"Yes."

"Why so long?"

"He got lost."

The driver laughed. "You're funny," he said. Then he sighed happily. "I'm laughing, I'm sitting here next to you. And I'm alive. You don't appreciate life until you see death. Two hours ago I was sure it was the end for me ...I haven't come so close since the fucking war."

"Which war?"

"Take your pick."

"What happened?"

"I swore to myself I wouldn't do drug pickups, but business is so lousy. I have to eat, I have to pay the rent. And drug pickups pay really well, one hundred fifty shekels for a twenty-minute ride, there and back. So I figured, what the hell. Without money you can't stay alive anyhow. That's what I said to myself, but it isn't true. I'd rather be in debt and alive, I know that now. Two hours ago I had a gun pointed at my head, because by mistake I got a look at the dealer."

"Do you think it will last, this feeling of being happy to be alive?"

He shrugged. "Probably not. I'd like to hang on to it, though. I really would."

When we arrived at the train station Ella was already there, waiting in her small blue car and talking on her mobile phone. She motioned me to come inside and with her free hand made room for me by moving junk from the passenger seat to the back. The car was like a large suitcase, stuffed with boxes, papers, food wrappers, batteries, a large flashlight, another mobile phone, a tape recorder, hats, socks, a rain jacket, a ratty cushion, blankets, and a bag of disposable diapers.

I waited for Ella to finish her phone conversation. She was speaking in Arabic, with English words inserted here and there when she didn't know the Arabic word. When she was through, she said, "Hi. Thanks for being on time. There's an envelope in the glove compartment ... that's your permit. I need to stop somewhere for coffee. Coffee, and I also have to pee. What a night ... don't ask."

"You've been up all night?"

"Yes." She sighed, and pressed on the gas. She was a bit of a wild driver.

We found a food stand and Ella got out to buy coffee and a bottle of water. Then we drove to the apartment building Daniel had given as his address, where the old couple lived now.

"This is where I pick up his mail," Ella said. "You can give him this month's check."

"I can't believe you never told me," I said.

"He asked me not to."

I stepped out of her car and stared at the building. It was a four-story apartment house, menacing, impenetrable, expelling breaths of invisible pain like smoke. Eleven years ago I had kept watch here. I had stationed myself across the street, on a rock, hidden by a row of dry, hostile bushes. I remembered thinking that this was what it was like to be a fugitive. You hid from the rest of civilization and you tried to look unobtrusive. I was afraid to move or sleep; I was afraid I'd miss Daniel's secret messenger. I thought there was even a chance I would see Daniel himself, late at night; maybe he was the one leaving the notes on the door in disguised, alien handwriting. But in the end I had to sleep and I had to eat. I tried to rent a flat in the building, or in the building facing Daniel's, but nothing was available.

We entered the familiar dark hallway. Ella used a key to open the mailbox and took out an envelope. "His allowance," she said.

"Did you leave those notes on the door?"

"What notes?"

"Gone to the supermarket, back in five minutes. I still have those notes, I tore them off the door and kept them."

"No, that wasn't me. A widow lived here-I guess those were her notes. She put an ad in the paper, room for rent, and Daniel took it-that is, he paid the rent so he could collect mail here."

"But I knocked on the door, there was never anyone."

"She was a little paranoid."

"Who lives there now? That old couple, who are they?"

"Her relatives, I think. She died, and they moved in."

"Does he still pay rent?"

"No, not for a long time now. But I still pick up his mail here, no one minds."

I took the envelope from her and stared at the label. "Does he get other mail, too?"

"Not really. His mother writes now and then."

"His mother!"

"Yes, she figured out he was getting his mail. And she was right."

I ran out of the building, ran to the bushes in the back, and retched. Ella held my forehead, as if I were a little child.

"Dana, are you with us?"

Ella had pulled my hair back with her hands. I remembered going to my aunt, Belinda, because I thought I had lice. I was in high school, and I didn't want anyone to know, so I went to Belinda, who was an obstetrician. She sat me down on her little round piano stool, next to the balcony, where the light was best. She lifted strands of hair, looked behind my ears, my neck, and suddenly I realized that she was playing with my hair, just playing with my hair entirely for her own pleasure.

"Dana?"

"I'm okay," I said.

"Have some water." She handed me her bottled water and we walked back to the car.

When we were on the highway, Ella said, "We'll only have two checkpoints, if we're lucky. The one at Selah shouldn't be a problem-no one's allowed out of the Coastal Strip, just about, so it's pretty dead. But the checkpoints inside the strip are total pandemonium. It's going to be a long wait once we're inside."

I was shivering. Ella said, "This is very hard for you."

"Why didn't you tell me I could write? Why didn't his mother tell me?"

"She had no way of knowing whether her letters ever reached Daniel. She never had an answer."

"It's my fault, I stopped seeing his family, I stopped going over."

"Daniel saw you on television, he heard you on the radio- it was very clever, what you did. Better than a letter, don't you think?"

"Yes." I was finding it hard to concentrate. "How did he do it? How did he go into hiding there?"

"I don't know the details. Maybe he'll tell you about it."

"But if the army has his real address, how come they send the checks to that place?"

She shrugged. "Different department, I guess."

"What does he do there?"

"He's a teacher."

"A teacher!"

"Yes, he teaches math and science, and also English."

"Does he have cable?"

"Yes."

"Does he have friends?"

"That's the impression I get."

"You never told me ..."

"No, I never told you, Dana. When Daniel first asked me to keep his whereabouts a secret he persuaded me that it was for the best, that you didn't love him. But then I decided, later, that he was wrong and we fought about it. I told him he was being unfair and putting me in a horrible position, as if I don't have enough on my shoulders already. I don't want you to talk about this to anyone, but one of my colleagues once got someone killed. He thought he disguised the information enough in his article but he didn't. He nearly had a nervous breakdown, even though he's not the first person it's happened to and he won't be the last."

