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There wasn’t a chance in hell I was giving this man my contact details. But I knew I had to give him something. He could change his mind about saving my life at any time.

‘Leave a message for me at the Cobilar State Library,’ I said. ‘On the notice board. I will check there.’

He nodded, seemingly satisfied, to my relief. Cobilar was a city of more than ten million people – our capital. For him to know I lived there couldn’t do any harm. He couldn’t find me there. There was no chance, particularly since I planned to change my identity on my return to Jurge.

Then I was boarding the plane.

* * *

I was honourably discharged from the army soon after my return to Jurge. I felt I’d done enough and the army agreed, particularly given my contract was due to expire in two months’ time in any case.

My normal life resumed almost straight away. I spoke to Ralf’s family, and I did feel a little sorry for them as they seemed to have a completely misinformed view about what sort of a person their son really was. It clearly wasn’t their fault, and they were grieving. So I was suitably sympathetic and told them all he was a good man.

I got a job working as a political correspondent, which was fun if a little hairy sometimes when the nature of the job got a bit too close for comfort to the nature of my work in the army. I was happy to put all of that behind me. I’d seen more than I ever wanted to see. I was ready for a normal life.

I dated a man from the government’s intelligence organisation, and that lasted for about a year before he dumped me, telling me I was too cold and I’d forgotten how to love or some such thing. I’d never felt close to him, not even when we were making love, which is probably where he got the “cold” thing from. I didn’t really know the reason. I presumed it had to do with all the hate and the killing from the war. It had just sucked the life out of me, for the most part.

Although I made a point of hanging around “normal” people, I enjoyed catching up with my friends from the army, because they were all a bit the same. We were always swapping stories about our failed relationships post-war, and in a way it helped to be able to laugh about it and realise that we were all in exactly the same position. Most of the time, I didn’t really mind being alone. Every now and then I wished I had someone to hold at night.

I never considered trying to contact Racoh. Although I remembered him pointing a gun at y head on pretty much a daily basis, I didn’t give my promise to him another thought, actually, until about two years after the war ended. I was going shopping with a girlfriend, Jeka, in central Cobilar one Saturday morning. She had said that she would meet me in the city but we’d forgotten to arrange a specific place, so I rang her on her mobile when I got there.

‘Hey, Nika,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m at the Library. Just meet me out the front.’

‘No, hang on … I –’

‘I’ve gotta go, I’ve got someone on call waiting. Seeya soon!’

With that she hung up.

The library was only a couple of blocks away, but I was annoyed. I hadn’t wanted to go there.

I picked up my bag anyway and headed off towards the Cobilar State Library. The feeling in my gut was kind of sickening. I just didn’t want to know about Racoh. I wanted to forget him completely. I had a new surname, new papers, and even though I still had memories, I had a new life that was happy and complete. Complete enough, anyway. Happy-ish.

I didn’t want any trouble and I didn’t want any grief. I resolved to simply meet Jeka, then go. I would not look at the notice board. I had made a promise to Racoh in exchange for my life – that I would check the notice board – and I had every intention of breaking that promise for the rest of the life he had given me.

When I got to the library there was no sign of Jeka. I rang her immediately.

‘Where are you?’

‘Sorry, I just nipped off to get a coffee. I’ll be back in five minutes. Do you want me to get one for you too?’

‘Thanks. Don’t be long.’ I didn’t want to tell her now that I wanted to meet somewhere else. It was too late. I didn’t want her asking me questions.

There was nothing else to do at the front door of the library but glance at the notice board just inside the foyer. I resisted the temptation for a few minutes, and then decided to get it over and done with. If there was no notice, I could push aside this overpowering feeling of guilt.

There was a notice.

“Anika,” it was headed.

I am in Jurge and I would love to take you to that play we talked about. I hope you will call me.

Racoh.

There was a phone number at the base. Without thinking, I took the note from the board and threw it in the bin.

When I turned around a young woman was staring at me. ‘Are you Anika?’ she asked me, smiling.

I was instantly on my guard – an old habit when people wanted to know my name. ‘Why do you ask?’ I said crossly.

‘Oh, it’s just that – I work here, and I’ve noticed that note has been here for a long time, maybe four months. The man – Racoh – he comes in every day to see if it’s still there.’

