\tHe was waiting for her, sitting on a bench in the garden of St Paul\u2019s, and he seemed to be watching the cathedral roof where three dirty white doves squabbled noisily. Mary was dressed for the office, in her tweed skirt and winter coat. She hoped her appearance would make him forget, for a moment, how she must have seemed the first time he saw her. As she approached, he stood up, squinted in the bright, heatless sunshine. He was tall and broad and dressed in his blue bus driver\u2019s uniform. As he smiled she forgot about the cold and found herself smiling back, in spite of how nervous and embarrassed she\u2019d been.
\n \tWhen they\u2019d arranged to meet, he\u2019d signed his text messages \u201cJakob”, which now he pronounced \u201cYakob”.
\n\t They shook hands. Mary introduced herself.
\n \u201cListen,\u201d she said. \u201cThank you so much for meeting me.\u201d
\n \t\u201cNo problem,\u201d he said. \u201cI made arrangements to work later, so it\u2019s a nice break for me.\u201d His accent was Eastern European, maybe Polish.
\n\t \u201cYou don\u2019t expect anyone to reply when you text a lost phone.\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s good karma,\u201d he said.
\n\t She looked at the rucksack he held over his shoulder, and he seemed to remember, suddenly, why they were here. \u201cYes, so. I have it.\u201d
\n\t The phone he produced was cheap, bulky, yet for the messages it contained it was her most precious possession.
\n\t Her memories of the night it had fallen from her pocket were not clear, for she\u2019d had a lot to drink before taking the bus. She\u2019d been in an argument with a Somali girl. Mary accused her \u2013 and everyone else on the bus \u2013 of being an illegal immigrant. There was cheering when the police took her away. She woke in the taxi outside her house.
\n\t Mary remembered being at the bus stop, staring at the blurred faces in the windows, when Jakob came to the door and asked if she was all right. The next day, she wondered why he\u2019d shown her any sympathy. She\u2019d seen drunks on the bus many times before; somehow she\u2019d become one of them, the sort of person who destroyed the calm of the journey and made you shrink in your seat.
\n\t \u201cThank you,\u201d she said, now. \u201cI really appreciate it.\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s no problem. You have to go back to work?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m afraid so.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m sorry about the night you lost your phone,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt bad about how the police treated you. I wanted to say \u2013 I understand.\u201d
\n\t Mary wasn\u2019t sure what he meant, but she smiled, this time with some effort.
\n\t \u201cWould you like to come for coffee with me?\u201d he added.
\n\t Somebody brushed by her shoulder, a man with a briefcase, running.
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m actually already a bit late for work.\u201d
\n\t \u201cMaybe I will see you again,\u201d said Jakob. \u201cI drive the bus tonight.\u201d
\n\t She looked over her shoulder as she walked away. He was still there, watching her leave.
\n\t Mary hurried down the aisle of the sales floor, a large open-plan office with rows of desks for the staff to share. Mary had been given her own desk, as much out of consideration and compassion as for her achievements within the company. She sat down at her desk and switched on her computer. She listened with some relief to the hollow music of the office: telephones ringing, polite voices. Laughter.
\n\t Switching on her mobile phone, she scanned over the old messages from her boyfriend, Rick. Then she switched it off, and all it contained became all it was on the surface: an old mobile phone with a crack in the screen.<\/p>\n
\t Four years ago, on the morning he was killed, Mary and Rick were lying in bed, in that miserable space between waking and rising for work, and were talking about having children. Mary was certain that neither she nor Rick wanted children, not now, nor in the foreseeable future, but this morning she\u2019d woken suddenly, the idea in her mind.
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m no good with kids,\u201d said Rick. \u201cI try to shake hands with them.\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou can just be that awkward, distant father,\u201d said Mary.
\n\t \u201cWith a study,\u201d he said.
\n \u201cNow, children,\u201d said Mary, \u201cyou know not to disturb your father when he\u2019s in his study.\u201d
\n \u201cDrinking,\u201d he said, dryly.
