* * * *

Luka was hit directly by pain. At one moment, there had only existed a blessed numbness. The world hadn't been there; he hadn't been there. The next, his whole body started to scream. His head and every muscle, every joint in his arms and legs hurt, but the worst was the pain in his abdomen. He felt as if he was being stabbed. He closed his eyes tighter and instinctively tried to shift on his side but his body refused his commands, and the pain only grew worse. There was a weird sound about him, a low, uncanny wail of some sort of animal. It frightened him.

"Luka? Luka? Stay still. I know you are in pain, but try not to move." A firm and gentle voice came into the dark pitch that was his world and drowned out the inhuman moan. At the same time, a hand entered his and Luka clung to it, trying to overcome the fright and the agony.

"Try to open your eyes, Luka."

He fought to obey, to open his eyelids, but he couldn't. The moaning started again, and Luka panicked when he realised the ghoulish sound came from his own throat. A wave of nausea overtook him. The gentle voice started shouting all sorts of commands, the hand slipped out of his. He tried to grab it, to maintain the grasp on the only reassuring thing in his reality, but failed. Other hands turned him on his right side, while his entrails protested.

"Slow down; slow down, Luka. Breathe," the voice was still gentle, but now there was an undertone of urgency in it.

Luka's stomach was on fire and he couldn't master his breathing. Another wave of nausea stroke him and he plunged again into oblivion.

* * * *

The bead of sweat tickled his forehead as it trailed down, was momentarily caught in his eyebrow, slid down his temple and finally got lost in his hair. It was hot, so hot he almost couldn't breathe in the dry and scalding air. His lips were painfully dry and split, his throat was sore and parched. And then he became aware of the pain again. It floated within him, swelled and declined, concentrated in one limb and then flowed on to another. The sharpest still resided in his belly. Luka moved his hand to cover it, but his fingers bumped into a hard obstacle. He sensed the area gingerly. He found dressings, large and bulky dressings. He strained to open his eyes, to find out what had happened to him.

Suddenly, he was facing a white ceiling, lit brightly by a shaft of morning light. He turned his head to better assess his surroundings and his eyes met the familiar red cross on a poster on the wall. Hospital. He was in a hospital. A Red Cross hospital. With what took an enormous effort, he lifted his hand to wipe his forehead. He noticed, at the same time, the IV attached to it and its incredible leanness. If his hands were so thin, he had to be emaciated. He let his hand drop on his chest as he realised where he was. The Red Cross hospital, the dressings, the fever, the emaciation. all fell into place.

Vukovar had just fallen, he had been hit by a piece of shrapnel which Damir had managed to pull out from his side without any antiseptics or anaesthesia, had been considered as good as dead by the Serbs and had been left in the cellar of the Vukovar hospital while his colleagues and healthier patients were loaded in buses. He had been later picked up by the UNPROFOR forces. Oh God. He had survived. The rest lay in a mass grave. Dr. Meinl, Damir, Tatjana, the youngster that had taken over the functions of orderly in the past weeks. all shot.

A knot formed in his throat and the pain increased as he fought back the tears. He covered his eyes with his hand and felt how the tears slid down his temples, leaving cool trails behind them as the images reeled once again under his eyelids. Images of Dr. Meinl operating, of Tatjana and Damir sharing their last cigarette, of the old lady he had managed to patch up raising her hand to bless him, the shy smile of their improvised orderly when he accepted a sip of tea. All were gone, and he was still there, in the grey purgatory he once used to call a life. He sobbed and his gasping breaths increased the pangs in his abdomen. But he couldn't stop crying and he wanted to drown in the pain, to draw away the thoughts, the memories.

"Luka. Luka!"

A hand touched his and lifted it from his face, and suddenly Luka confronted a familiar face. The strange thing was he couldn't quite tell who it belonged to, what her name was, where he had met her. He was sure he knew her. He somehow felt he trusted her, but he couldn't remember who she was.

She caressed his cheeks tenderly and wiped away the tears.

"Shhh. Shhhh." She whispered. "Everything's all right. You're safe, Luka. You're safe."

But he didn't want to be safe. He didn't want to be. He didn't want to carry the memories with him, didn't want the regrets and the nightmares. He was so tired and in such pain that he only wanted to stop thinking, to scare off all traces of consciousness.

