“That depends entirely on you, citizen. On you and your common sense.” He closed my file, placed his elbows on it, and looked at me with narrowed eyes, his pupils small and intense, like the heads of nails. “If you want your passport, you will do the same thing Comrade Marian did: supply us with names. And dates. And circumstances.”

He pulled out a piece of blank paper from his desk drawer and pushed it across the table toward me.

“Write.”

At first, there was emptiness. Thoughts flew through space, trying to ignite. A sky readied for fireworks, a stage cleared for decisions. But where do decisions come from?

I saw you and Hania slung together, dancing, oblivious to me on the other side of the window. My stomach began to burn, secreting pain like arrowheads, and then the two of you as a four-legged creature, struggling on the forest floor. Eating itself, aware only of itself. At the same time your pleas for trust rang in my ears, your pleas for my patience. The fire in my belly spread. My back reached for soreness, my eyes stirred and dampened. The man was still there, staring at me. And so was the piece of paper.

I felt the pause of time. A moment pulled into its smallest parts, spread so thin it threatened to break. When I imagined taking that piece of paper and reaching for the pen, pictured the possibility of it, of writing your name, my arm refused to move. I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel the fire in my gut; I couldn’t feel any pain. I’d gone numb.

I don’t know what took over then, in the void of the next moment. I guess it wasn’t anything distinct, more a hazy murmur, an animal voice, instinct. I followed what it said—what I could make out, anyway. I knew it spoke the truth. I opened my mouth. My body felt heavy, absurd, like two fur coats worn at once.

“No,” I said to the man’s stony face. “I don’t have any names.”