I'm NOT shouting. Less shy, Nayomi says: Don't slow down, don't slow down. You burst out onto a nearly empty road rushing through breathtaking landscape. Pastures slur past you. Villas. You open and close your eyes to clear your head. It seems like months since you've been on the highway. I like the speed, Nayomi says. Don't you? Robert says: What did we do that for? Nayomi says: It makes the world feel… what is the word in English? Besondere. Distinctive. You all sit there, trying to take in how your surroundings aren't the surroundings in which you existed less than a minute ago. You contract into yourselves. You see a distended vein pumping at the back of Robert's jaw line when you glance over. Nayomi continues taking in what's beyond the windshield, telling you which road to take each time an option presents itself. You focus on keeping your speed constant. When you fly up on a slow pale blue Renault, you flash your lights, swerve gracefully into the oncoming lane, pass it. You flicker through a medieval town before you know that's what you've done. The astonished faces of pedestrians, then vineyards meshing hills on either side of you through rows of Cyprus trees. The sun fluttering like a moth against a light. The road becomes increasingly curvy, starts climbing. You can hear the engine straining beneath you. Keep going, Nayomi says. Don't slow down. You are surprised to hear yourself saying, levelly: You want some money? Is that what you want? A silence balloons through the cab. Nayomi says: What? Robert says: What are you talking about? You say: Is that what you want? Nayomi says: I don't want your fucking money. You say: Because if it is, just say so. Let me pull over here. We'll give you all the money we've got on us. Robert shouts: Don't say that! To Nayomi he says: We aren't giving you shit. You don't listen to him. You're intent on forming your next sentences. It's important to get them right. We've got something like a thousand dollars in our suitcases. Travelers' checks. A nice necklace. Pull over and they're yours. Robert says: What the fuck are you DOING? You say: I'm offering Nayomi our valuables. Nayomi says: Fuck that. I don't want your bourgeois Dreck. You say: Then tell us what you DO want. Tell us, and you can have it. Nayomi says in her girlwoman voice: We just want to make a point. Robert says: We? Who's we? Nayomi says: You don't have to wake the children. They don't have to know about any of this. Robert says: Know about any of what? Nayomi says: I really did grow up in Munich and work in that café, you know. Just in case you're wondering. But the guy who walked in one day? He wasn't wearing a suit. You probably already guessed that. He wasn't really one person. There were, how do you say it, lots of him, versteht Ihr? They kept turning up. You know how university towns are. People from my political science and history and literature lectures. People those people introduced me to. Some had nothing to do with the university. But sometimes on Tuesday evenings we met after closing — you know, just to bullshit. It was really great. Robert says: Why are we hearing this? You say: Let her talk. Nayomi says: We realized there were others out there. You know, people who made us feel less lonely. You say: Nayomi. Listen. We're not trying to fight you here. Nayomi says: Before long we started asking ourselves how we could make a, you know, difference. You say: Nayomi… But Robert interrupts, putting on the voice of masculine authority he uses with the kids when they misbehave. Okay, he says, that's enough. And to you: Pull over. And to Nayomi: This thing has gotten WAY out of hand. It stops now. And to you: Pull over. And to Nayomi: You're getting out. I'm sorry. But that's what you're doing. You say levelly: I'm pulling over. I'm going to pull over. You take your foot off the gas pedal and that's when Nayomi extracts what she extracts from her daypack. Just for a second. Less than a second, actually. Just above the rim and then it's gone again. The event takes place so rapidly you're not completely sure you saw it. You're not completely sure you saw it, but you're completely sure you saw it. You replace your foot on the gas pedal. Nayomi takes her eyes off the road to glance down at Nadi. No, she says. That's not what's going to happen. Something else is going to happen. You follow her eyes in the rearview mirror. You say, less levelly: Nayomi… Nayomi glances up again and says: Did I already mention this is my absolute favorite part of Italy? The perfect blend of the natural and the human. I holidayed here last autumn with some of these friends I've been telling you about. It's fantastic getting to see it all once more. Robert says: Pull. The fuck. OVER. You say: Robert… stop. Nayomi says: We looked around and you know what we saw? We saw the protests in London. We saw your Lieutenant Calley doing what all you Americans secretly wanted him to do. We saw our own government unwilling to learn a thing. We saw people like you worrying about your fucking stupid little grills in your fucking stupid little suburban parks. Robert looks as if her words just backhanded him. Nayomi says: And we just realized… I mean, it just came to us. To make a statement, sometimes you have to pick up a weapon. The last syllable expands like a shockwave through the car. Robert goes immediately quiet. You sift through your choices. You will your children to remain asleep. You round the next bend on a steep hill and the back of a huge rusty tractor hurls up at you. You swing into the oncoming lane. Everyone jerks right. The tractor tumbles into the past, its angry shrinking farmer waving his tiny fist at you. A stream leaps into view off to the left, bobbing, then vanishes so completely you believe you may never have seen it. Robert isn't trying to look at Nayomi anymore. He is staring straight ahead, face drained. His hands grip the sides of his seat as if he's secretly bracing for impact. Checking her watch, a Spiro Agnew wearing red, white, and blue boxing shorts, Nayomi explains almost self-effacingly that elsewhere across Europe — in Germany and France, in Austria and Spain — versions of her are sitting in cars with versions of you. Each node of travelers is counting down. Just like astronauts in their capsules on the launching pad, she says. Just like your Alan Shepard on his way into space. This is how things get done. Robert's face is wearing an expression you've never seen on it before, like an invisible devil has just grabbed him by the throat. You sift through your choices. If he tries to lunge at her, she will set it off. If you try to signal anyone in the outside world, she will set it off. Your Adam's apple begins aching like you're about to cry. In a sense, Nayomi has forgotten you are even there. In a sense, she has started thinking of you as props, as parts of the plot she is constructing. She's still speaking, but not to you, not to your family. She is speaking to herself. Her language rushes on. She has just asked if anyone happens to know the story of Iphigenia. Who? Robert says. WHO? You know, she says. The myth. The Greek myth. There are lots of variations. Every one breaks your heart, but for different reasons. Euripides. Racine. Goethe. All of them are doing different things, but the thing is, they all care about how one person sometimes needs to give herself up for others, how sometimes that's the only way to get what you want, even though you won't be there to enjoy it. They all begin on a sunny day just like this one. They all begin just like this.