Harun has devised the plan of our journey, and he doesn’t deviate from it. While we’re on the road, there’s not much we agree about, one of us is always on the verge of erupting. I ask him: “Must you have your way in everything?” I remember, some time before the war, the Sarajevo Youth Theater put on a performance of Hamlet, but the actors were children. My friend Kaća Čelan, who was directing the play, asked me whether Harun could act the young Hamlet (he must have been six or seven then). And when I later put her question to him, he replied: “No . . .” But then he changed his mind—he would, he would act, but only on the condition that he also directed the play! On our journey, everything had to be done his way. It was only when he brought me into the desert (Death Valley) that something in me calmed down, I stopped objecting, I began to enjoy the air, the food, everything . . .

An abandoned gas pump. There’s nothing for miles all around, desert scrub and a cloudless sky. On the overgrown parking lot is a new red Ferrari with its roof down; the engine is off, but the key is there, and shoes are on the floor under the driver’s seat. The building beside the pump is a ruin with no door, there’s no one inside. There’s desert all around and we wonder where the driver is. On the passenger seat is the March edition of The New Yorker. We both had the impression that someone was watching us. Something wasn’t right. We got back into our car and drove on in silence for about half an hour, as though we were fleeing from the plot of a well-known American film, the name of which we couldn’t remember. The previous week, in Arlington, while I was waiting for my appointment with the cardiologist, that same edition of The New Yorker was on the table, and I had read half the articles by the time it was my turn.

A campsite for caravans, arranged in a circle so as to form a small square in the center. A sandy square. It was already completely dark. On the square there was a thick beam of light, and a film projector was moving living images. A desert cinema for campers. We couldn’t see what film was being shown, but we could hear its muffled sound: music and incomprehensible dialogue. The sound of the film merged with the voices of the audience.