Der Kurier des Zaren
While Michael runs his life in a calm, methodical, unemotional manner, Hannah feels increasingly hemmed in by sameness and routine. She begins to escape into private fantasies – some featuring the heroes of her favorite childhood books, like Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff and Captain Nemo – and others based on her own dreams of being an exciting Sephardi woman named Yvonne Azulai, of being raped by strangers, of being a cold princess who commands others to go into battle for her. Two recurrent figures in her fantasies are Arab twin boys with whom she used to play as a child.