Three thousand nine hundred and sixty breaths during which nothing happens except what the woman had predicted. The water bearer knocks at the neighbor’s door. A woman with a rasping cough opens the door to him… A few breaths later, a boy crosses the street on his bike whistling the tune of “Laïli, Laïli, Laïli, djân, djân, djân, you have broken my heart…”

So they return, she and her two children. She leaves them in the passage. Opens the door, abruptly. Her man is still there. Same position. Same rhythm to his breath. As for her, she is very pale. Paler even than him. She leans against the wall. After a long silence, she moans, “My aunt… she has left the house… she’s gone!” With her back against the wall she slips to the ground. “She’s gone… but where? No one knows… I have no one left… no one!” Her voice trembles. Her throat tightens. The tears flow. “She doesn’t know what’s happened to me… she can’t know! Otherwise she would have left me a message, or come to rescue me… She hates you, I know, but she loves me… she loves the children… but you…” The sobbing robs her of her voice. She moves away from the wall, shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath in an attempt to say something. But she can’t say it; it must be heavy, heavy with meaning, voice-crushingly heavy. So she keeps it inside, and seeks something light, gentle, and easy to say: “And you, you knew that you had a wife and two daughters!” She punches herself in the belly. Once. Twice. As if to beat out the heavy word that has buried itself in her guts. She crouches down and cries, “Did you think about us for even a second, when you shouldered that fucking Kalashnikov? You son of a…,” the words suppressed again.

She remains still for a moment. Her eyes close. Her head hangs. She lets out a long, painful groan. Her shoulders are still moving to the rhythm of the breath. Seven breaths.