Despite the reassuring touch, Luka floated away and stopped focusing on the kind eyes and vaguely familiar features. Instead, his sight went beyond her, towards the brightness of the morning light. His mind drifted off to a realm more basic and more primitive where there were no words, no thoughts, only physical sensation and a constant present, devoid of meaning.

***

Gillian looked through the small window and into the room before she laid her hand on the latch of the door. She didn't open it straightaway, though. She lingered a bit on the view in front of her.

The room was brightly lit. The white walls, floor and sheets reflected the afternoon light that came in through the large window. Against them, Luka's dark hair and olive skin made a sharp contrast, making his gauntness even more evident. Gillian winced. She should have got used to seeing him like that by then, but she hadn't.

He was incredibly lean; all roundness on his cheeks and shoulders had disappeared and his bones protruded sharply under the skin. The angular lines of his figure ironically matched the ones of the external fixator and other orthopaedic contrivances fixed into his hip, pelvis and left leg which stuck up under the sheet covering his body. Luka's face was partly turned towards the window, the stubborn stubble already darkening his cheek.

The nurses at Kinshasa General Hospital complained it grew all too fast. Although they shaved him every morning, Luka seemed already untidy by the end of the afternoon, when the doctors came for their daily round. Gillian found their complaints amusing. They worried as much about Luka's appearance as if he was going to a reception with a minister. It was so ironic that they concentrated on such minutiae and never even mentioned the gravity of his ailments in their conversations. But Gillian knew that was a defence mechanism, a defence mechanism she also resorted to. She too held on to such petty details as his fast growing beard, or the fact that he seemed to like lemon jelly more than any other flavour, or his sight following her through the room whenever she had her bright purple t-shirt on. Otherwise, she would rapidly freak out.

After he had overcome the last fevers caused by malaria, Luka had stopped babbling in Croatian and had, instead, become completely still. Nothing had made him utter the slightest word, nothing had wiped out the dull look in his eyes, nothing had been able to pull him out of the stupor he had plunged into. The doctors had trouble trying to assess his mental status. They thought probably malaria had affected him neurologically, though he hadn't been in a coma. They had also guessed he was suffering from some kind of post traumatic shock, but they couldn't really tell how much of his ailment was due to physical and how much to psychological causes. So prognosis was reserved. Reserved prognosis. Those two words still resounded in her ears and made chills run down her spine.

Gillian glanced at Carter, trying to draw away the distressing thoughts. Carter was sitting on a plastic chair by Luka's bed, his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. He seemed to be dozing off. He had to be dozing off, having been already drained off earlier that afternoon, when he had offered to replace her. During the last fortnight, Carter had been displaying huge and unexpected resources to get things under control. He had, in fact, got in charge of everything. He had managed to fly Luka from Kisangani to Kinshasa, had found a bed in one of the most expensive private hospitals, had ensured he got surgery at the hands of the country's specialists.

He was now trying to fly Luka to Chicago, a task that seemed overwhelming in sight of all the complications. Not only the risk of travelling with a seriously ill patient for over 18 hours made it an uncertain enterprise. Government in the Congo had grown suspicious of these foreigners which had popped up from a conflict area and landed in a first-rate hospital. Gillian and Carter had already had three visits from the police. They had even tried to question Luka. They would have done it, hadn't one of the doctors stood between the policemen and the door, and strongly advised them against it.

The detectives had wanted to know what exactly had happened to Luka, what contacts had they had with the rebel forces and where the money that was paying for Luka's treatment had come from. After the enquiries, both Gillian and Carter had been warned they should stick to their present quarters until further notice. Surprisingly enough, their contracts with Alliance de Medicines International had not helped much to dispel the suspicion, and the fact Luka had no identification papers only worsened it.

Luka's lack of an ID brought other problems along. Luka wouldn't be let out of the Congo without it. There was no Croatian embassy in the Congo, so there was no official stance that could provide him a passport. To apply to the nearest consulate through mail would take about a month. Carter had been considering flying into Croatia himself, but he had been told that since he was no family to Luka it wouldn't be of any help. Then he had thought of asking a member of Luka's family to apply for a passport, but he had learnt citizens had to do it personally. In a typical display of bureaucratic logic, the argument became a vicious circle forestalling any solution.