\n \u201cDrinking in your study in front of the fire.\u201d
\n \tAround this time in her life, ideas like having children, notions of drastic changes of circumstance, came to her uninvited. She imagined leaving London and going abroad \u2013 perhaps with Rick, perhaps alone. Sometimes these thoughts \u2013 a myriad visions and possibilities \u2013 floated in her mind as though they were harmless and of equal bearing.
\n\t Rick\u2019s alarm rang.
\n\t \u201cOne hour,\u201d he said. \u201cOne hour and I\u2019ll be on the phones.\u201d
\n\t Mary wrapped her arms around his hips with something close to desperation. They were silent, and then Rick cleared his throat.
\n\t \u201cYou aren\u2019t worried, are you?\u201d he said.
\n\t \u201cAbout what?\u201d
\n\t \u201cAbout having kids.\u201d
\n\t \u201cNo,\u201d she said, \u201cI was just thinking.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWe\u2019re not old enough to worry about that. Not just yet.\u201d
\n\t They faced each other. It changed something in the air when he looked as grave as that, the sound and texture; it brought out the sadness in the drone of the traffic. He wanted the world to believe he was cynical, that he saw the good in life as a surprising bonus. But Mary knew this was just an image, that in fact he was essentially happy, and that his happiness was as fragile as her own.
\n\t \u201cYou\u2019re all right?\u201d he said.
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m all right.\u201d She kissed him, then sank beneath the sheets.
\n\t His hand was warm as he stroked her head, hypnotising her into sleep.
\n\t When she re-emerged from the covers, Rick was no longer in bed. There was the rushing sound of the shower, small fragments of sunlight blinking on the wall. She lay back against the pillow, defeated, neither happy nor sad.<\/p>\n
\t After the police had confirmed Rick was on one of the trains, Mary became obsessed with watching the news. She could not connect these images \u2013 the headlines, the bloody faces of survivors \u2013 with the fact that he would not be coming home. A terrorist attack: it was an invasion from another reality. Watching the news \u2013 debates about the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan \u2013 Mary felt as though his death was a case of mistaken identity; a narrative more potent than that of their own little lives had swallowed him up. \t She had been thinking of Jakob\u2019s eyes throughout the day, the coldness of their pale blue, which she\u2019d seemed to feel, somehow, on her skin. And his words, what he\u2019d meant when he said he understood. \t With all the disembodiment of nightmares, Mary watched herself walking with Jakob across the square. And yet there was nothing of her fear in the way she spoke. \u201cI know a nice pub on Fleet Street,\u201d she said. \t The place he was renting was just like her own: a terraced house, red brick, Georgian. He shared with some other people; he called out to them half-heartedly though nobody replied. Mary followed him upstairs. His bedroom was large and cluttered. There was a double bed and a tall window with the blinds drawn. There were maps pasted to the wall, a bookshelf filled tightly with books, more books in boxes in the middle of the floor. A Bosnian flag hung above a filled-in fireplace. In one corner of the room stood a camera on a tripod, and in the others several boxes of films and CDs. Territories He was waiting for her, sitting on a bench in the garden of St Paul\u2019s, and he seemed to be watching the cathedral roof where three dirty white doves squabbled noisily. Mary was dressed for the office, in her tweed skirt and winter coat. She hoped her appearance would make him forget, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[373,371],"tags":[375],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n \tAfter they had completed their Masters degrees at Nottingham University \u2013 Mary in Fine Art, Rick in Creative Writing \u2013 they moved to London in search of new inspiration. They rented a grotty old Georgian house in Tottenham, in a rough, rather dangerous area, and with a front garden the locals used as an open garbage site, the patio stones peppered with empty fried chicken boxes and beer cans.
