Chapter 24

PRESENT

Johanna waved me to stop and stopped the recorder. She had tears in her eyes.

“So, how long was it?” she asked me, in a whisper.

“Judging by the date I left Alaska, and the date I woke up in your house, thirteen days. I don’t remember even half of it. Mirko insisted that a lot of things happened, that we were this close to a farmer seeing us and that I chased away several wild cats that were hanging around us, that he himself had a cold for a few days and I took care of him, but I don’t know. It has been lost. I spent so much time alienated by fever and fighting infections, desperate to get out of it, that perhaps I did things on instinct and wasn’t even aware of my actions.”

“You were thinking about dying. I mean, a part of you had already given up on everything, because she was gone. You also wanted to leave.”

“Half of me wanted to do it, yes. Maybe.”

I smiled slightly, the scar on the right side of my mouth not allowing me to make more