Carter had been considering buying Luka a fake passport in the black market but that morning he had been off to talk to his acquaintance in the American embassy and had definitely been advised against it. The man had told him, though, that it was probable Luka would be let out of the Congo with another kind of ID, like his green card. Gillian was sure Carter would have been happy with the news, hadn't he been too tired and too swamped by all the requirements that were necessary for the American Embassy to issue a certificate that stated that Luka held a green card in the States.

But despite the menacing mistrust of the Congo police, despite Luka's failing health, and the pile of hindrances he had to face, Carter was still in a surprisingly nonchalant mood. With his typical sense of humour, he had shrugged and told Gillian that what he really dreaded was having to phone to County and ask his chief for Luka's working papers. He maintained that even the police officers that had interviewed them were kinder than Robert Romano and Kerry Weaver. He had laughed when Gillian had asked him whether he thought Luka would thank him for getting him back to County if he would have to face such characters. However, despite his earlier display of insouciance, now he was sitting there, his head in his hands, and seemed completely disheartened.

Carter and Luka seemed immersed in a painting by Hopper. Two people sharing the same, ample and brightly lit space but completely cut off from each other, each glancing into an indefinite spot. Gillian shivered. The same loneliness which she found appealing in Hopper's paintings was scary in that hospital room. She grabbed the latch and carefully opened the door.

She managed a bright smile when Carter looked up to her. They kept up a cheerful front for each other. Otherwise, they would have been immersed in such dismay they wouldn't have been able to face their day to day problems.

"So, how are you two, sleepy heads?" Asked Gillian.

Carter smiled and shrugged slightly.

"Sleepy," he said.

He watched as Gillian bent over Luka, stroked his cheek and murmured some soft words in French. She always talked to him whenever she was in the room. It didn't matter that she never got an answer. She kept on addressing him, touching him, holding his hand. Carter was happy for that. He considered himself fortunate to have had Gillian as a companion through all this. She had been an extraordinary help in their journey to the refugee camp and back, and here she provided a kind of support Carter was in desperate need of.

On the one hand she was all the time trying to come into contact with Luka. Carter knew that was something essential given Luka's state, but he was himself too aware of the possible damage to his brain to even attempt it. So whenever he was with Luka he invariably fell silent and almost didn't touch him. On the other hand, Gillian had also become the bridge between him and the French-speaking hospital personnel. She was always there for the medical rounds, and had served as a translator between him and the doctors that were taking care of Luka.

She had been indispensable during the first days, when Carter had entered into a heated argument as to how much pain medication Luka was to be given. There were, evidently, different pain standards in the Congo and the U.S. The Congolese doctors had been shocked when they learnt Carter's idea of the amount of painkillers that Luka should be administered. But they had luckily given in at last. Carter had hated to see Luka in so much pain as he had been the whole trip from the refugee camp to Kisangani, and then to Kinshasa. Not that it had helped much, anyway.

Carter often asked himself if he should be happy for Luka's good fortune. What good was it that he hadn't suffered from a worse infection, or haemorrhage, or kidney failure if he was just lying there, unable to come into contact with what surrounded him? He wiped his forehead with his hand and tried a smile when he noticed Gillian's look of concern.

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you said. What was it?"

"I said you need to get some sleep, Carter."

"Yeah, but I'd rather wait for the doctors."

"I'll do that."

Carter looked away, hesitant, but Gillian took his chin with her hand and forced him to look at her.

"Tell you what. I'll wake you up when I get to the hotel. We can have dinner together while I brief you over what they say. How does that sound?"

Carter had to admit defeat.

"It sounds good," he sighed.

"See? I always have bright ideas."

Carter smiled, and shook his head.

"What? Are you doubting my judgement?"

Carter hurried to lift up his hands and wave his surrender.

"Hey, I never."

"Good. Apologies accepted."

Gillian hoped he would rise and say goodbye, but he looked away instead. He was quiet for a while.

"So, how did it go with your boss?" He asked at last.

Gillian tried a reassuring wink and shrugged.

