I went home and sat like a stone, most of the time blank, but now and then something inside me bellowed, “Do something! Get up and find him!” But putting myself in his place, I realized why he’d taken off. The shame, embarrassment, the doubt that any person can help in a calamity. Still, why hadn’t he said anything this morning before leaving? Had I been so unsympathetic last night? I carefully ran through what we’d talked about ten times but came up blank.

As the despair was peaking, the phone rang. He said, “I’m at the airport. I’m going back to Yugoslavia. Thank you for being so kind—”

I asked him, please, just let me talk a few minutes, but he didn’t want that. There was too much going on inside him. He asked for some time to think and said he’d be in touch.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I wanted to yell, “I think you’re wrong,” but there was nothing I could say except please call me. Please come back whenever you want because I’ll be waiting. Whenever you want.

I’m going to stop here, Rose. You understand.

I worked in the garden, walked the dog, kept the television tuned to CNN day and night. I don’t remember many details of those days except that whatever I did, I did as hard as I could, completely concentrated, so as not to think too much about the silent phone or the frightening reports from the battlefront in Yugoslavia. I knew he’d go straight there and was afraid this time he’d be killed. Or would try to be killed rather than die the ghastly slow death of AIDS.

I went to the children’s hospital every day and spent more time there than ever before. I remembered the woman on her knees in front of the hospital screaming that it wasn’t fair. One night I saw an igel crossing the road and immediately took it as a good sign. I wanted to call Leland and say only that—ten seconds in his ear: “I just saw an igel and I know it means something good.” Then in one of the few happy moments since he’d left, I realized I could call him—in London and leave messages on his answering machine. The idea was so exciting that I spent the better part of a morning in the garden on my knees, digging and thinking about exactly what I’d say if I got up the courage to call. I wondered how long his tape was and how many times I’d be able to leave messages before the thing was full.

Small things, hedgehogs and answering machines, were the tiny shots of light and hope across the horizon of those days.

Sarajevo got worse. Thousands of people were dying. I cringed at the television footage, but was always alert for his face or anything that might have to do with him. I bought a map of Yugoslavia and studied it, trying to say the names of towns and cities. Where was he today: Trebinje? Donji Vakuf? Pljevlja?

You and Roland called and it was the first time I’ve ever been disappointed to hear your voices. I wanted to get off the line so that it’d be free, just in case. The things we talked about were all background noise to me, whereas any other time I would have cherished our conversation.

Immediately after that the phone rang again and it was he. He was in Sarajevo, conditions were desperate, but he’d called to say he was all right and still thinking about things. Most of all, don’t worry. Don’t worry? Was he nuts? But you’d be proud of me; I held my tongue. I didn’t push him about anything—not to come back, not to know what he’d been thinking. I treated him like… like the igel that had allowed itself to be held. I was so glad to hear his voice that I let him talk and asked only questions that might make him talk more and stay on the line. When he hung up, I put the phone down but kept my hand on it, as if to get whatever echoes of him it still might hold.

Coincidentally, Standing on the Baby’s Head was on TV that night. I watched it because I’d never seen one of my films in German. The woman’s voice they chose for mine was eerily similar, making me sit way forward in the chair and pay complete attention. Listening, I could understand some of what she—I—was saying, but it was like having the oddest German lesson ever, with me both as teacher and rapt student. Was the story the same in translation? Was it better or worse with Weber’s original words inverted, emphases altogether different? Could a story ever be the same in another tongue? I thought about Leland telling his life story in a language I considered my own, but I wasn’t a man, wasn’t HIV positive, hadn’t experienced what he had, although the way he told it brought it vividly to life. So is there any language common to all of us? For a while I thought the language of the human heart, but no way. That’s the most complex and diverse, you know? Is there any way to fully grasp another’s story without actually being that person? Doubtful.

When I’d almost gotten used to those strange anxious days, almost gotten used to worrying and wondering and not hearing from him, I got a telegram from someone in Yugoslavia saying Mr. Leland Zivic was coming to Vienna. His train would be arriving early the next morning and could I possibly meet it.

Rose, I folded and folded the piece of paper until it was impossible to bend anymore. I put it on the table and watched it slowly try to uncurl itself and tell me the blessed news again. Minnie was asleep on the couch. I lay down next to her and put my arms around her warm body. She lifted her head and looked at me to see if everything was okay. We lay there a long time: she snoring gently, I knowing tomorrow was going to be the beginning of something extraordinary.

What I didn’t know was the way he’d chosen to return. In one of the innumerable cease-fires that had been negotiated by Lord Carrington, it was agreed by all the warring factions to allow those who wanted to leave Bosnia-Herzegovina to go to other countries. Hungary, Austria, and Germany agreed to accept most of these poor people, but there were so many who wanted to leave that not even the experts knew what to do with them once they’d made their way to safety. It was the largest exodus in Europe since the Second World War and no one had any idea of how to handle it.

In keeping with his adventurer’s way of doing things, Leland chose to ride back to Austria on the first refugee train out of Sarajevo. There were literally thousands of people on that train, and being in the Südbahnhof when it arrived was one of the most harrowing and electrifying sights of my life, so help me God. It was like hell on earth.

I got there half an hour beforehand. Since I didn’t then know anything about the significance of the train, I thought because it was so early in the morning few people would be around. But the platform was overflowing. Large families, singles, old, young, well dressed, tattered… every type you can imagine had gathered.

The mood of the crowd was just as mixed. From what I could see, half of them were carnival-happy, festive; the others looked worried or terribly, terribly sad. What was going on here? Children were everywhere, darting in and out, wrestling down on the ground and being shouted or laughed at by their families. Old women wrung their hands and rocked back and forth as if praying. Men with two-inch-thick mustaches looked down the tracks with thousand-yard stares.

Amazed and utterly baffled at both the turnout and variety around me, I stopped a railroad workman and asked why they were all here. He smiled and touched his head in the familiar Viennese gesture that says everyone is crazy. “The war train from Yugoslavia’s coming in. They’re all waiting for their families. As if we don’t already have enough damned Tschuschen in this country!”

Hearing him call them “niggers” made me frown and pull back. He sneered and slowly looked me up and down as if I were for sale. I walked quickly away. When the loudspeaker announced the train’s arrival, I found a place to wait that wasn’t too crowded.