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I remember your mother’s small herb garden, Ivo, and the smell of thyme and mint. I remember you in the doorway of our old apartment. This is where I first saw you after the war, after so long not knowing if you were alive or dead. I hurried to you and there you were, and you cannot imagine the moment of peace I felt in your arms again. The first night we sat at the kitchen table together, I let you put your hands over mine, touch me, and you began to talk, how I loved your voice, it was a shock to be together. You told me how you used radios to intercept messages, fastened aerials on stop signs, looked for me through the airwaves, you were always good at making things work, always I had watched your hands fixing things, engines, bicycles, the lights in my mother’s store, the shingles on my father’s shop, always I loved watching you fix things. You were useful in the war, got intelligence, listened to military orders, recorded enemy movement through burned villages and Ivo, you told me how you fell asleep one night and the next day you worried there had been a transmission and you had missed the order and you were starting to go crazy, hearing the things you were hearing, afraid even one more death would be your fault.

Our first night together we were shy though always we have been best friends, telling each other everything, and you hesitated when I began to tell you about Foča. You told me it was you who found the man who bought me and drove me to Tuzla. The night he came to Karaman’s I was so terrified, I thought he was taking me away to kill me. It was bad, you said. Yes. There are no decent words. Merima? Oh Ivo. I had always told you everything, but I could not say more. I fell asleep in your arms but there was not even a kiss, and did you want to kiss me, make love to me, would it have healed you? There were so many more things to say and in the night you woke with nightmares, the arm under my neck jerked and my head was tossed to the side and you were not awake and you shouted in your sleep, and then you seemed to be adjusting a headset and you listened and said, Five hundred pieces, finish the job off. Ivan, wake up, you’re dreaming, and still you could not see me and you were shouting, Shut up, the emission is still coming through, listen, the job is done. I was crying from across the room, Ivan, wake up and when you finally woke up you sat on the bed and you said, I am sorry, I am so sorry. Never had I seen you cry and it was breaking me and how much more could I be broken?

How destroyed we were.

I still love the image of you so beautiful and tall in our doorway the night you found me again.