\n\t Rick worked as a tele-fundraiser, charming old women into giving five pounds per month to save snow leopards from extinction, while Mary got a job pulling pints at the local pub. She hated the work, the scores of obnoxious drunks at night, the lonely old men in the afternoons. She could tell Rick hated his job too; but they had needed to find employment quickly, and the flexible, part-time hours meant they could work on their artistic projects.
\n\t Sometimes, Rick skipped whole days of work so he could write (his schedule was more flexible than hers), and this caused arguments between them. It wasn\u2019t fair, she said, when they were pooling their money together, barely able to cover the rent. During their first year in the city, they had little success with their art. Mary had one of her old landscapes featured in a small, group exhibition; Rick had one short story published in an obscure online journal.
\n \tOne night, the city entombed in early December ice, Rick was mugged as he walked home after an evening shift at the call centre. He escaped with his wallet and a bloody lip; they had taken his bag, which contained nothing but a copy of Elements of Style<\/em>; but still \u2013 he\u2019d been humiliated. He wondered what it was about him that had made him a target. \u201cI\u2019m small at the moment,\u201d he said. \u201cAll writing and no food. I need to be bigger<\/em>.\u201d The next day, as if in an act of vengeance, Rick quit his part-time job and applied for a full-time account manager\u2019s position. He was accepted. In the mornings, there were times when she saw him frown at himself in the mirror as he straightened his tie \u2013 the same frown, she felt, that he wore when he wrote poetry.
\n \tOver time, Rick seemed to become invigorated by the challenges of work; he went for drinks with colleagues; he was sent here and there for conferences, meetings. He talked with relish about the London commute, the absurdity of rush hour, the strange intimacy of all those bodies crammed into such a small space.
\n\t Mary was struggling with London as a subject. She didn\u2019t know it as well as she knew the Midlands. She didn\u2019t know it at all, really. About a month after Rick took his sales job, Mary found a similar position, a job in marketing with a financial media company. And it was clear they were cut out for such a life. They were both efficient and popular with their colleagues. They made good commission. In bed, at night, they spoke about the compliments they received from their superiors. They looked at each other with this new, amorous gaze, one of congratulation.
\n\t At last, they had money. They began to enjoy the city together, eating out most nights and taking trips to the theatre or the opera.
\n\t One evening in particular stood out. It was the summer before Rick died. They met after work. The day had been very hot. Mary was waiting for him outside Covent Garden tube station. She watched the crowd in a kind of daydream, the listlessness of people seduced by the evening, ties removed; shirts open to the value of two buttons, cleavage showing, couples sitting at little tables in front of caf\u00e9s, drinking cold wine; the sky was silver blue, the air thick with the sweet pollution of sweat and fried food, perfume, lager, and cigarette smoke. And then he came out of the station, emerged from the crowd with his suit jacket held casually over his shoulder. They went to a Japanese restaurant where they could watch through a glass divide the chefs slicing raw fish into neat little cubes. Mary noticed, then, how handsome Rick had become. He\u2019d put on weight since they arrived in London, muscle rather than fat, and he kept his hair very short. He\u2019d started to look like one of those boys from school she openly loathed but secretly desired. He closed his eyes dreamily, and said how hard it was to remain devoted to art when the office yielded such simple bliss, such security and a sense of dignity. He was being ironic and yet he meant it; she could tell by the way he looked at the Japanese chefs \u2013 more with pride than ironic distance, and she felt, then, their new life emerging, a world to which they were losing themselves.
\n\t It was when she saw the video of the man behind the terror attacks that things began to make a strange sort of sense. He was sitting cross-legged before the camera, wearing red and white robes; his Northern accent reminded her of their home \u2013 it was the sound of home before London. In his message he spoke about Allah, the afterlife, and the spiritual logic of martyrdom. Mary thought about what it meant to believe in something so absolutely it could lead to your destruction. The man\u2019s eyes, dark and solid as obsidian, appeared whenever she closed her own, while his words were as pure and inaccessible as some of Rick\u2019s favourite poetry: at first beautiful, then haunting; eternally out of reach whenever she tried to access their true meaning.<\/p>\n
\n \tAs her colleagues left the office, they asked if she\u2019d join them for a drink; but, as always, she declined. She had her own ritual. She\u2019d go home, turn up the heating, run a bath and listen to Chopin. She\u2019d bathe and then eat dinner, and then get to bed. Now, on her way across the square, Mary stopped to look at the Christmas tree that had been erected outside St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral. A young man and woman wrapped in winter coats stood beside her in a romantic embrace, their faces lit red and green in the glow of the lights.
