Further south, the Mercedes slowly ambled along rural routes, Climbing north, in an ever-winding crawl, and gently turning north-east, and then due east along rural route 110, as the terrain and rivers formed a hundred portraits of nature before his eyes.

§

“Der golem” he whispered, wanting the words to form a spell, to erase the beauty in front of him, to bring him back to war. He closed his eyes, and he was transposed. Ambling across the skeletonized remains of the cities of Europe. Its twisted steel and shattered facades. “Onward,” he thought. He crossed the Oder, and then the Elbe. Through Kharkov, then drove straight down. Past Constantinople, across the Eastern Mediterranean, Transjordan, along the Euphrates. He poised high above the ancient city of Ur and contemplated the antediluvian world. “And here we go.” He opened his eyes and looked across the small mountain stream. Under the simmering sun of summer, it was but a tumble of kaleidoscopic river stone. A deer looked up from her drink, content as ever. A humbling portrait in beauty if there ever was.

§