I am the happiest man in the world.

I know I’m talking nonsense – but I don’t care, not as long as my Eva is beside me. I’ve got the most wonderful woman, earned her with sweat and hardship, so don’t tell me to knock on wood. When a man has been through stories like mine, he knows there are things no one can take away from him. Just like that – he knows.

It all began in the U-Bahn. I was in a foul mood, everything reeked of piss, a bunch of young Turkish kids were sitting three seats down, blasting their electronic players. Just before that, I’d stepped into something sticky and felt like chucking my shoes out the window… Just one of those days – perfect, in that special way.

So there I am, sitting, and as I sit, the train suddenly starts slowing down, then the lights begin to flicker, something goes pop, crack – and just as we’re all looking around with stretched faces, the power cuts. Total darkness. Like in a dog’s… well, you get the idea.

Now, I don’t know if you realise what that means. In Germany, the power never goes out. Never. Period. End of story. I’ve been living in Berlin for nearly twenty years and can’t recall a single blackout. I even get a twisted pleasure watching the news when the Americans lose electricity in entire cities – makes me feel better somehow. Even if I look like the guy who, when offered a single wish, asked only for his neighbour’s donkey to drop dead…

Anyway, after a while, the women of course start to squeal – restrained, German-style. We’re all waiting for some sort of announcement, a calm, firm voice to tell us that everything is temporary, that we’ll soon be back in motion, or at least that the rescue crew is already crawling through the tunnel… But no. Nothing. We sit in the dark, straining to listen, careful not to step on one another’s toes – and we wait.

And as I’m sitting there waiting, at one point I feel someone sit down beside me – a waft of very, very fine perfume hits me – and then the woman starts edging closer. I feel it with my whole body and get goosebumps, though outwardly I stay still, minding my own space. I’m not the adventurous type. I know I’m short, bald, and potbellied. Ever since my German ex left me, I’ve learned to manage on my own – not complaining. I look after the kids, stomp on my soul every day to stop it whining too much – because she’s not the only one that’s been dragged through hell. She needs to know her place, you might say… Normal stuff. Nothing special.

But the woman keeps pressing. I feel it more and more – her thigh brushes mine, tight, springy, smells young, smells good… I start getting seriously confused, try to squeeze into the corner, but there’s no space, I can’t climb out the window. I huddle as far away as I can and stay silent, waiting to see what’ll happen.

Sure, I quickly check my pockets to make sure I haven’t got anything valuable in easy reach – I wasn’t born yesterday – but otherwise, what can I say, I start turning to stone. I’m human, after all. And she leans in closer. At some point, I feel her hand – such a fine hand, even in the dark you can tell, gentle, long-fingered – and she wraps her arms around me. Damn, I was sweating all over.

“Excuse me,” I say, “Miss, I think you’re confused – I’m not the person you think I am. Can we maybe each stick to our own place?”

But she’s already pressed against me, breathing in my ear, making the back of my neck bristle. “I haven’t mistaken anything, sweetie,” she says. “I’ve been watching you since I got on the train. I’ve been looking for you since I came into this world. So… aren’t you finally going to kiss me, silly?”

Trouble and heat – that’s all I can say.

“No,” I say stubbornly. “This isn’t right. I don’t know who you are, what you look like, where you come from, what you’re carrying. Why should I kiss you? How do I know how much you’ll ask for afterward?”

She shrinks back a bit – I feel she’s hurt. I even feel a bit guilty. But if she jumps on me like that, she should face the consequences. I didn’t invite her, did I?

“I won’t ask you for anything,” she says. “Just one kiss. A single kiss – and then I’ll go. Cross my heart.”

Or something like that – I don’t quite remember. Germans don’t say cross my heart, of course – that much is clear.

Well, this is where the devil got the better of me – I admit it. I started softening. I turn to her, gently, breathe in her perfume – and I’m on fire, like freshly baked bread.

“What am I being so stubborn for?” I think. “As if it’s not enough that I’m stuck here like a rootless tree in the German desert. Scratch my soul and it’ll go up in flames – and now I’m torturing this girl, too. If she wants it so much, let her have it. I’ll sacrifice myself this once. We’re all human, after all.”

And just as I’m thinking all this, at one point I realise I’ve started grabbing her back. I’m no longer asking myself whether my breath stinks – I just open my lips wide, fear be damned, and go in, headfirst.

I swear, I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but the world began to spin. What kind of kiss that was, what sort of wonder – I have no idea. I only came to when the lights suddenly snapped and flared back on. I blinked like a mouse caught in a grain bin, trying to gather my bearings – but where was I to find them? Sitting across from me wasn’t just a woman, but...

