The official name was “Tel Ahmar”—the Red Hill. But it wasn’t really red, just a sandy hill in faded shades of brown. And it wasn’t even a hill but a cliff someone had probably fallen off once. No one sets out to visit Tel Ahmar. Most people stumble upon it on their way to Eilat. They climb up the hill and come back sweaty and tired, asking me where the red sand was, to which I reply with the same tired joke that it just ran out an hour ago.

3.

THE DAY AFTER my conversation with Nelly, Shira came home in the afternoon like always. She shut the door behind her, holding a small hoop with colorful threads and beads.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“An Indian dream catcher,” she replied. I asked who gave it to her, and she said her big brother.

“Nice of him,” I said. “Sounds like he likes you.”

She blushed, but didn’t answer. Didn’t even smile. I immediately wanted to change the subject, feeling bad for embarrassing her. I asked if she wanted me to make her something to eat. She said she didn’t, which was a relief because there wasn’t enough food in the fridge to whip up something nice. I knew I had to talk to her, but didn’t know how to begin, and before I could find a way she was already in her room. I stood by her closed door for several moments, then reached out to knock, but the fear that she wouldn’t open got the better of me.

I had already come up with the alibi I’d give Nelly, that I hadn’t talked to Shira yet because I had to help Nabil tend to an injured sheep. But luckily, I didn’t have to lie. Nelly had had a long day at the office and only came back to the B&B around midnight. That’s what Nelly and I called the place we lived in, simply because we were unable to call it home. Nelly collapsed onto the mattress without brushing her teeth. Her parents were short, thin people who made do with a narrow double bed. Like every night, we embarked on a long session of awkward fumbling and shoving in an attempt to find a semi-comfortable sleeping position. And I, even though I never told her, liked the small shoves that sometimes turned into brief caresses, intimations of the obscure distance between us.

In hindsight I can say the dream catcher was the first sign, but as with the others that followed, I failed to take notice. That bus she missed, the bleary eyes, that morning I woke her up and for a moment she didn’t recognize me. A litany of supposedly random events that only revealed their full meaning with time.

4.