Inside the train it is cool and dry. In the third car from the front sits a woman, alone, pen in hand, reading. Her black hair is pulled back from her face and held by an elastic band. Every few moments she ticks a passage or makes a note in the margin. She reads quickly.

Just as the train hits a bump, the door of the compartment clicks open. The train is new but just for a moment she thinks perhaps it has fallen open on its own. Even a second after she sees a figure framed by the opening, she thinks maybe it was a mistake. It is another moment before she realizes it is a face she knows, another still before she can remember who it is. It is the face from television: an anchor from a nightly news show seen by millions every evening at six-thirty. He is taller than she expected.

He speaks first. He is more comfortable with his celebrity than she is.

"Is anyone else in here? Do you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all." She catches up quickly. "Please, sit down." She gathers her bags together although there is plenty of room already. He seats himself across from here.

"Every time I come here I'm shocked at how hot it is. I never get used to it. Have you been here before?"

"Yes, several times. I suppose I'm acclimated by now. It doesn't bother me . . ." She checks herself, refusing to fall into the cliché of remarking on the relative comfort of dry versus humid heat. ". . . I drink enough water," she finishes.

"It's a dry heat, I suppose."

"Yes."

He begins to introduce himself, but she laughs and says, "I know who you are. I watch your program when I'm at home." This is only in part a lie. She prefers newspapers really. She introduces herself politely and accepts his handshake. "What are you here for?" She asks.

"Tension in Israel, as always. We're doing a show from Tel Aviv this week. My wife hates the idea. Every time I go she thinks I'll never come back."
"She should come with you then. It's a wonderful place."

"I've actually seen very little of it. The network isn't too keen on the idea of letting me go sight seeing. Nor is she for that matter."

"Well, I can understand that," she says, although she cannot. "Of course, you're very recognizable, but for her the city would be different. It is a beautiful place." She ends with a note of finality, not to press her point, or even to signify that she has nothing else to say, but to give him the opportunity to drop the topic if he likes. She is surprised and pleased to find his star status doesn't make her feel a bit nervous. He presses on.

"I'll tell her you said that. It's nice to hear good things about the place, but I doubt she'll ever come."
"It's a pity. Such a bad reputation it's gotten. Thousands of years of history brushed away by some bombs. It's disgusting." She calms herself. She does not want to be hysterical or irritating, she looks into his face and decides to go on. "So much richness, so much beauty. Roads mentioned in the Bible and Torah and Koran are still being used. There's such a feeling of presence. By any measure the soil is sacred, whether it is blessed by God or just so many years and so many footsteps. Everyone should come. It's foreign, yes, but so familiar too, so comfortable even if it's a little frightening."
"You seem to feel strongly about it. Are you involved in the government there?" She feels like she is being interview and it is fun to pretend. The question is stupid, yes, but he is a real newsman and that makes it exciting anyway.

"No, I'm writing a book. It's about the Golan Heights, but I've spent so much time in Israel that I feel very strongly about the whole place."

"Do you teach?"

"No, I'm a writer. It lets me study what I want."

"That sounds very romantic. Very liberated."

"Yes, but I have a family to take care of too. The days are never long enough."

"They never are, but you do what you love."

"I think so," she says. There is a moment of silence and she takes the chance to look at the window as she moves past the sand. It has not rained in a very long time and the earth is very dry.

* * * * *

He was taller than I thought he'd be. They always say that the camera makes you heavier, but I didn't realize how true that was until I saw him.

Sometimes I think about meeting him and it bothers me a little. Not him personally, he was dull, unremarkable really, but the whole idea of his visiting. "Tension in Israel, as always," he said. As always. No, not as always. If there was always tension then you wouldn't be here would you. One doesn't come halfway around the world to report on something that happens everyday. Violence lulls and rushes like water. And of course no one really cares about peace. No one looks up unless the tide of violence is on its way in. Peace doesn't make good television. That's what he thinks, or rather, how he thinks.

He's so far away. He doesn't understand what its like to watch bombs go off a few yards away and listen to screams and to wonder who's screaming and, whoever it is, to just be glad that the screaming isn't you. "The network doesn't let me go sightseeing." Nonsense.

He's a grown man who doesn't wear a leash. He could walk out into the street if he liked. It's a balancing act: risks and rewards, and he's playing it safe. That's all right, everyone does it. Of course, I do too. I have children and responsibility. We all have to think things through. But realize that some people walk in the street not to take a risk but because the street is theirs. Because risk and reward are rolled together so tightly that there's no difference anymore. They just blend together into necessity.

His distance was what bothered me. And his refusal to see how far away he was.

* * * * *

"Oh, and I forgot to tell you that on the train to Tel Aviv I met that newscaster."

"Who?"

"Oh, you know, the one from television. I can't remember his name." This did not surprise me. My mother was terrible with names and faces too. She never in the whole of my memory could get through a whole day without forgetting a name. Often, it was mine or my sister's. This was frustrating.

"From which program?"

"The news. At 6:30."

"Tom Brokaw?"

"No, not that. Someone else. He was oldish, and a man, and white." Whether or not this was a joke took me a moment. Sometimes it was hard to tell. My mother had written two books, both of which had won major awards and yet somehow still thought that identifying a nightly newscaster as caucasian would narrow it down.

"Peter Jennings."

"No, what was it?" My mother had also, before the books, served in the Israeli army. Not just that, but the army had actually won wars while she was there. This fact shocked me. Surely my mother must have been commissioned in a low stress field. This was a woman who still called me or my father to remove dead muse delivered to our doorstep by the cat. This other woman, an army lieutenant, must have been, at best, a distant relative.

"Sam Donaldson."

"What was it?" This other woman would never have embarrassed me in front of my friends in high school. This woman was sensible and adventurous. She never would have quit her job to raise children. Children would have been a burden best left to those with slower, less interesting lives. This woman would not have had the time to deal with poopee diapers and baby spit up. She had a nation to defend against formidable enemies, a cabal and conspiracy in one, attacking swiftly and without warning.

"Brian Williams."

"No, older. Why can I never remember these things?"

But my mother had done these things and I could not understand why. Such freedom and excitement abandoned. Achievable dreams left to rust only a few feet away. For years, before I had a family of my own, I did not understand, but now I look at my mother and see both women, young and old, together. Only one woman, only one woman ever. One woman riding the irregular arc of life, finding and losing, morphing, changing slowly and irrevocably, sliding through one life, holding onto what she could and letting the rest fall into the dust around her feet.