\n\t She wondered about the journey home. Most nights, even though it was expensive, she took a taxi. She merely tested, from time to time, her ability to take public transportation, for it still made her anxious. A journey on the Underground could bring on a panic attack. But something in her now, something different, took her on across the square to the bus stop, her desire concealed by this simple act of walking through the city at night.
\n\t When the bus arrived, Jakob was behind the wheel. They said hello, she scanned her Oyster Card and sat in the seat opposite. The lower level of the bus was otherwise empty. Jakob said something, but Mary couldn\u2019t make it out. She went and stood beside him, holding on to the railing as the bus weaved through the streets.
\n\t He asked her how her day had been.
\n \u201cFine,\u201d she said.
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s my shortest day,\u201d said Jakob, \u201cso I\u2019m happy.\u201d
\n\t He stopped the bus outside a row of Halal shops. A group of hooded teenagers came aboard, swearing as they ran and stomped upstairs to the upper level of the bus. Jakob muttered something in another language.
\n\t \u201cWhat language was that?\u201d said Mary.
\n\t \u201cBosnian,\u201d said Jakob. \u201cI said something not very nice.\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou\u2019re from Bosnia?\u201d
\n\t \u201cYes,\u201d he said.
\n\t The word conjured images of buildings in flames, news reports of old women in headscarves weeping for lost sons.
\n\t She asked him how long he\u2019d been living in England.
\n\t \u201cFive years,\u201d he said. \u201cNot long.\u201d He\u2019d grown up in Sarajevo, moved to Paris after the war. He\u2019d come to England to study Computer Animation.
\n\t \u201cI want to make movies,\u201d he said. \u201cI used to be a cameraman in Paris, working on short films. But then I learned how to use computers for special effects. It\u2019s really amazing how you can create a new \u2013 environment \u2013 with computer graphics.\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt must be stressful,\u201d said Mary, \u201cworking and studying. This isn\u2019t an easy job, is it?\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt is hard. But I work hard. And I do not sleep much.\u201d He spoke more of his love for cinema, describing films of which she\u2019d never heard.
\n\t For some reason she\u2019d always liked the sight of a man talking whilst driving, this looking away from her and yet still engaged.
\n\t \u201cI know a little about Bosnia,\u201d she said, \u201cbut now I can\u2019t picture Sarajevo.\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful, especially when it snows. There is a lot of culture, and very different architecture \u2013 Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian.\u201d
\n\t \u201cIs it safe to visit now?\u201d
\n\t \u201cOh yes, it is safe. There are problems. A lot of unemployment. But still good for tourists. A nice place to go with a boyfriend or husband.\u201d
\n\t He stopped at the lights, turned to face her.
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s romantic?\u201d she said, looking away into the darkness.
\n\t \u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut be careful if you go with your lover to the woods. There are landmines.\u201d He laughed faintly.
\n\t He told her that because there were still landmines in the woods around the city there were now new species of animal living there \u2013 wolves, poisonous spiders. The forests had returned, at least to a small degree, to nature before human beings.
\n \u201cI think it\u2019s interesting,\u201d said Jakob. \u201cWithout human life, the place goes back to how it used to be in prehistoric times.\u201d
\n\t They came into Stoke Newington. Outside, an Orthodox Jewish family walked along the pavement. The father was pointing out something to his wife, the children fighting. Mary had often thought it strange that you could look out at these streets at night and feel thankful for being aboard a moving vehicle, and yet see these families walking as if at the park on a nice afternoon, wandering through the city as if immune to its dangers. She was sure that she often saw Orthodox Jewish boys as young as ten years old walking these streets alone.
