“I’m going out for a while,” he says, “so you’ll have the place to yourself.” He goes down the hall to the small bedroom, carrying his toothbrush and his towel. I can smell his aftershave in the humid air that floats out of the bathroom.

“What did you come here for?” I blurt out when he appears again. It isn’t the way I’d meant to ask, and immediately I regret it. I want him to know that I understand the need to uphold our parts in the charade we’re playing for my father’s sake. And so quickly I add, “Just to check for leaks?”

“To see someone,” he answers, and by the way he says it, shoving his hands into his pockets, I sense that it’s a woman. For the second time I’m surprised at myself, at the way his answer disappoints me. It was not what I’d expected him to say—though what was it that I’d expected him to say? That he came for me?

And I surprise myself yet again when, a few moments after he goes out the front door, I slip out after him and hurry down the stairs. I follow him at a distance down the street. He passes under a mulberry tree, so I pass. He crosses to the other side, so I cross. He stops to look up at the tall building they are raising, and I too stop to look up, and it seems to me that I could go on doing this for a very long time, shadowing a life.

Soon we are in an unfamiliar part of the city, more run-down than the rest. The terraces seem to be hanging on by a few screws. He stops at a bakery and comes out again holding a small box tied with string. Cookies? What kind? Cakes? The woman’s favorite kind, which she waits for every time, and has come to expect? He looks across the street, and for an instant it seems that his eyes catch mine. But his face registers nothing, and he turns away and continues to walk. A few blocks farther, he goes into a supermarket, and this time I wait behind a car until I see him come out with a plastic bag.

By now it’s dark. The stranger, Boaz—if that’s his name—is still moving up ahead. We walk for almost an hour. But I don’t mind, I’ve always been a good walker. My father used to say that even as a little girl I would walk very far and never complain. If it weren’t for my thirst, and the fact that I ran out without my wallet, I’d be content to go on like this all night. But soon I’m really dying for a drink, and every time we pass one of the wire recycling cages filled with the negative shapes of so many quenched thirsts, I’m reminded.