Writing in a language that is not one’s own is to cut memory into fragments. Sentences falter. An abyss stands open between words. Letters cut. Each time, the same painful doubt arises.

The fog lay heavy over the city that cold December morning in 1992, when the three of us walked to the train station outside town. The cold bit; the darkness felt threatening. The city had been without electricity for weeks. The streets lay empty — only a stray dog and an occasional person moving through the dark on the way to work. From a few chimneys, smoke rose and mingled with the fog, thickening it further. I felt sick from the metallic smell, from the smoke of the cellulose plant that each winter spread its grey haze over the city. I felt sick from what awaited me. They walked me to the station. After that, I would continue alone.

In my single bag, besides a few warm clothes, I carried a handwoven Palestinian scarf from Armin, a Palestinian exchange student in Banja Luka, and a workbook in Mathematical Analysis, Part II. I packed the workbook for a reason only I understood. In the early days of the war, Enes and I would sit with Tom Waits and a few bottles of wine, open the book at random, choose a problem, and race to solve it first.

Then the war broke out.

Mathematics has always been an essential part of my life. At times, a refuge. It gave me bread, intellectual joy, and a kind of existential shelter. Its language endures. Like music. With the same self-evidence, it moves within rules and limits as it touches infinity.

That same winter, in another reality, I will read the most beautiful lines I have ever read about the inherent truth of mathematics.

Do you know what lies beneath mathematics? Beneath mathematics lie numbers. If someone asked me what makes me truly happy, I would answer: numbers. Snow and ice and numbers. And do you know why? Because the number system is like human life. First there are the natural numbers — whole and positive. The numbers of early childhood. But human consciousness expands. The child discovers longing, and do you know the mathematical expression for longing? Negative numbers. The formalization of sensing that something is missing. And consciousness continues to expand, to grow, and the child discovers the spaces in between. Between stones, between moss on stones, between people. And between numbers. And do you know where that leads? To fractions. Whole numbers plus fractions give rational numbers. And consciousness does not stop there. It wants to go beyond reason. It adds an operation as absurd as extracting roots. And produces irrational numbers. A kind of madness. Irrational numbers are infinite. They cannot be written. They force consciousness into the boundless. And when irrational numbers are added to rational ones, we have the real numbers. It does not end. It never ends. Because now, at once, we expand the real numbers with imaginary ones — square roots of negative numbers. Numbers we cannot imagine, numbers ordinary consciousness cannot contain. And when imaginary numbers are added to real ones, we have the complex number system. The first number system capable of accounting for the crystalline formation of ice. It is like a vast, open landscape. Horizons. You move toward them, and they keep receding.

The landscape opened when the fog lifted a few hours later and the train rolled somewhere through Hungary. The compartment was cramped and worn; there were three of us inside.

Beside me sat an elderly woman in a dark blue coat, with eyes both alert and unsettlingly clear. She spoke almost without pause, telling strange stories — among them how each evening she would sit on her sofa, put on Schubert, and knit.

— Nothing can replace that feeling, she said, as if she knew something the rest of us did not.

Across from us sat a man wearing headphones. He said nothing for hours. His gaze was distant and sorrowful — like a bird’s eyes behind wire. I thought he looked like a man who listened to Arvo Pärt.

The conductor entered and asked for tickets. That was when it struck me — my ticket was valid to Szczecin. A cold fear spread through my body. I realized, suddenly, that I did not know where I was going. I looked out the window: endless, empty fields. I closed my eyes.

The screech of metal and the jolt of the train woke me. For a moment, I did not know where I was. The light had changed. Had I slept through the night? Outside the window stood the sign: Szczecin.

I stepped onto an almost empty platform. The air was grey and still. The cold cut through me. I opened my bag and took out the Palestinian scarf. The fabric was rough against my cheek, and I sensed the smell of home.

The train stood for a moment, then slowly moved on. I stood there for a long while, watching it disappear.