\n\t Jakob asked her what she did when she wasn\u2019t working. She told him she used to paint. \u201cUsed to?\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t anymore?\u201d She said she needed to get back into it, and he agreed. He said he had the feeling she was a very good painter.
\n\t Mary asked Jakob about his route tonight, the journey he would have to take. He said he would now go back into the City and switch places with a colleague. He lived in Hackney, so he would either get back aboard the same bus and ride home, or he would stay in the City for a drink.
\n\t \u201cLike I said \u2013 this is my day off.\u201d
\n\t \u201cHardly a day<\/em> off,\u201d she said.
\n \t\u201cI normally go home and work, but I feel like a drink tonight”. Would you like a drink?\u201d he said, frowning at the galaxy of lights.
\n\t She felt something in the pit of her stomach, sharp and strong and purely physical, a feeling that might have been fear, excitement or both.
\n\t \u201cWould you like to?\u201d said Jakob. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to, if you don\u2019t want.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI should buy you one drink,\u201d she said, finally, \u201cfor bringing me my phone back.\u201d She put her hand into her pocket, relieved to find it still there.
\n\t After a while, they passed Mary\u2019s stop. Jakob turned the bus around and headed south, back in the direction they had come.<\/p>\n
\n\t Inside, they sat at a booth near to an Italian couple, a distinguished old man and much younger woman who were obviously talking about their English puddings. Mary and Jakob tried to deduce their verdict from their expressions, gestures.
\n\t \u201cI don\u2019t think they are happy,\u201d said Jakob.
\n\t \u201cOur food doesn\u2019t have a very good reputation,\u201d said Mary.
\n\t After her first drink, she felt lucid, the alcohol having only taken away her fear. She bought them another round. After her second, Mary adjusted comfortably to the situation. She saw herself as any woman in her mid-thirties having an after-work drink with a handsome, slightly older man. He\u2019d removed his bus driver\u2019s shirt; he was wearing a tight black T-shirt. He leaned his muscled arms against the table like weapons on display.
\n\t \u201cHow old were you during the Bosnian War?\u201d she said.
\n\t \u201cNineteen, when it started,\u201d said Jakob.
\n\t \u201cDo you mind talking about it?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI will not say something, if I don\u2019t want to say.\u201d
\n\t \u201cDid you fight?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI did.\u201d
\n\t Milo\u0161evi\u0107 exploited tensions between ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, he said, to build his Greater Serbia. Croatia and Slovenia wanted to leave Yugoslavia. They fought for their independence. Slovenia was the first, the most successful. The Bosnian people, the Muslim people, also wanted their independence. But the Bosnian Serbs would not let this happen.
\n\t \u201cThey were very brutal,\u201d he said, \u201cimposing their power. This is why you see Karadzic on trial at The Hague. For war crimes.\u201d
\n\t She looked into his eyes, and began, perhaps, to associate the paleness of the blue with the enigma of death.
\n\t \u201cIt was not only territorial,\u201d said Jakob. \u201cThey used, how do you say it \u2013 ethnic cleansing. This is a strange term, but \u2013 you know what I mean?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhich ethnicity was being\u2026cleansed?\u201d
\n\t \u201cMuslims. The war was for territory, but also an attack on Muslims.\u201d
\n\t Mary hadn\u2019t known these details, or perhaps she\u2019d known once but had since forgotten. She glanced at the others in the pub. The Italian couple were laughing, the old man held the woman\u2019s hand and kissed it, then turned, looked at her, and smiled.
\n\t \u201cAre you Muslim?\u201d said Mary.
\n\t \u201cI am not religious,\u201d said Jakob.
