“You have to leave,” he repeated.

She shook her head and turned her closed eyes to the wall. He sighed wearily, holding his gaze upon her.

“We can’t go anywhere at night anyway.”

She lay without moving. K. sat down next to her.

“Let’s go down to the basement. You can’t stay here overnight. It’s too cold.”

“I don’t want to,” she said decidedly, staring at the words on the wall. “I don’t want anything else but this.” She covered her eyes. “God, I’m turning into my father. But I won’t go to the basement. That bastard stole my water bucket.”

And suddenly she began to cry. Her shoulders shook. Then she coughed.

“What bastard?”

“Mitya, in the basement.”

K. nodded and left the flat. She turned sharply and propped herself up onto her elbows and waited anxiously for his return. As soon as he re-entered the room, she sank back into the pillow with relief.

He had a bucket of water in his hand. Her bucket. K. placed it in front of the mattress. Eva dipped a hand into the water. She smiled. It was warm. Warm water.

Again he left to go somewhere and brought back more wood and plastic sheeting. She had no idea where he was finding this stuff. She had paced the area for days in search of even a scrap of sheeting to plug the window, but never with any success. The plastic he had brought was marked with a UN logo. When aid was distributed, everybody was convinced it was the Republic that was organising it.

The fire burned cheerily and put out barely any smoke. Eva sat up eating her buckwheat and held her face and hands to the fire. A blissful feeling of warm emptiness spread through her body. She felt sleepy.

He caught the exact moment she fell asleep.

Her eyelids closed slowly, she shuddered at the sound of a crack from outside, and finally let go—her jaw tightened, her teeth ground, her fingers clenched and unclenched, as though she was starting to dream. Five minutes later, she sank even deeper into sleep. K. found it hard to drop off and paced around the fire, sometimes looking down to the street through the hole left for the smoke. Nothing but darkness. He lay down on the mattress next to her. She started when he touched her thighs with his cold hands. Her eyes opened with panic, but after a few moments, she relaxed, feeling his touch, and sank back into sleep.

Chapter 6

I got ahead of myself with yesterday’s letter. Let’s get things in order. I fly to Yangon, and my brilliant plan is this: first, I send you, in the past, a few more letters full of revelations; then, I shoot myself in the dense jungles of northern Myanmar and leave my body to the wild animals. This plan is turning out to be a fiasco. I manage to buy a Honda motor scooter (Power of Dreams), and a light Glock, 9mm calibre, not a rusty Makarov from the USSR or China during the civil war, but a completely new, troubleproof pistol with a full magazine. I head north.