Turtles

“ ‘A little tortoise,’ Ilka said. ‘Eine kleine Schildkröte. I called it my Kröterl. That was the week of the Hitler takeover.’ ”

“Well, if you didn’t do anything to North Korea, then why do they keep launching missiles at us?”

I can’t predict what’s waiting for us, lurking on the other side of our late middle age, but I know it can’t be good.

The two wild turtles, occupying separate lakes in northern Vietnam, represent the final hope for the species.