“Ariel was sitting on the floor by the low window of his room, which resembled a monk’s cell. A table, a stool, a bed, and a mat in the corner made up all the furniture.
The window looked out onto the inner courtyard, dull and quiet. Not a bush, not a blade of grass — sand and gravel — as if it were a corner of the desert, enclosed by the four prison-like walls of a gloomy building with tiny windows. Above the flat roofs rose the tops of palm trees from the dense park surrounding the school. A high fence separated the park and the buildings from the outside world…”