In Budapest, in the kitchen overlooking the alley, Vesna boils coffee on the stove and pours it into glass mugs. I search my memory for the Serbian words for gratitude, and I think about drinking coffee this way in Chicago, in Sremcica, in Ivanjica.
Three summers ago, we sat in his grandparents’ house outside Belgrade, in the little kitchen with two narrow beds and icons on the walls. It was late, and we had a flight the next morning. I remember his grandmother crying, her insistent Serbian through the tears, my bewilderment. But then she fixed her gaze on him, still crying, and linked her hands together like a bird that rose and disappeared. When the bird was gone, she kept looking. I turned toward him and thought, I know exactly what she means.
I’m sorry for the way my pronouns are running together. I’ve given myself ten days to be alone in countries where I have no history, where these memories surface as I wander through strange cities worrying over love. There is a past and there is a present, and there is a distance. I make promises to myself, and I walk for hours.