"Maybe she went with Rory down that passage to the Eighth Station," Megan says.
But just then Rory reappears alone.
"She must have gone ahead," James says.
Sol grabs his arm before he can wedge himself into the crowd to go look for her. "Nobody is to follow anyone who is lost. This I know from thirty years as the tour guide. One disappears, someone follows in one direction, someone else in the other direction, and then more gets lost. When someone is missing, you wait until the person sees that he is alone, and then he comes to where he left you."
We're waiting beside a fruit stand, overflowing with shrink-wrapped packages of dates and Turkish delight, pyramids of oranges, and pastel Jordan almonds in a bushel basket ready to be scooped up by the pound.
"You have tasted this sweet?" Sol points to the candy-coated almonds.
"Every Christmas when I was a kid." I marvel that it never occurred to me the candy-coated almonds got their name because they originated in Jordan.
"When I am wounded in the 1967 War, I am getting these for treats each afternoon in the hospital where I stay for eight months."
"You were wounded in the war?"
"We win in six days. But the war is over too fast for us young men. We want to act the heroes. So we chase the Arabs who are retreating. We are young and foolish, and we are having fun running after the Syrian soldiers."
He stares down at the basket of almonds coated in pink, pale green, and baby blue. "And so we get careless. But I am the lucky one only to get hit in the leg. My two friends is killed."
Elizabeth shoves breathlessly through the crowd. "I thought you were up ahead."
James says something harsh in Welsh.
We all ignore the marital crisis, and as we start again, Sol turns to me. "I am fighting the Arabs forty years ago, and now I think my son, the tank commander, must fight them all over again."
