ot yet a public figure. Yet to the extent those around me would have taken note — family, university classmates, sayeret comrades, or officers in the Airya — my slight emotional aloofness, my focus on simply getting things done, and the way I internalized setbacks, even tragedies like the death of Nechem

e doing the asking. She invited me to dinner that evening at the apartment she shared with her parents and younger sister, about a half-mile from the Airya, a few blocks back from the Mediterranean. Dinner was less awkward than I feared, but I still felt nervous, until the dishes were cleared and Nili an