Summary

In Chapter 499, Bassam and Rami leave the monastery to go their separate ways back home.

Chapters 498 to 482 describe how the Jordan River is little more than a trickle due to the dams and diversions along its path. Parts of the Atacama Desert in South America have never seen rain, but farmers have learned to harness moisture from the clouds. In 1835, an Irish traveler named Costigin and a Maltese sailor travelled from Akka on the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee and down the Jordan River to the Dead Sea.

As recounted in Chapters 481 to 471, the suicide bombers that killed Smadar camped out in caves near Nablus for weeks before the bombing, evading Israeli detection. Smadar used to swim competitively, and she had a habit of winding her grandfather’s wristwatch after his death, superstitiously afraid she would kill her other grandfather when the...