Back in the apartment, Malin helped Uri settle into bed, slowly and carefully.

He succeeded in holding back his whining, and he even apologized for the inconveniences he was causing.

“I’ve promised I’d take care of you,” she said and left the table lamp on. “I won’t leave you now.”

“Thands,” he whispered.

As he lay on the soft mattress, he felt exhausted and very sleepy, as if he had just gotten rid of a heavy burden. Drugs were working. He was still wearing the tracksuit, torn and dirty after the fight; he didn’t want to take it out, though, he was afraid he would make a wrong move and earn a shock of pain.

Malin snapped her fingers and rushed out of the room.

Alone, between the gloom and the weak light, Uri remained with his eyes ajar, waiting for her to return. From the way she’d left, Malin had remembered something important. He heard her stirring things in the living room; delving into a handbag or something like that; and after a while, a period that he couldn’t define if it’d been a minute or half an hour, he saw her return with a glass of water and a black pill.

“The anthibiozic?” Uri was disoriented, but not so much. He felt his pocket and discovered that the pill bottle was still there.

“Drink it,” Malin said. It was an order rather than a request. She put the black pill in his mouth, and resting the edge of the glass on his lips, she helped him drink.

“Whad—?”

“What is it?” she finished. “Something I’d saved for an emergency.”

Uri swallowed the pill and then fell sound asleep.

Twelve hours later, he woke up.

Malin made pumpkin puree and brought it to bed. He ate it slowly and silently. He barely differentiated tastes, so it didn’t matter whether it was tasty or not. He drank plenty of water, plus some fruit juice, then went to the bathroom. The simple act of moving hurt him, but he made it.

Malin waited for him outside with a glass of water in hand and the meds.

He took the antibiotic prescribed by the doctor and another one of those black pills. He went back to bed and fell asleep for another twelve hours.

Everything around him moved in slow motion. He saw Malin as a blurry silhouette and heard her voice far away as if he were submerged in a tub of water. Sometimes he felt hot, sometimes cold. He looked and found himself on the bed, dressed in his torn tracksuit; he closed his eyes, reopened them, and he was wearing only his underpants; and then he was in his pajamas. At what point had he changed his clothes, or had Malin done it for him?

Malin, I’m cold, he said. Or did he think about saying it? Was he running a fever?

Juzo, you’re here.

I’m here.

The room spun as if it were on a disk spinning on an imaginary axis, a disc that stopped when he closed his eyes. The desperate need to turn to unconsciousness was big; it was the only thing that soothed his ills. And in his dreams, the Satellite agents appeared, the doctor who attended him in emergencies, Kitten, Malin, the subpoena, the days of the week, the bruises, and the pain; the agents and Kitten, Malin, the subpoena, the agents, the paramedics, the park’s nature reserve, and sometimes Broga and Juzo appeared; or Juzo, who was actually Broga, or Broga, who was actually Juzo; everything was very confusing. And when he opened his eyes, his surroundings were erased and nothing was left. Tabula rasa.

“So, what are you doing?” he asked Tony. Suddenly, it was daytime, and he was in his office, at Homam Enterprises. How? He hadn’t moved.

What are you doing? had been a question he asked a few days ago. Or had it been months ago? Yes, the talk with Tony had happened months ago.

Tony was a computer genius who worked in the company’s IT area. He was a small guy, with bright eyes and very long eyelashes. Uri liked Tony. Tony always fixed things. Tony did his magic on the keyboard, and he always managed to save important data from Uri’s computer when some malfunction affected it.

“Explain to me what you’re doing, Tony.”

Uri enjoyed seeing Tony working, even though he didn’t understand what Tony was doing.

“I’m transferring the data from your hard drive to mine,” Tony replied on that occasion. On the screen, there was a nice animation in which a cartoon little worm dragged a box, taking it from one door to another, over and over again. “It’ll take a few minutes. You have a lot of junk files on your computer, Uri.”

“It’s those damn malware, Tony. They filled my system with crap,” he’d defended himself.

“And the malware comes from dirty sites you visit, Uri.”

“I know, but turn the volume down, will you? If Trevor hears you, he’s gonna freak out! You know what a snooty he is.”

Tony had continued his job, and Uri, marveling like a child, continued to watch the little worm dragging a box, tucking it into one of the doors, returning to the other door, and taking a new box.

“I’m transferring my data to your hard drive,” Tony said. And when Uri looked up, saw that Tony was Juzo.

“Don’t you think we’re going too fast?” he asked, then.

Pushing the sheet off with her feet, Malin turned to him, her hair loose, and a bit disheveled. She looked beautiful, even when she had just woken up. The lamp’s faint yellow light licked her naked body; everything else in the room was dissolving into darkness.

“Too fast?” she said, pulling her golden curls away from her face. “I didn’t know there was a speed limit for this route. The route of…”

“Please,” he interrupted her, “don’t say the route of love.”

Malin frowned in that pretty way that only she knew how to do.

“I was gonna say the route of knowledge. Route of love? Huff! How cheesy do you think I am, Juzo?”

He kept quiet. A pair of sealed lips was his answer to everything?