\n\t \u201cI hope you don\u2019t mind me asking these things.\u201d
\n\t He finished the last of his pint. \u201cI do not mind,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s good to get to the heart \u2013 what should I say? The heart of things. You know, conversation, it\u2019s mostly not this. Just noise. In the war, we told a lot of jokes. In war, sometimes you don\u2019t want to get to the heart of something.\u201d
\n\t Mary escaped, for a moment, into the sweetness of her wine.
\n\t \u201cI wanted to ask you about that night,\u201d he added. \u201cThat night when you were on my bus. And then they took you off the bus.\u201d
\n\t His gaze, direct, solid, was almost threatening.
\n\t \u201cA man came to me afterwards, told me what happened.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI don\u2019t really believe<\/em> those things I said.\u201d Mary tried to drink from her empty glass. Her hands were shaking. \u201cI was just very, very drunk.\u201d
\n\t Jakob looked out of the window.
\n\t \u201cI think people are interesting,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t like to judge. Sometimes, behaviour is strange \u2013 strangers in the city, some behave very differently. But I don\u2019t like to judge. I want to know. I always want to know, if I see somebody who goes outside of the crowd. I want to know what happened.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI agree,\u201d she said. \u201cI agree with that.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI had to look at your phone,\u201d said Jakob, \u201cso I could contact you. It seems like you lost somebody important. Rick.\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou went through my messages?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI looked at some.\u201d
\n\t She was stunned. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what to say.\u201d
\n\t He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms. \u201cRick was your boyfriend?\u201d
\n\t \u201cMy partner,\u201d she said. \u201cYes. We were practically married.\u201d
\n\t \u201cHow did he die? Will you tell me?\u201d
\n\t Mary began to feel hot. She understood what was going on here; this was why she associated male seduction with psychiatry. It was brutal; it was a way of controlling women, invading those parts of the mind that were private.
\n\t \u201cHe was killed in the London terror attacks,\u201d she said, severely. \u201cThe bombings on the Underground.\u201d
\n\t Jakob looked at the table, seemed to wince.
\n\t \u201cDid you kill anybody during the war?\u201d she said.
\n\t \u201cYes.\u201d
\n\t \u201cDid you lose anyone?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI did.\u201d
\n\t The Italian couple laughed, their eyes and faces glistening with the sweat and tears of enjoyment.
\n\t Jakob changed the subject. He asked her what sort of art she liked. She found herself able to answer without revealing the extent of her anger. \u201cImpressionism,\u201d she said. He said Warhol. She said, \u201cLoathe him.\u201d And they went on talking about mostly trivial things \u2013 yet it was here, the effect of their talk about death, or, as Jakob had put it, the heart of the thing. Occasionally the way he looked at her changed. It was like the way two actors might look at one another when they notice something amusing, slipping out of character.
\n\t They thanked the barman as they left the pub. Jakob lit a cigarette; Mary watched him try and fail to light it in a sudden wind; she drew close, helped him guard against it, and as she looked up at him, as he held it in his mouth, his eyes shining in the glow of the street lamps, she felt that pang again, that dull, indecipherable signal from body to brain.
\n\t Mary stepped back. \u201cWell,\u201d she said. \u201cI think I\u2019m going to go home.\u201d
\n\t They approached St. Paul\u2019s Underground station and the bus stop across the road. She asked him when the next bus would be. He told her it would be quicker to get the tube.
\n\t \u201cYou are on the Victoria Line?\u201d he said.
\n\t \u201cYes, Seven Sisters.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWant to come? We go the same way.\u201d
\n\t He looked hopeful. He might have known it could be difficult for her; she felt again that he was guiding her into her subconscious. She told herself she would resist, that it would be her in control.
\n\t \u201cFine,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u201d
\n\t Nothing of rush hour remained. There was a slow atmosphere about the station, a man walking and reading a newspaper at the same time. They scanned their Oyster cards and took the escalator down into the bowels of the earth. And it was then that she felt something, her blood thinning, heart racing. It was the way she thought of the Underground, this vast cavern beneath the city. It was prehistoric. She thought of the way cave paintings had been inspired by hallucinations brought on by the absence of light. She thought of the rats. There was a hooded busker playing a djembe at the bottom of the escalator, the violent sound rising, rising.
