The night had grown colder. The street was empty. The light of the streetlamps was dim, and the cursing of invisible drunk men and women pierced the air. I knew you wouldn’t come after me, and most of me didn’t want you to. But without knowing why, I began to run, fueled by some kind of elated panic. I ran as fast as I could on the frosted pavements, alongside the battered buildings, across a naked square. I ran without stopping, feeling the cold sting my lungs, feeling it rush through my head and out. Through the warren of the cobbled streets, past the golden dome of the Orthodox church, straight on toward the bridge. I ran until feeling returned to my body, until my legs became heavy, until the pain began to prickle and I was out of options, out of breath. When I stopped, I was standing on the bridge, clutching a rail, bent over like an upturned L. I drew in deep, hot, thorny breaths. My head was spinning. I closed my eyes. I held on tighter to the rail, much tighter. Until I sank to my knees and cried out in pain and felt the cold, hard concrete push against me.

Later, when the spinning had stopped, the tremor had receded, and the cold of the ground had seeped into my bones and I knew it wouldn’t save me, that maybe nothing could, I opened my eyes and heaved myself up. The city lay before me oddly turned away from the river, oddly calm. The houses of the Old Town perched on the hill, the sharp spire of the palace to the left, the blokowiskos discernible behind. In the dark of that night it all seemed barely real.

Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t hurl myself off the bridge. I was terrified, saw no way out. But I suppose that right then, in the midst of despair, I felt the stirring of instinct again, the murmur of that voice. I brushed the dirt off my clothes and walked home with a rising fever. Somehow I knew that something would occur to me, a pact I could try to live with.

That night, plagued by hot flashes and frenetic dreams, I got out of bed and stood by the window of my little room. Outside, the city was a ghost filled with comatose trees. For a moment I thought of you in your room, calling my name as I left. I thought of all the times you had lied, trying to straddle her and me. It was then that the idea occurred to me. I knew, without having to think twice, that there was no other way.

The next morning I left early. I walked from the same spot where we’d met that night, along the avenue by the Łazienki Gardens, its trees and bushes leafless and naked now. How did my deer cope? I found the side street with the large kamienica. I pressed the button on the intercom.