I felt myself starting to shake. ‘Every day?’

She nodded. ‘Without fail.’

‘He must work near here or something.’

‘I think he does. He’s Cealic, but I think he’s emigrated here since the war. He speaks good Jurgen. He’s very good looking.’

I pulled out my phone. ‘How far away are you?’ I found myself snapping at Jeka. ‘Hurry up.’

‘I’m out the front now. Where are you?’

I looked out through the glass surrounding the foyer and saw Jeka standing in the sunlight.

I breathed a sign of relief and went out through the doors without saying another word to the girl who worked in the library. I had to get away from this building.

It was only once I arrived out in the sunlight that I realised that Jeka had been talking to someone whose body had been obscured from the foyer by metal infrastructure of the revolving glass door. I felt myself go weak at the knees in exactly the same way as I had last time I saw him, when he was pointing a gun at me moments after blowing away my comrade.

‘Hey Nika,’ Jeka said, giving me a hug. ‘This is – sorry, what was your name?’

The man smiled at me. ‘Racoh,’ he said.

I had to keep it together. I couldn’t go dropping to my knees here on a sunny, happy, peaceful day in Cobilar, two years after the war had finished.

‘Pass me my coffee,’ I snapped to Jeka, feeling sick in the guts as I tried to keep myself upright.

She did as she was told.

‘Anika, I don’t want to scare you,’ Racoh began, succeeding only in scaring the life out of Jeka. She looked at me, obviously alarmed.

‘You two know each other?’

‘We met during the war,’ Racoh said softly. ‘I’m Cealic.’

‘You’re Cealic,’ she repeated darkly. ‘If you met during the war it can only have been …’ she paused. ‘As enemies.’

‘Don’t worry, Jeka,’ I said quickly, taking in a swig of the coffee and feeling a little bit better for it. ‘We’re safe.’ I didn’t want her to be afraid like I had been. She’d never been in the army. She wasn’t used to fear. ‘Racoh saved my life.’

‘Really?’ she said, her eyes immediately lighting up with curiosity.

I nodded. Really, I had a lot to thank him for. He may be a hopeless romantic, but he could have had me against my will if he’d chosen to. And no one would ever have known it had happened. There would have been no autopsy.

‘Did you see my note?’ Racoh asked me.

I nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, looking up at him. ‘Your face is just so familiar. It reminds me of that time. And when I saw Ralf die, I truly believed that would happen to me too.’

He stared at me for a moment. Then he nodded. ‘I understand. It can’t really be, can it?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, hey,’ Jeka said. ‘You guys can’t give up that easily! Nika, goodness, he saved your life and he came all the way over here to find you? That’s so romantic!’

I closed my eyes. I hung around people like Jeka because they were normal, they reminded me of what it should be like to be a woman, instead of the machine I had considered myself to be by the end of the war. But sometimes I really had to remind myself not to be scornful of them and their weakness.

‘Nika, come on!’ Not giving up, she grabbed my arm and pulled me roughly away from Racoh. When we were out of his hearing, she hissed into my ear.

‘He’s tall, he’s handsome, he saved your life. It was love at first sight for him and now he’s come all the way over here to find you. Nika, you can’t be closed to everything. You have to let love into your life if you ever want to be happy.’

I stared at her. ‘I don’t believe that happiness is possible for me.’

‘How do you know, Nika? How do you know unless you give it a chance? Please – just one date. It can’t hurt. Can it?’

I sighed, and pulled myself away from her. It was so kind of her to care about me. I felt a little overwhelmed.

I turned to look back at Racoh, who was still standing in the sunlight watching us.

‘Did you come all the way over here to find me?’ I asked him.

‘In part,’ he said. ‘But I also had business here before the war. It was always my intention to come here eventually.’

I closed my eyes, and for the millionth time I saw Racoh, standing across the room pointing the firearm at me as I begged him to kill me. It was of some, but not much comfort that I wasn’t the only reason why he had come here, that he hadn’t created a whole new life for himself in a foreign country solely for the purpose of tracking me down.

I decided I would give it one date, since that, it seemed, was what a normal woman would do.

* * *

I wore a long, black dress with silver sparkles through it, a diamond necklace and diamond earrings, and four inch heels which I knew wouldn’t go very far towards catching up to Racoh, but would give me a bit of a start. I felt utterly stupid dressing up like that for a date with an enemy soldier, but Jeka made me do it. She basically dressed me.

