I will die in my own time.

Sleep had eluded Jelena for most of the night. She tried to catch it but the harder she tried, the further it slipped from her grasp. Whether it was excitement or anticipation or both, her mind was burbling to her and it would not shut up or even die down. Nor did any of the mind-burble make the slightest sense; just a seemingly random cascade of images and disembodied phrases tumbling over each other like a waterfall in her brain.

She pressed the button on the small, cube radio that she kept by the side of her bed and then lay flat, relaxing every part of her anatomy as best she could. The news. Balance of payments. Trade figures. Hurricane winds. Actress gives birth. Traffic report.

The news gave way to late night talking. Some matronly-sounding woman with a raspy voice talking about medieval art. At least it kept the burbling at bay. Jelena turned on her side, suddenly feeling heavy. The looming dawn cast streaks of lilac around the hem of the jet-black drapes.

Jelena fell asleep.

She awoke, catching her breath and not knowing, for a split second, quite where she was. She turned to look at the radio clock. 10.54am. Late again. She swung her legs out of the bed and listened for any sounds.

It was quiet. No sounds of movement from below. No movement from anywhere. Her almost-instinct rebuked her with a sharp warning. She shook it away but she knew; in her innermost place, she knew.

She tied on her robe and padded downstairs. With each deliberate step, her instinct grew hotter inside her until it began to burn in her chest like an ember. She went into the living room and there, stacked up on the corner of the sofa, sat a pile of neatly folded bedsheets topped with a pillow. She laid her hand on the pillow. It was cool. It spoke to her and her beating heart spasmed on itself a little.

She made across to the kitchen and there, upon the kitchen table, was a note which had been folded closed precisely in half. A note. She did not want this note. Her hunch had warned her that the note would be there but she had prayed for her hunch to be wrong.

It was not wrong. There was the note. Plain and real and indubitable.

What could have been was meant to be. She opened the window over the sink and sucked in a lungful of the algid and fragrant late morning air. From across the street, she could hear the repetitive, angry barking of a little dog from high up on a terrace that overlooked the street.

She grabbed a cup from a hook on the wall and the plum brandy from the cabinet next to the stove. She poured a deep slug into the cup and almost drained it. Then she topped it up.

She looked at the note again, knowing that she must open it but hoping that some kind, unknown magic of the universe would make it disappear and not exist. Never exist. Never written.

The angry little dog had stopped barking and all was quiet again. Silence. No movement.

With cold blood seeping from her heart, Jelena sat down at the kitchen table clutching her cup of plum brandy. Get it over with. Just get it over with. She reached over and slid the note across to herself. She needed another swallow before she could bring herself to open it.

She opened it.

"My dearest Jelena,

I have no words to adequately describe how much this short time together with you again has meant to me. I would gladly give everything I have or ever will have just to stay another day; another hour.

But my life is in great peril and, if I stay here, yours will be in peril too. I cannot allow that to happen, because I love you.

I know not what will become of me now, but please keep me in your heart.

I pray that I will see your face again.

Sa ljubavlju i predanošću uvek. "

She laid the note carefully, face down, on the table and rested her aching head on her hand, waiting for the hard liquor to deliver a merciful numbness to her trembling and twitching stomach. She had never felt as lonely in her life as she did at that moment.