In the daytime you listened to the news and I said, Ivo, we need to get water, turn off the news. Everyone was trying to repair the places they lived and you were good at electricity. It had been a surprise to see stop lights and the lights in kiosks when I first arrived in Vienna. We had lived in darkness for a long time. We went out to find food and fresh water and we began to meet those who survived and to learn who died. I was afraid of the night, your country of horror, you were so strong, what if you hurt me when you were asleep and I was not strong enough to get away, always, before the war, when we saw each other after being apart we made love, and still we had not made love. I said to you, Ivo, let’s try, and I pretended I felt no pain but it burned like hot glass, and after, you lifted yourself gently from me. You said, I heard your name on their walkie-talkies, I thought I would go crazy, I thought Merima was dead.

I said, You did the best you could.

But your eyes were ashamed and turned away and you said, I am death.

I pleaded with you, However painful life is, it is better than death. Death is nothingness.

You said, Your will to live is insane. Why cling to a life that’s finished?

I said, What about our daughter? Tomorrow can we go to her. We will start over in Vienna. What about me? I want to live.

I turned to check that the door was open if I had to run away. I had come to this.

You said, Don’t you have enough courage to see you have no future?

You looked out the window and when you turned, your eyes were absent. You said, The generals have destroyed me. I want them murdered by their own flesh and blood. I want them gorged upon.

I was so afraid I might do something, move, make a noise to startle your soul, like pulling the pin on a grenade. I never knew when I might disturb your darkness. It felt like living with a wild animal. You said, There are not enough generals to kill.

I said to you, Do not say this. We can imagine a future.

But you left to walk the streets. I believed that you would come back from the half-dead place. It takes time. I wanted you but my body was always in pain and I did not know what to do. I wanted you, Ivo, I wanted you, even with the nightmares that bled into our days. Sweet Ivo, the generals accomplished their purpose, they destroyed us and they left us alive.

You said when you came home, You are not safe from me in our bed. And I do not know what to do.

I fixed a second sleeping place on the couch near the door. I remembered when we had lived cheerfully in a messy nest of books and papers and cassette tapes and magazines. I said, Ivo, let’s go to Vienna, to our daughter. She is waiting to see you.