I felt that I had scrubbed up all right, but I would have given anything to get out of the whole thing.

I had arranged to meet Racoh at the theatre. I certainly wasn’t getting in a car with him. Jeka dropped me off and wished me the best of luck. I tried to look less glum than I felt as she pulled away from the curb. I didn’t think I had much success. I had made her drop me off early so Racoh wouldn’t see her number plate and trace her.

Racoh arrived soon after and spoke to me in Jurgen, as he had at the library.

‘You look absolutely beautiful,’ he said. He looked like he meant it.

‘Thanks,’ I said. Then I froze as he reached down and picked up one of my hands with both of his. He lifted it up and kissed it then, sensing my ongoing discomfort at the touch, dropped it.

‘I’ve booked dinner for us at the Graleng at 8 o’clock.’

‘Okay.’

We walked into the theatre and took a seat in a private box. I knew that private boxes were expensive, but it seemed Racoh had spared no expense. Whatever his job was, it seemed it paid well.

‘Racoh,’ I said half way through the first part. ‘I was honest with you when you asked me to be, wasn’t I?’

He nodded. ‘I think you were trying to get killed, but yes, you were honest. Mostly. I believe you were special services, even though you denied it.’

‘Will you be honest with me?’

He nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Are you here to gather intelligence?’

His eyes widened. ‘No, Anika, I swear it.’

‘You know where I work. You know who I dated.’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t know either of those things. That’s not why I came here. I swear it.’

‘Why, then? Why did you come here?’

He sighed. ‘For tonight. That’s why. And I had business here. Like I said.’

‘Don’t you think it’s all a bit co-incidental? You’re obviously high-ranking, there was a chance the war may not be over, probably on orders you’ve made friends with a female who’s similarly high-ranking just as she was leaving so you could use her as an excuse to come to Jurge and spy, and maybe even gather information from her during pillow talk.’

‘When you put it like that,’ Racoh said, staring across at the actors again, ‘it sounds like it would have been a good idea. Unfortunately, it’s not an idea I had. There were no orders. I came here because after I saw you at the airport I felt you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I wanted to follow my heart for once, instead of being a machine. If I’d followed my heart more often, many less people would be dead.’

I was startled to hear him use the same word I did to describe himself. That really threw me for a moment.

‘And if I had been caught letting you through,’ he went on, ‘I’d have been dead.’

On the stage in front of us, a young man plunged a knife into the chest of another young man, causing the latter to slump, dead, to the floor. I felt the familiar sensation of rising sickness, followed swiftly by emptiness. The nothingness that I had trained my body to revert to in times of emotion tended, these days, to kick in so quickly it was as though I barely even started to feel. Instead of feeling disgust, I found myself reflecting nonchalantly on how nice it is when just one thrust does the job.

‘I didn’t want you to die,’ Racoh finished off, his eyes also on the play. ‘I’d never seen such a beautiful woman.’

I didn’t respond. Another woman, a woman like Jeka, might have demanded to know why a pretty woman deserves to live while her companion, a man with family who love him, should die. But I had killed too many men and women for no good reason at all to go around talking to others about right and wrong.

‘Did you come here alone?’ I asked Racoh.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did you bring a wife to Jurge? That’s what I mean.’

‘Do you care?’ Racoh said, surprising me.

‘We are on a date.’

‘I have no wife.’

We watched the remainder of the play in silence.

As it wrapped Racoh moved to touch me again, and I stood quickly to avoid him. He withdrew his hand. I looked down at him as he collected his jacket from the empty seat next to him. He glanced up at me before standing. His eyes, still grey but no longer harsh, twinkled in the half light as they came closer to me.

Before I could catch my breath he was kissing me, his massive hands wrapped around my head and face and pulling my mouth against his. I felt my body tense in the darkness of the theatre, the lights from the stage slowly disappearing as the theatre emptied. I reached up with both hands and grabbed his wrists, tugging ineffectively at his hands in a pathetic attempt to free myself.

Suddenly he let go and I pulled back from him instantly, feeling my breathing labouring after the lengthy kiss. He stared at me, not moving. I stared back at him for a moment, and then suddenly felt my iron-tight muscles begin to dissolve. I felt suddenly like I was going to cry.

