“Take off your shirt, take off everything from the waist up,” he said.

She hesitated for a second, looking off somewhere to the side, and then began unfastening the buttons. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

Studying her bare, jutting ribs and thin shoulders, K. was seized by a new wave of concern. He peeled away the bloody bandage tied just above her waist and threw it into the fire. He missed the target, sending the bandage tumbling to the floor. Eva looked back at him with the anxiety of a diligent host. K. took a clean dressing out the first aid kit, applied a styptic pad, and wrapped the bandage around her thin waist several times over. If she had not lost so much weight, the shrapnel probably wouldn’t have gone in so deep.

Eva was silent.

K. turned her over and put his ear to her back. Eva flinched at his touch and came out in goosebumps.

“Take a deep breath,” he said.

She complied. K. held her by the waist and pressed his ear to a spot just below her shoulder blade.

“Cough.”

Once she started coughing, she couldn’t stop. He moved her to one side and turned her towards him. Trying not to look at her nakedness, he picked up her shirt and handed it to her. She took it, but she was in no hurry to put it on.

“Am I so terrible to look at?”

K. shook his head.

“I’m worried about your condition. You need to go to hospital. Do you have your things?”

Eva leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. He kissed her back. And again, on the cheek, on the neck. Shivers ran down her spine. Pressing her face against his chest, she unbuttoned his jacket. Struggling to undress him, she thrust her hand under his clothes. She moaned, with pleasure. With pain. Both?

She coughed.

As the light dimmed, the battle started anew. The fire’s reflections danced across the room, casting the restless shadows of two embracing figures against the wall.

He took a sleeping bag out of his backpack and laid it on top of the mattress. He removed her tights. They went to bed in silence and made love. The intravenous catheter still bound her to the coat rack.

“Careful, the shrapnel, careful, don’t press on my stomach,” she whispered.

And he was careful.

When they finished, they lay in silence, watching the dying light of the fire and the shattered walls covered in its intricate algorithms. The lines and inscriptions were like a prehistoric cave painting. Despite the damage, the markings were still decipherable.

K. got up, pulled on his trousers, threw wood on the fire, and used the flames to light a cigarette.

Her absent gaze touched his back.

“I’m hungry.”

K. turned around.

“I have to get you out of here.”

“Do you have anything to eat?”

K. found two packs of buckwheat porridge with meat and poured them into a pot on the bricks to warm them up. He took a drag and exhaled the smoke towards the ceiling.