand.

“All old people are interested in Leora these days,” her father said, “since she was featured on the Old People page.”