Ugh, wait, I’m getting carried away again – I’ll end up spoiling it.

I look, and I can’t believe my eyes. In front of me sits a young creature, easily fifteen years my junior, though a head taller – but I’m used to that kind of thing, I don’t pay it any mind. And there she is, dazzling everything around her with her beauty. Milk with cocoa – do they call such people mulatto, Creole? I don’t know, but one glance at her and your heart leaps. Women like that exist only in films, or in fancy cars you’d rather not even look at, since nothing good ever came from envy. She’s a bit on the fuller side, built firm and solid – not one of those delicate little wasps with hidden stingers, just waiting to sting – but still, a woman down to the roots of her hair. Pure death.

And she sits there, smiling at me with a kind of satisfied calm – and in her eyes, believe it or not, is the most ordinary human happiness. The kind I have, the kind you have, the kind everyone has – if only we hadn’t forgotten when we last felt it. I couldn’t hold back, I started tearing up.

Then she reaches into her sleeve, pulls out a handkerchief – not paper, but real silk, the kind I haven’t seen in years – and says, “Goodbye, sweetheart. Keep it as a memory.” I almost jumped out of my seat.

“Wait,” I say, “aren’t you even going to tell me your name?”

She turns around, gives me a sad little smile – and pushes toward the exit. Meanwhile, the train has arrived at the next station – but who even notices such things?

That’s when I lost both my head and my words. I started shoving like a madman, jumped out at the very last second, almost lost sight of her. But she doesn’t turn around, just click-clacks forward on her heels, walking without looking left or right – already long used to everyone staring, surely.

“Halt! Halt!” I shout, and people start turning.

She hears me, stops, and when she turns to look – gives me such a sharp, cutting stare that my heart drops straight into my trousers.

“What,” she says, “do you want? Wasn’t that enough?” And her eyes – believe it or not – were filled with tears.

“Come on,” I say. “Can you really do something like this? First you steal my senses, and then vanish without a trace? What am I, a doll or a man? You can’t do that to someone.” But she just keeps staring at me, silent and hostile, killing me with her eyes.

“Go,” she says. “That was all. End of show.”

Ah no, that won’t do. I’m no bastard, but I am a Balkan man, and like most of us, it doesn’t take much for things to go black before my eyes.

So I grab her a bit more firmly by the elbow and say, “Alright then, if it’s a circus you want – here’s your circus. Call the police if you want! I’m not going anywhere until you give me something – a phone number, an address, whatever. You can’t drive me mad and then disappear. If you didn’t want this, you shouldn’t have jumped on me. Schluss. Punkt. Ende.”

She stares at me, stares – then reaches into her bag and pulls out a business card, rough to the touch, on cream-coloured paper, clearly expensive.

“Fine,” she says. “Just don’t call too often. I work a lot.”

My heart clenches straight away. Figures. “Probably a hooker,” I think – high-end maybe, but still. No luck in this life, that’s for sure.

And she, as if reading my mind, says, “It’s not what you’re thinking. I work at a newspaper, I’m a journalist – and you know what this business is like. Alright, I’ve got to go, I’m late. And don’t call too often, agreed?”

She turned and vanished like a mirage, like a fata morgana.

And there I was, still gripping the card, not even feeling how tightly I was clinging to it, like a drowning man. I looked – just a number. A mobile. Nothing else.

“Aha,” I said to myself, “a newspaper, sure – my aunt’s old slippers. Hey girl, if people like you worked at newspapers, would they be losing so much money? Tell that to my hat. Go on, may God be with you.”

I looked around for a bin, nearly threw the card away right there – but something seized up inside me. I shoved it in my pocket and started looking for the next train.

Because life goes on. What else can you do?

And that’s how it all began...

So, I start calling. I try not to overdo it, but I just can’t help myself – sometimes I go too far. Sometimes she picks up, sometimes she doesn’t. I’m pretty sure she’s added me to some blacklist and only calls back when the stars align. After a while, I start to wilt – like a piss-soaked geranium, as we say back home. She refuses to even talk about meeting up. Always too busy, too much work. And when she’s not working, she has a migraine. It’s enough to drive you out of your mind.

There I am, biting my nails — and before I know it, I’m falling hard. Sinking deep, just like that, for no damn reason. Thank God for the kids, they’re the only thing keeping me afloat.

Eventually I can’t take it anymore and just blurt it out. One day she picks up, and I’m sniffling on my end:

“What did I do to you, huh? Why are you torturing me like this? If you really were looking for me all your life, then why are you tearing me apart now? Don’t you have an ounce of mercy? What am I supposed to do now that you’ve set fire to my house – jump off the roof? I can’t live without you, I’m dying here. Do what you want with me!”

