“I don’t like fairy tales,” I say. “They’re not honest. I think it’s the whole ‘And then they lived happily ever after’ bit that bothers me. Whenever I used to read them to my kids, I’d always end them with, ‘And then they lived happily ever after until everybody died.’”

“Maybe if you read more fairy tales you’d be able to write your novel,” the Professor says. He adds, “Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask—are you planning on using any of what’s been happening here in Turkey as material?”

“I haven’t decided,” I say.

“I would highly advise that you consider it,” he says. “There’s quite a long tradition of lactation in literature, for what it’s worth. Leopold Bloom talked of squeezing off Molly into the tea after the death of their son. A starving man feeds from a woman who lost her infant at the end of The Grapes of Wrath. Mary Shelley, you know, was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, who died after giving birth to little Mary. The doctors brought in a pair of puppies to nurse from her breasts in the few days she was fighting for life, in hopes that it would reduce her puerperal fever. This incident is one of the rumored inspirations for Frankenstein. In a nice reversal of that, you have Romulus and Remus nourished by a she-wolf’s teats in the woods as babes before founding Rome.”

Maddy and Jørgen breeze into the dining room, smiling like jerks. Reginald isn’t far behind. It’s clear they’ve come straight from the beach, a patina of sand and salt water on unwashed limbs. The Professor thumps his book shut and sits with hands poised on the salacious knob of his cane until Maddy can no longer procrastinate in noticing him. She unbuttons her white cotton blouse with lethargic fingers and offers him a breast. “You smell like la mer,” he says, right before diving in. Two of the male staff members, Sertaç and Murat, start ferrying in steaming plates from the kitchen. They keep their eyes resolutely on the food in order to minimize the memory of whatever we may be doing. Jørgen, like the good vegan boy that he is, attacks helping after helping of puréed eggplant and hummus, acting like he isn’t pissed that the Professor took Maddy away from him. Halfway through the meal, Seung Hun and Liam show their faces, entering in a hazy stench of pot. They don’t particularly eat per se, but instead half-heartedly lob kebabs at one another, saying this is the best hostel meat they’ve ever had and how we should all walk up and see the Chimaera before sunset.

“Can we go see the Chimaera, Maddy?” they whine. “Please? Pretty please?”

“Oh, I guess so,” she says.

We stumble up the cliffside path to the top of Çirali, where the eternal flames burn. Seung Hun and Liam rush on ahead to maintain their high. As much as I’d like to smoke with them, I’m forced to lag behind with Reggie. Whenever I slip or misstep, I can feel the cut under my toe pull open. I bleed through my sock. Maddy and Jørgen hang even farther back, pausing to canoodle and laugh among the trees, which is perhaps the real reason why I slow my progress. Upon finally making it to the summit, the two of them are nowhere in sight or sound. I give it a full twenty minutes of watching Seung Hun and Liam try to light their farts on the Chimaera before I decide to hunt for the missing couple.