"He can't assume it was his fault."

"You tell yourself, 'It wasn't necessarily me, it wasn't necessarily my article,' but deep inside, you know it was. I have to keep secrets, I have no choice. I really tried to get him to call you. But Daniel's stubborn, as stubborn as you are. He wouldn't give in."

"Did he say he missed me?"

"He didn't have to say. I think he saw you once on the beach, when you came to photograph. He can see a section of the beach from his window."

"My God."

"It must have been hard for him, too."

"Never mind. It's all over now, I'm going to see him, the nightmare's over."

"How did you find out?"

"Just by fluke."

"It shows you how cut off we are, that no one found out about Daniel. We're worlds apart, even though in half an hour we're going to be at the border."

"I've been to other checkpoints, but never to Selah. This is the first time in years that I've gone somewhere like this without my camera."

"I'd be interested in seeing your photos sometime."

"Usually I take pictures of people, but at the checkpoints I mostly photograph objects, because they tell you a lot. Once the army sent the border guards some breakfast in a cardboard container, but it was just apples and yogurt, and the guards were so disgusted they kicked the container. I took a photo of the smashed apples and the yogurt spilling out. The container stayed there all day, in the middle of the road, cars drove over it, and it kept getting messier and messier. No one cares. Sometimes I get the feeling the guards are high."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, I don't know for sure, but I've never seen people behaving that way without drugs. Laughing hysterically, hugging each other, I'd guess it's E. Just once or twice, I got that impression. The worst things I've seen, I've seen at checkpoints. Well, I don't have to tell you, you see it every day."

"There's always some new craziness."

"How come you were up all night?"

"Someone had a problem ..." she said vaguely.

"Will you write about it?"

"Maybe."

"What's Daniel's life like? Does he speak Arabic?"

"Yes, of course."

"Yes, you said he was a teacher. He'd have to anyhow, to get by. It's so hard to imagine, though ... is he happy?"

"I don't know, Dana. How can I know something like that?"

"What does he look like? Is he very different?"

"You'll see for yourself."

"But he teaches kids."

"Everyone's used to him in the community. He's well liked."

"I can't picture him as a teacher. He's so goofy. How often do you see him? How often do you talk to him?"

"I go over once a month," she said and there was something in the way she said it that gave me a jolt. I wondered if what I'd heard in her voice was the memory of sex. She must have sensed my suspicion, because she added a little too quickly, as if to cover her tracks, "I bring him his check and things he wants from the city-books, music."

But I refused to be distracted. "Do you fuck?" I asked, and my callousness surprised me. I'd never spoken to anyone that way.

Her phone rang, and when the conversation was over, we both pretended I hadn't asked her the question, or that she hadn't heard me. "We're here," she said, slowing down.

We had reached Selah, the checkpoint at the northern end of the Coastal Strip. The only other vehicles were carrying people to and from the settlements. We were waved through; they didn't even ask to see my permit.

Seeing the Coastal Strip brought back a flood of memories: the beach, the smell of sea salt and falafel, Palestinian families having picnics on the sand, the bossy young men, the daring women who went into the water with their skirts hitched up. Once a man slapped his wife and all the women on the beach surrounded him with shouts and accusations, while he stood there helplessly; it was only with the greatest effort that I restrained myself from photographing them. There was hope back then, even though it turned out to be an illusion.

Then I remembered that I was going to see Daniel very soon, and my heart began pounding hard and fast.

Almost immediately after Selah, we hit another checkpoint. This one was very chaotic.

We joined a very long queue of cars, taxis, transits, and pedestrians. Young, old, male, female, children, families, students. One young woman, slender and dressed in black slacks and a pale blue blouse, was carrying an infant in her arms. The child looked unwell, and the woman, who could have been a university student, was furious. I had never seen such seething rage. The woman wasn't carrying anything else, only the child; not even a bottle for the child. Whatever she had, money or her ID, must have been in the pockets of her slacks. The baby was asleep, and appeared to be feverish. She made her way through the crowd, pushing ahead of the queue, and no one dared to stop her. I wondered whether her fierce desperation would get her through the checkpoint.

The line crawled forward, inch by inch. There was a small white car ahead of us, with two men inside. Finally the white car reached the barrier. The driver handed the border guard his ID but the two other men in the car didn't have theirs. They began to explain, but the soldier wasn't interested. He motioned to his three friends to come over. The guards dragged out the two men and took them to a wall at the side of the road. They cuffed the men's hands behind their backs, blindfolded them, turned them toward the wall and pushed them down to the ground, because you can't stand up when you're blindfolded and your hands are bound, someone had once explained that to me.

It was the first time I had witnessed this sort of arrest. I had seen men in detention or being taken away in a van or being led to a shed. At times they had been handcuffed, but not blindfolded and pushed down facing a wall. Seeing these things in real life was different from seeing it in newspapers or even on television. I wanted to take a photograph of the arrest but I didn't have my camera. It was impossible to sit there and not do anything. I ran out of Ella's car and threw myself on one of the men, wrapped my arms around him. I felt his warm, surprised body next to mine, his head turning quizzically back, and his blindfold touched my cheek.

The soldier who ordered the three men arrested pulled me away and threw me on the ground. He crouched over me and slapped my arm. "Are you crazy?" he shouted at me. I heard Ella's voice saying, "Leave her alone." But the soldier was too angry. He went on hitting my arm again and again. I had never been hit before, except in play. It was hard to believe that this was a human hand was striking me and not a metal bar; I was unfamiliar with the force of a strong body. I was surprised, too, at how hurt my feelings were. The tears that came to my eyes had more to do with insult than pain.