No one ever found out how Lotar made it across Bosnia, how he made it across all the countries that stood in his way, the manner or mode of how he traveled, or how he never encountered a single customs officer or policeman. What is known is that he appeared like a ghost at a police station in suburban Madrid, skinny, barefoot, and covered in scabs. He took the first policeman by the hand and said Gita Danon, por favor, the man took fright, Lotar repeated Gita Danon, por favor, and the whole of the station gathered, and backup arrived too, as did an ambulance, and Lotar stubbornly repeated Gita Danon, por favor; it took the Spaniards half a day to work out that he didn’t know a word of Spanish, so they tried in different languages, in German, Italian, English, and French, one even tried to address him in Hungarian; Lotar shook his head, clasped his hands in prayer, or took people’s hands in his and repeated Gita Danon, por favor.
A man in a white hospital coat took him by the arm and led him out of the police station, Gita Danon, por favor, Lotar gazed out the window of the ambulance, the man held his hand, and he glided through Madrid as if in a film, as if in someone else’s life, Lotar hunted the faces of passersby, hoping he’d see Gita; instead he spotted a billboard for a charity event, on it a photograph of Sarajevo’s razed National Library. Sarajevo, said Lotar, Sarajevo? the man in the white coat gave a start, Sarajevo, Lotar confirmed, Gita Danon, por favor, and clasped his hands.
Lotar lay in a hospital bed. His heels poked out through the bars. So frail and with his bushy beard he looked like the long-dead branch of a magnificent tree. A kindly older gentleman approached his bed, behind him followed a policeman and a doctor, the man sat down next to Lotar, Lotar opened his eyes, Gita Danon, por favor, the gentleman put his hand on Lotar’s shoulder and said to him in their language are you from Sarajevo?. . I am. . When did you get here?. . Yesterday. . From where?. . From Sarajevo. The gentleman’s eyes began to glisten the way the eyes of Bosnians who’ve lived for twenty years someplace far away glisten when a dying man says that he has just arrived from Sarajevo. I’m looking for Gita Danon, Lotar tried to sit up, she’s from Sarajevo, and now she’s in Madrid, I have to find Gita Danon, she’s waiting for me, and I’ve been waiting twenty years and some for her. The gentleman nodded his head, we’ll turn Madrid upside down if we have to, Lotar didn’t believe him, but he was too tired to move.
That night in Madrid the strongest man of our city lay dying. This you have to know because you’ll never meet such a man again anywhere. There isn’t one anywhere in the whole world, not where you live, and not in Sarajevo were you to go looking for him. Yes, Lotar lay dying, the one and only Lotar, the Lotar who had ripped Dino Krezo’s ears off and beat him to a pulp on the cobblestones in front of the medical school, as well he should have, when it was for Gita’s honor.
In the morning he never regained consciousness. He didn’t even wake when the gentleman from the day before came in, nor when Gita Danon came in after him, crouched next to his bed, and placed her hands on Lotar’s enormous elbow, he didn’t even wake when she said my darling Lotar, I wore myself out, you don’t need to wait for me anymore, I’ve come to you, he didn’t even wake when she kissed him long on his gray lips. But listen well to what I’m telling you now, only Gita Danon knows whether Lotar’s lips moved back then, only she knows whether it was too late for love or whether it had remained forever. If you meet her, don’t ask her anything because she won’t say, she won’t say hello, Gita doesn’t respond to greetings, because she broke a thousand hearts for a single Lotar.