"Well, you know how bosses are, don't you?"

"Huh."

Carter's quiet assent was more a question than a sign of sympathetic understanding. Gillian decided against telling him she had just been fired. Her time off work for travelling to Congo with Alliance de Medicines International had expired a week ago, and her boss hadn't been pleased when she had heard Gillian intended to stay in Africa until she had got her friend out of there. It was not. How had she put it now? An excuse to get two more weeks of vacation.

"She gave in at last. She's still holding a grudge against me, though, but she'll find a replacement for the next weeks."

Carter's face brightened up.

"Are you coming to Chicago, then?"

"Of course. How else will I ensure that you two good looking guys won't get stuck in Paris to pursue adventures instead of heading directly home?"

Gillian had expected him to laugh at that, but instead, Carter only drew a polite smile and cast a worried look at Luka. The grief in Carter's eyes almost made her wince. Although it affected her to see Luka in an almost catatonic state, it seemed that Carter was more hurt than her. He had been able to cope perfectly with Luka's physical ailments, but whenever he entered the hospital room now he seemed totally lost, frightened and bewildered.

Gillian took Carter's hand and made him stand up.

"Off you go, then," she said, shooing him out of the room.

She waited by the door while he walked down the corridor and disappeared past the nurse's station. She waved to him when he looked back just before he headed for the stairs. Then she came into the room and closed the door with a sigh.

She took the plastic chair Carter had sat on and carried it to the other side of the bed. She put it down in a place where she would be in Luka's visual field, but she didn't sit down right away. Instead, she came close to him and placed a kiss on his cheek. Luka's eyes gazed listlessly into emptiness from underneath half-closed eyelids.

"Do you really want to know what happened with my boss, little giraffe?" She asked him.

She had started calling him stupid names since the day they had found him in the refugee camp. It had seemed to soothe him whenever he had been lost in pain or in a fit of fever, and she had kept doing so even though he didn't react to them anymore. Carter couldn't understand a word she said anyway, and it helped to soothe her. The hospital staff could gossip and make as much fun of her as they pleased.

"She kicked me out. Or rather," she continued with a sense of pride. "I kicked her out. I told her to stick her job up there where the sun doesn't shine. What do you think, huh? She thought you were not a good excuse for neglecting my job. Unbelievable, isn't it?"

She traced one of Luka's eyebrows with her finger.

"I think it's rather the other way round."

She made a pause and then she wiped back some strands of his hair.

"So I'll get to see your famous Chicago, big mammoth. I wonder if it can compete with Montreal."

She fell silent again, trying to remember what Chicago meant to Luka. He hadn't said much. Maybe only the customary things. Good place to work in. Big city. Modern. Cold. Impersonal. Or hadn't he said a thing about Chicago and was she just making the whole thing up? She didn't know anymore. They had had so little time to talk.

With a sigh, she reached out for her handbag and took out her walkman while she sat down. She put on the earphones and hit the play button. Luka's feeble, hoarse voice, coming between ragged breaths blasted in the earphones. She adjusted the volume. After having listened to his ravings for over three days she had been desperate to know, to understand what the source of his fears and obsessions was. So she had gone to the black market, bought a tape recorder and taped him.

Now she played the tapes over and over, trying to learn the sounds, to separate word from word, to distinguish something in the indefinite mass of utterances. She had only recognised a few things. A few words resembled French or English, and she had also identified two names: Marco, Daniella. To listen to the tapes was a frustrating task, but now the husky sound of Luka's voice and the soft, explosive, consonant sounds of his mother tongue had also become part of her long waits at the hospital, and a way of fighting the oppressive silence.

Gillian wondered who was craziest: Carter or her. His obsession to rescue Luka and his constant struggle with bureaucracy sounded insane, taking into account that he and Luka had never been close friends. They had, in fact, been more like rivals back in Chicago, or so she had understood. But taping Luka's ravings and resigning her job to ensure he got back safely to Chicago was even more demented, if one considered that what she and Luka had had in the past had been little more than an affair. She wiped her eyes tiredly and then she held Luka's hand and gazed into his eyes.

"I wonder what 'Otac' is. Won't you tell me, wicked shark? Huh?"