I wasn’t in the habit of arguing, since once her mood was spoiled it would never be recovered by debate. She paid the bill, picked up her bag, and strode away. Before we’d even turned off the quiet street we heard a loud commotion, then the sound of something breaking. Out of nowhere, a fight had broken out in the café we’d just left. Less a daytime quarrel than a dive-bar brawl. Screams in the air and customers scattering in all directions. Without seeing who was fighting or why, Alya and I turned away and kept on walking and we never went back there again.

One night, an old tree behind my apartment toppled over, blocking the road and destroying two unlucky cars. I only saw it the next morning. I stood there, looking at the tree, and inside me was this strange contented certainty that such things would never happen to me: at least, as long as Alya was with me, I’d never be taken unawares. So I used to tell her, and she’d laugh. She would say I made it sound like magic, and I’d reply, “Well, what else could it be?”

It was like she gave no thought to her answer—the words flowed from her lips without hesitation, as though she’d always known the explanation. And what she said was that she, Alya, hadn’t changed like the rest of humanity had changed after committing the crime of civilization. Her body still worked the way our ancestors’ had in prehistory (“That ugly term!” she said). She sensed what everybody should be able to sense: danger, in order to avoid it; and joy, to be ready to receive it and not corrupt it.

As though to reaffirm her connection to the ancestors, she only ate fruits and vegetables. A completely plant-based existence. She seemed quite happy like that, in harmony. I pointed out that the people who’d lived in the caves and forests had never had any issue with hunting. She said, “That’s the men. Savages then and since. But my foremothers were foragers. They took their fruits from nature’s table.”