The next two years were lonely ones. Miriam seldom came to Jerusalem. She was very friendly when, on rare occasions, she dropped in at Yakov’s apartment, but that almost made it more painful. There seemed no hope that any romantic relationship could be reestablished. The one thing Ari had to look forward to was his trip to California—and his impatience to face that challenge only made the months pass more slowly and monotonously.

Not that there were no events of great significance to monitor and analyze for his twice-weekly column. There were many. In spite of rank pessimism on both sides that it could ever actually take place, the Israelis and Arabs came together for historic face-to-face peace talks in Madrid before the end of October. They then moved to Washington, D.C., in December 1991, for the next phase in their negotiations. It all occurred precisely as Elor had said it would.