Malin got on top of him and kissed him. White, soft, and clean skin, on top of swarthy skin, rough and covered with hairs.

“And I’ll tell you, one night in bed a week,” she added, “is just a point over zero on the speedometer.”

He looked her in the eye. “That’s all I can offer at the moment.”

“I know,” she said; “I wasn’t throwing it in your face. I’m surprised you questioned me, that’s all.” Malin went down with her kisses. “This is the third time you’ve touched on the subject so far tonight. That kind of question I’d have expected to come from a teenager in love, or even from Rigel, but never from you.”

“How nice is to hear you mention your ex,” he sighed.

She interrupted her round of kisses and went up to face him with eyes wide open.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Juzo! Where did you drop the confidence in yourself? Because you’re not gonna tell me it’s a facade you put to command revolutionaries and stole ex-militaries’ hearts because I won’t believe you.” She tapped his chest. “I know you’re like marble inside, hard and kind of—”

“Cold,” he finished. “Or so you say.”

“Exactly!” She sat on the bed, serious. “So, why do you suddenly ask so many questions? Hey, if you want to tell me something, say it. You know how much I hate playing at Let’s guess Juzo’s intentions.”

Juzo looked into her eyes. “Not all of us can be so loose with our tongues.”

Malin smacked her lips with mischievousness.

“Loose with our tongue, huh?”

“You know what I mean,” he said.

Malin snorted.

“Ugh! Why always so serious?” She took him by the face and caressed his stubble. “Juzo, when I met you, I knew there wouldn’t be another man I wanted to be with. I know I sound like any romantic little girl, but at the time all I thought was, ‘Gal, this guy knows what he wants, how he wants it, and he knows what he’s doing. He’ll keep you safe more times than he’ll put you in danger, and for a brand-new deserter, that’s more than a good deal. You’ll be a fool if you move away from his side’.”

Juzo just looked at her.

“I knew I could be getting into big trouble,” she continued. “I never considered you might be in a relationship; if you were married, widowed, or gay… Or a lunatic, like most of the Rowdy Ones. I’m sorry, I know a lot of them are friends of yours, but let’s face it, your group is jam-packed with crazy folks. But at that moment, all I wanted was to be by your side, and I decided to stay with you until the day I die; I didn’t care if I ended up heartbroken. I know, it’s twisted, and it could have become more toxic than I would have wanted, but it was what I felt; and as I got to know you, I realized I wasn’t wrong. And then a miracle happened! You looked at me, you found me interesting. And you know what happened there?”

He shook his head.

“I realized I would never have a normal relationship,” she said. “And I gave up my almost non-existent dreams of building a family. All right, to be honest, I was never one of those teenage girls who dream of getting married; I think none of the women in my family were. My mother put the military ahead of her own daughter, and my two cousins are on the same path. Though, it’s nice to have the option of a stable relationship, besides singleness, y’know? And dreaming of having one isn’t just a woman thing. But when I started dating you… Well, I knew I wouldn’t even have that. Because, if the situation with my father or with Rigel didn’t prevent me from having it, your personality would. You’re the least permeable person I know, and you’d never agree to have a relationship… you know, normal.”

Malin pointed to both of them in bed.

“This,” she said. “This is me, putting the foot between the door and the frame, to prevent you from locking yourself in that cold room where you love to spend your days. The same room that will eventually lead you to madness, and who knows, maybe suicide, like what happened with Peter.”

“Peter was a depressed man, I am lonely,” Juzo said. “There’s a difference.”

“Suicide doesn’t only mean putting a rifle in your mouth, Juzo; there are slower and subtler ways to let yourself die.” Malin rolled up her hair. “So, to answer your question: No, we’re not going too fast.” She kissed him. “For what you’re used to, I know this must feel as if you’re in a rally, but believe me, you’re not. You keep running, I’ll keep driving very slowly next to you so that when you get tired, you can hop on easily.”

He laughed and hugged her.

“You do like to talk!” he said, and laying her on her back, he reversed the roles and get on top of her.

“That’s the Juzo I like! The one who doesn’t speak, the one who just goes for it!”

So then, Uri hushed her with a kiss, and they played in bed. Accidentally, they kicked the lamp on the bedside table, knocking it over. The lamp light drew a yellowish spot on the wall and splashed them with shadows. They laughed and continued to roll between the sheets until they got lost in an ocean of dimness.

“Peter…” he whispered, swimming in the dark. “Peter… Who was Peter?”

Malin, who had just given him the black pill, stopped at the doorstep, holding the glass of half-drunk water, and turned to him.

“What?” she asked. Her face was torn between amazement and wonder.

“Peter,” he said and coughed. He had a pasty sensation in his mouth. “Who was Peter?”

“Peter was Juzo’s father,” she answered. “Well, the man who raised him. He was… a complicated guy.”

“Sure. Sure,” Uri nodded and cleared his throat. “I remember.”

Right! How could he have forgotten Peter?

“You know something?” he added. Malin shook her head. “I always liked your accent. It’s… cute.”

“Thank you,” she smiled and finally left.