And then she starts sniffling too, and says:

“I can’t, sweetheart, I just can’t! I’m doing it for your own good, believe me. I want you too – so much – but it just can’t happen. Please, accept it and don’t call me anymore. I’m so sorry I messed you up like this. I just gave in to the moment back then, I didn’t know what I was doing in the dark.”

I nearly hit the ceiling. “Wait!” I shout. “Don’t hang up! Don’t kill me like this, please. Whatever it is, tell me – we’ll figure something out. If two people want each other, nothing can stop them. That’s not just words – it’s real! Whatever it takes – just don’t leave me like this!”

She stays quiet for a bit, then whispers:

“How about we start with names, then. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Georgi,” I say. “But people call me Gosho. Or Georg, if you prefer. Doesn’t matter. I’m so happy, you can’t even imagine–”

“Well, then listen to my name, Gosho,” she cuts in. “My name is Adam.”

That’s where I lost my breath completely – because out of all the things I’d imagined, this was the one that had never even occurred to me.

“What do you mean, Adam?” I stammer. “Isn’t that a man’s name?”

“Yes,” she replies. “It’s a man’s name.”

“But you’re a woman, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m a woman. But I was born in a man’s body. Happy now?”

And now she’s crying – real, gut-wrenching sobs. I can feel she’s on the edge. I know what it’s like to cry like that – I’ve been there myself.

“Wait,” I say. “Wait. Give me just one second to pull myself together. You think I don’t care? If you’re suffering, what does it matter – man or woman? Just give me a moment. Let me sit down and drink a glass of water, and I’ll be right back.”

She sniffles and says, through tears,

“If you even dare… if you even dare–”

“Dare what, sweetheart? Do you think I can even stand right now? Just give me a moment, I told you. I’ll be right back.”

I go to the fridge, pour myself a proper Russian shot of rakia, down it in one go, then another. Things start clearing up a little. I come back to the phone thinking,

“If she hangs up now – that’s it. It’s over.”

But she’s still there. I pick up the receiver and hear her sniffling quietly, waiting. Waiting for what? What am I – some kind of magician?

“Listen,” I say. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do from here. You tell me what you think. You’ve got more experience – you’d know if there’s any chance.”

She keeps sniffling, but the tone has shifted. Suddenly, everything feels different.

“You really mean it?” she asks, uncertainly.

“Mean what?”

“That you still want anything to do with me?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “To be honest, I don’t know anything anymore. Not what I want, not what I don’t want. Before, I thought all I wanted was not to be alone. Now? Not even that.”

Then she says, very softly: “There is one way. But…”

“What way?” I think. “You’re already in up to your ears – and so am I. If someone asked why I haven’t hung up yet, I wouldn’t even know what to say.”

But something in me can’t bring itself to cut her – cut him – off like that. I know what it’s like to be shattered into pieces by another human being. I didn’t get here yesterday.

“So what’s the way?” I ask.

“Surgery,” she says.

At this point, I’m not even sure what to call her – him? her? I’m all tangled up, and the rakia’s climbing into my head. There’s buzzing in my ears. It’s a full-blown circus.

“Aha,” I say. “Surgery. And what the hell do you need me for then?”

“Because I want you, you idiot,” she replies. “I just want you. Is that so hard to understand?”

“Wait a sec,” I say. “Now I’m completely lost. Couldn’t you just have the surgery, and then call me afterward? Spare me all this madness? How am I supposed to accept you now – how am I supposed to love you when I don’t even know what you are? A man? A woman? What? Why did you have to tell me all this?”

“Because I love you,” she says, loud enough to make my ears ring. “Because I love you, you stubborn fool. How could I love you if I lied to you?”

Phew, the heat.

I could feel my eyes starting to get wet again – must be the years. I used to be tougher, but after all that loneliness, I’ve started to soften up. My angel’s getting weaker.

And when I pictured her – that charming, that radiant, just as I remembered her – something inside me suddenly burned out. A fuse maybe, I don’t know. But at one point I actually heard myself saying:

“Alright. I love you too. Let whatever will be, be. Now tell me exactly what we have to do.”

And that’s that. The rest, as they say, belongs in the medical archives.

A year later, we got married. My Eva was the most stunning bride I’d ever seen, and – may the devil not hear this – turned out to be the best mother my two little ones could’ve asked for, even though they already had a real one.

So that’s how we’ve been living ever since – five years now – like a pair of turtle doves, cooing softly and loving each other like we’re twenty again. Even my belly doesn’t get in the way anymore.

Go figure there’s anything certain in this world.

Whoever thinks so still has a lot left to see – that’s all I can say.

Alright then. Take care.

Eva’s waiting for me.