I crouch beside the boy as the shadows shift and Marie-France takes photographs. The murderous boy tells me that his father used to call him Akol. His father is dead, so are his mother and younger sister, but his elder sister is alive, for now, cooking for the commanders.

“Nahia,” I whisper, and he nods. Only I realize that Akol hasn’t mentioned his sister’s name. How then do I know it? What is this? What’s going on? I’ve got malaria, I think. I’m hallucinating. I’m going to die. Am I going to die?

Reality topples over the edge. Boy and Nahia and Nelson’s blood dripping onto the car seat, onto his shattered cowrie necklace. And Marie-France, who will sleep with her boss one day.

I’m dying and I feel a sense of bitterness that there are so, so many things I haven’t done.

Akol jumps to his feet and runs away. The rifle lies where it fell.

We walk back to the camp. Marie-France gives me her protective vest with a label saying “Press” on it, but she carries her bag herself.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says at one point. “I don’t think I can take a picture of anyone ever again.”

That night on the camp bed lit by two thin candles I take a swig of whiskey and pass the bottle to Marie-France. I keep passing it to her, again and again, as if it were milk to help her sleep.

“I want to make love one more time before I die,” she says. Her consonants are slurred.

“You will,” I reply, thinking of her boss Claude, whom I’ve never met.

“So, don’t you want me, you arrogant prick?”

She waits for me to answer. If my limbs weren’t so heavy from the whiskey, I’d already be embracing Marie-France. I can hear her loneliness calling, begging me. I can see the gentleness and goodness through her rage. I fight the urge to console her because I don’t want to; it’s only pity.

“I don’t know why people find love so important that it only comes to their minds when they’re in mortal fear. I’d rather have a bulletproof vest and a bottle of whiskey.”

Marie-France’s hand lurches forward as if she’s going to slap me. She’s too tired, though, and instead makes a dismissive gesture in the freezing air, topples back onto the bed, and nearly falls asleep.

“Kiss me at least,” she mumbles, slurring the words.

I lean over her. Her mouth is a fruit. She’s a beautiful woman and she craves what I too so desperately miss—life. Such thirst for life. I could drink life straight from her lips!

It’s one of those moments. What moments?