\n\t As they entered the tunnel, she pulled Jakob by the shoulder.
\n\t He turned to her. \u201cAre you okay?\u201d he said.
\n\t She looked into his eyes, the blue standing out from the fading darkness around her. He leaned into her for a kiss, but she moved away.
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m fine,\u201d she said.
\n\t Once they boarded the train, he sat opposite her, and she found herself able to relax. She yawned; he smiled. And she allowed herself to smile back.
\n\t The carriage was quiet. A young man wearing headphones dozed off, now and then, his head lolling as he fell almost into sleep. A woman with dark red hair squinted hard at her book as if she\u2019d forgotten her glasses. Jakob, his hands behind his head, was looking far into the darkness over her shoulder. Mary tried to think about his past life, about her own, and what it all meant, but then began to fall asleep. Before she drifted off, she noticed an advertisement for a dating website on the wall above Jakob\u2019s head. There was a photograph of a young man and woman who looked remarkably like brother and sister \u2013 brunette and thin and locked in a mutual gaze so silly they\u2019d broken into laughter. The train came to the last station, and Jakob began to leave.
\n\t She clutched his forearm.
\n\t \u201cWait,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n\t Jakob messed with the stereo; classical music flowed from the speakers.
\n\t \u201cYou want something to drink?\u201d he said.
\n\t She nodded. \u201cBut not alcohol,\u201d she said.
\n\t \u201cTea?\u201d said Jakob.
\n\t \u201cYes, please.\u201d
\n\t After he\u2019d gone, Mary explored the room. She looked over the bookshelf. English novels. Books she assumed were in Bosnian. Then she noticed, lying on the tops of the old hardbacks, a magazine; on its cover were two half naked women in an amorous embrace, the sight of which made her feel vaguely afraid.
\n\t Scanning the bookshelf from left to right, she came across a copy of the Koran. She took it out and examined it. The book was brand new, not at all dog-eared. As she went to put it back, she noticed an envelope in the space where the Koran had been, its open side facing her. It was filled with photographs. She drew out the first \u2013 it was Jakob. He was slumped against a wall beside a window. He looked exhausted, yet he was smiling. The world outside the window was bright; she could make out the bright green of the trees. He was wearing a dark green military uniform. A rifle leant against the wall beside him. She took out another photograph. Here he was standing in a field with two other men. They were all wearing a sort of white headdress, which she recognised, remembered, in a way that made her light-headed, the white cloth secured by a black headband, the trail of Arabic writing along its centre.
\n\t Jakob came in holding two cups of tea in one hand. He must have seen her putting the photographs back into the bookshelf, though he looked away as if he\u2019d caught her stepping out of the shower.
\n\t \u201cI made English tea,\u201d he said, placing one on the desk beside her.
\n\t He sat down on the bed. He opened his bedside drawer and took out a little tin.
\n\t \u201cDo you smoke?\u201d he said.
\n\t \u201cI haven\u2019t in years.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI don\u2019t smoke often. Sometimes it is nice.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI like this music,\u201d she said.
\n\t He told her it was a Bosnian cellist.
\n\t \u201cI was just looking through your books,\u201d said Mary.
\n\t Pinching the paper between his fingers and thumbs, he smiled.
\n\t \u201cOh yes?\u201d
\n\t \u201cThere are photographs of you wearing some sort of Islamic headdress.\u201d
\n\t He nodded. \u201cSome of my friends were Mujahidin.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat is that?\u201d
\n\t \u201cPeople doing Jihad. But they were from abroad. When they saw what was happening to Muslims in Europe, they came to help. One was from here, you know, from the United Kingdom.\u201d
\n\t He lit the joint and began to smoke.