‘I need to go to the toilet,’ I mumbled and then turned and practically ran towards the ladies, into the light, where what seemed like hundreds of other female patrons were queuing for the loo.

Eventually I got a berth and found myself sitting motionless with my head in my hands. I did that for five minutes, until I composed myself, and then I went out again into the foyer.

Most of the patrons had left and there was no sign of Racoh.

I wondered whether he had decided to go to the restaurant alone. I knew what he would be thinking – that he had violated me and screwed up. While he was kissing me, that had been exactly my thought – that if I ever escaped this kiss, he would never see me again. But while I sat on the toilet, alone in a cubicle within a room of dozens of chattering women, I’d had a bit of a different thought. I’d thought about how my heart had raced while his hands were wrapped around my head. And it wasn’t all fear. There was goodness in it too.

On an impulse, I caught a taxi to the Graleng.

In the taxi I realised that if Racoh wasn’t there, then this whole – whatever it was – was over. Neither of us had any contact details for the other, and if I was to leave him a note at the library, there was every chance he would never receive it, as he would probably never go there again, believe that I didn’t want to see him. Jeka would, no doubt, be disappointed.

I saw Racoh as soon as I entered the restaurant, sitting alone by the window, his back to the door through which I had entered. His tall, imposing figure seemed suddenly pathetic, hunched over, and I wondered momentarily about what sort of luck he’d had since the war. Had he been told by a girlfriend that he was too cold? Had he wondered if ever he would feel again?

After I’d identified where I was going, the doorman escorted me across the room to Racoh’s table.

‘Sir,’ the doorman began to get Racoh’s attention. ‘Your guest has arrived.’

Racoh spun around in his seat and as his eyes settled on me I felt my heart pumping again, the same mixture of fear and – something else – that had threatened the numbness earlier as Racoh was kissing me. ‘Anika,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you were coming. I wouldn’t have left without you –’

I smiled. ‘It’s okay. I didn’t think I was coming either.’

As I ate my dinner and watched the handsome man sitting across from me, I wondered if the human body had the capacity to recover despite every inch of love and of lust and of passion and of happiness having been crushed from it years ago. I’d never felt anything like a real feeling for the man I’d dated when I returned from the war. With him every love-making session was a chore, an effort to force myself to participate and to pretend to be enjoying it.

We finished our dinner, and Racoh took my hand as we walked out into the warm night. My heart jumped to my throat, but I didn’t pull away.

Outside, Racoh turned and picked up my other hand then looked down into my eyes. ‘I don’t know what to do with you now, Anika,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you want to be alone with me. And I don’t want to frighten you by suggesting it.’

He liked to talk about this stuff; the past. I didn’t want to think about it. The memory of the last moments we had shared together before I left Ceal made me sick to my guts. All I wanted was to be a woman without memories, a normal woman, a human being. To feel human for the first time since I’d first gone into combat, five years ago.

A human being, I realised, would put her body into this man’s hands, and trust him.

Racoh lived in a high rise apartment on the east side of town. He paid the taxi driver and led me into the foyer, from where we took an elevator to the fifteenth floor.

The apartment was beautifully decorated. He wandered over to a small bar fridge behind a heavily mirrored bar, and poured me a stiff drink, which I gratefully accepted. My nerves fired, a whirlwind of emotion inside of me.

Racoh looked at me and smiled. ‘You know,’ he said, switching to Cealic, perhaps because he felt more comfortable speaking his mind in his own language. ‘This was all I ever wanted. I don’t want you to think that I left my country and came here to possess you. All I ever wanted was to meet you, speak to you. Just have one date with you. And if you didn’t want me, or I didn’t want you, then so be it. Jurge has been good to me in any case. I’ve lost nothing as a result of following you, whether you want me or not.’

I stared at him. ‘Don’t talk about the past.’

‘Do you want to talk about the future?’

‘Let’s just not talk.’

He nodded. Then he walked across to me and reached across to slide his fingers beneath the strap of my evening gown.

I held my breath as he lifted it up and then slid it over my shoulder. Then he did the same with the other strap. He took my drink from my hands and placed it on the bar, then he peeled the top of the dress down to my waist, leaving my strapless bra the only thing between his eyes and my soul.