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afraid of losing it. I felt weird, I said, almost like he couldn’t stand being around me. I told him I thought maybe we should keep a little space between us, that that might save our friendship. I suggested maybe we should try just talking about things having to do with the trip, but it didn’t do any good, except for keeping up appearances.

‘I see that with you, too, Yossi. It’s getting worse every day. I know he gets on your nerves. He behaves like a child, hanging on Karl all day long. He stepped on my foot the other day and spent half an hour apologising. He wanted to check to make sure I wasn’t injured.’

‘Maybe you should try talking to him.’

Later that morning, when Karl stopped to attend to his disintegrating boot and told us to carry on, he’d catch up, I found myself walking alongside Marcus and was surprised when he revealed that he, too, felt and regretted the chasm that had opened up between us.

‘Yossi, don’t you think that our relationship has changed since we started on this trip,’ he asked suddenly, ‘like we aren’t such good friends as we used to be? Haven’t you noticed?’ He spoke quietly, his voice sad.

I didn’t know what to say. ‘I don’t think anything has changed, Marcus,’ I answered him. ‘You just seem very unhappy, like something is bothering you. I don’t know. Maybe you can’t get Monica out of your mind. Maybe you miss Annick. You keep everything to yourself, bottled up inside. But

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