\n\t \u201cBut I was not religious before the war. We defended our homes against invaders. We had to be Muslims \u2013 we had to be more Muslim than before \u2013 because so many in the towns were Muslim, but there were Christians, Croats fighting as well \u2013 not many, but some. There were different people defending Bosnia. Yes, it was mostly Muslims. My friends from abroad saw the struggle; it was for them a religious struggle. For some of us it was just territory. For me\u2026\u201d
\n\t He relit the joint, puffed on it lightly.
\n\t \u201cBoth were a struggle for me,\u201d he said. He took a long drag, exhaled a cloud of smoke, which he wafted into fragments. \u201cBut it became real, victory, God, as we were fighting. We were fighting for these things to become real \u2013 I thought.\u201d
\n\t Jakob put his head against his pillow. They listened for a while to the music.
\n \u201cIt\u2019s all a struggle,\u201d said Mary.
\n She listened to the deep, winding sound of the cello.
\n\t \u201cIt is a struggle for me,\u201d said Jakob, \u201calways \u2013 to stay awake.\u201d
\n\t His hand fell slightly. Mary sat up, took the joint from between his fingers. He grunted an apology. His eyes were closed, though he was still smiling politely. She took a drag from the joint \u2013 not enough for it to have much of an effect, but she enjoyed the sharpness of its taste, and the act was nostalgic.
\n\t In fact, the whole scene was familiar. Rick lying on his bed in his dorm room, smoking his joint and telling her, \u201cI think I prefer Sartre to Camus.\u201d She smiled. She hadn\u2019t known him at that point, but she\u2019d seen him in the lecture hall of their philosophy class, and she\u2019d felt something the moment he approached her at the end of the lecture. She\u2019d been far more afraid than she\u2019d let on, getting into his bed that same day. She\u2019d thought herself too old to be a virgin.
\n\t Again, Mary took Jakob\u2019s photographs from the envelope. She looked once more at the photograph of him sitting by the window and the other of him wearing military Islamic dress. The next was of five men, dressed in that same uniform, kneeling in prayer.
\n\t The struggle.<\/em>
\n\t She sat back in the office chair and wondered if she should leave. She looked at Jakob in his black T-shirt. She looked at his room; there was a poster of the movie The Godfather<\/em>, another of Andy Warhol with a quote that said, \u201cI Think Everybody Should Like Everybody.\u201d There was an acoustic guitar lying in the corner, an old pizza box. It was, on the surface, the bedroom of a student \u2013 and in this way, the details seemed self-conscious, cultural artefacts drawn awkwardly together. She thought, overall, it was the bedroom of a young student, for it reminded her of so many rooms in which she\u2019d spent her university years. She was nineteen then, the same age as Jakob when he fought in the Bosnian War. And, she realised, the same age as one of the men responsible for Rick\u2019s death.
\n\t Mary had often tried and failed to place herself in the mind of that man. He was determined, she\u2019d thought, beyond what was humanly possible. She\u2019d revered him, the way she\u2019d revered the deeply religious, the way she\u2019d revered anyone with infallible convictions, in God or in love. Even in art \u2013 in painting, or in poetry. Now she imagined his walking to meet \u2013 not his destiny, but merely his destination. She imagined his fear. He struggled to believe, for true belief was not possible. And in an agony of doubt he activated the explosives.
\n\t What she\u2019d feared was that the feeling that had first taken her, as she walked with Rick through the empty lecture hall and across the campus, crisp and barren and beautiful in winter, had faded over time and so had proved to be an illusion. But now she knew that it had not been an illusion, but a struggle, for this was what it meant to love and to live.
\n\t Jakob was sitting upright against the pillow, his head sagging slightly to the side. He looked peaceful, if not comfortable. He was snoring. Mary sat beside him on the bed. Beyond the faint smell of sweat and smoke was something she could not comprehend \u2013 a gentle scent, which meant what it was to know him. She nestled her head against his neck and waited, defiant in her fear, for him to respond or lay still. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"