Another crash nearby.

“It’s getting nice and snug,” said K., rubbing eyes made sore by the smoke. “I need to take a look at you. Let’s try and get you up.”

She obediently got to her feet and leaned against the wall and on him for support. She was wrapped in several layers of clothes: jacket, shirt, scarf, and tights. Her hands were as cold as stone.

He began by examining her head. He felt the area right above her forehead and ran his fingers all the way to the top of her skull. She frowned and lowered her eyes in embarrassment when he felt at the little bald patch. Later, once it had grown dark, she told him in a whisper all about what had happened after he left. They sheared off chunks of hair when they found, but were unable to remove, a four-millimetre piece of shrapnel that had lodged in her skull. As he listened to an account occasionally broken by bouts of coughing, K. brushed the skin of her unwashed head and visualised her sprawled amid the dust and masonry. Bloodied and helpless, she slowly gets up, clutching at the wound on her head, stumbling to a door blown off its hinges by the blast. She descends the stairs, clinging to the wall for support, and leaving red handprints all the way down. She knocks at one door, and then another, but nobody answers—all the neighbours left a long time ago. She goes further down, gushing blood all over the steps, knocking at the door of every single flat until she reaches the basement. The old lady springs up from her seat to meet her. Eva falls into her arms. The woman screams something about coming down with a fit of sciatica. The dog barks and fusses. Its owner runs to the checkpoint for help.

At the hospital, Eva is immediately taken to the operating room. The number of wounded is mounting and there are no free beds near the operating room—eight people lie groaning in a row on the floor. Two surgeons are operating. She is left on a gurney, pain relief is injected, lights are brought in, and they begin to undress her. She swats them away, groaning and clings onto her underpants: “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare undress me.” In the end, all her clothes are removed. She pleads for something to cover herself with.

The soldiers, quiet now, come to examine her and count out the bits of shrapnel. One, two, three, four . . . So many over her whole body. The surgeon tosses them into a tin basin by the operating table. Eleven, twelve, thirteen . . . During the operation, one soldier dies. Her bloody face is wiped with a wet rag. A cut on her head is treated with peroxide. The largest piece of shrapnel entered the abdomen on her left flank but missed all the vital organs; they can’t get it out. They do three operations, each time expanding the wound, and it goes deeper and deeper. “Just leave me alone,” she says to the shards of metal inside her body. She’s delirious. Lying in bed, she tries to somehow explain what this pain is like. She says it’s like a small needle constantly sticking into her stomach. You can hardly feel it’s there until you make a sharp movement.