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south. He wonders if the men on the hills can see him. He imagines it’s possible. Any decent pair of binoculars would reveal him, a thin, youngish man in a shabby brown coat, carrying two bouquets of plastic bottles. They could kill him now, he supposes. But then again, they could have killed him any one of a number of times already, and if they don’t kill him now they’ll have more opportunities in the future. He doesn’t know why some people die and others don’t. He doesn’t have any idea how the men on the hills make their choices, and he doesn’t think he wants to know. What would he think about it? Would he be flattered they didn’t choose him or offended he wasn’t a worthy target in their eyes?
    Kenan is flanked on either side by four-and five-storey apartment buildings. None of them has escapeddamage, though this neighbourhood has fared far better than many others in the city. Beside him is a green Volkswagen sedan that has been hit by a shell. It looks as if an enormous thumb has pressed into it, as though it were made of dough. The windshield has been blown out, and the driver’s side door has been ripped apart. Kenan thinks the car belongs to a man who lives on the second floor of the building across the street. It’s hard to tell. The man didn’t mention his car being destroyed the last time Kenan saw him, but that’s no longer the sort of thing one mentions.
    On his left is the relief centre, housed on the ground floor of a post-war walk-up, in what used to be a grocery market. The doors are closed, but he approaches, hoping there might be some information about when the next relief convoy is expected. Often they post up notices about what goods will be available, so people know what kinds of bags and containers to bring with them. As he gets closer he sees there is no poster. It has been weeks since the last aid, maybe over a month.
    He turns back to the street and sees a man he knows, a soldier. Ismet smiles, changes direction and comes towards him. They’re about the same age, and have been friends for over a decade. When the war started, Ismet was one of the first to join the army. He worked as a taxi driver before the war, but his car was destroyed, and now he walks nearly eight kilometres to the frontlines in the north, by the television relay station. He usually spends four days at the front and then returns home for four days, to be with his wife and infant daughter. Sometimes, late at night, he comes to Kenan’s house and tells him about the fighting. He has told him of sharing a gun with another man, how they had twenty bullets, how it was their job to stop three tanks from advancing along a ridge. All the while they knew that if the tanks advanced there would be nothing they could do. Their bullets would be gone in an instant, and useless anyway. They spent the entire night in terror, flinching every time they heard a noise. When morning came, Ismet had never been so happy, nor had his friend. Later that day, as they slept in an improvised bunker slightly behind the lines, a shell landed a few metres from them, and Ismet’s friend was killed. Ismet told Kenan all this without any expression on his face, but when he reached the end he smiled and laughed a little. When Kenan asked him why, Ismet looked at him as though he hadn’t been listening. “We survived the night,” he said. “That was all we had wished for. We were given it and it made us happy. Whether we lived for another few hours or fifty more years didn’t matter.”
    During moments like these Kenan wonders why he can’t bring himself to join the army. So far he’s managed to avoid being drafted, has kept clear of the men who drive through the city rounding up unwillingconscripts. He’s safe while he has the water jugs, as no one is yet bold enough to interrupt this vital civilian mission. But he doesn’t know how long this will last, how long it will be before there’s a knock on his door and he ends up with a gun