Dunja bought a small compass for Nermin's birthday. At school they had drawn maps of imaginary islands together, and now he really enjoyed hiking and traveling. They met again the previous autumn. By then Nermin had lived for years as a man, using the name that suited him. Dunja knew that before their meeting. What she had not expected was how easily familiar friendship would become a new attraction.
She had the old initials from their shared notebook engraved on the back of the compass. She thought she was giving proof that she remembered his whole life, not merely the last few years. Choosing the letters, she never asked herself whether she had the right to decide how he should carry that past. She imagined his smile and therefore stopped examining her own idea.
He opened the box at her kitchen table. He liked the compass until he turned it over. He ran a finger across the letters and set it beside his plate. Dunja immediately began explaining the notebook and their islands. Nermin said he remembered. The problem was not that he had forgotten their shared years, but that he did not want those initials accompanying every new journey.
For a moment she felt rejected, as though he had rejected the person she was while they grew up together. Then she heard how selfish that thought was. His gift was not supposed to preserve her conviction that she understood everything. She asked whether he wanted her to exchange the compass or choose something entirely different. Nermin relaxed only when she stopped defending the reason for her mistake.
They went to the shop together. He chose another compass without letters, and they spent the remaining money on lunch. He described the first trip on which everyone knew him only as Nermin. Dunja did not interrupt with school stories. Later he himself told one she had forgotten, about the map they submitted instead of homework and the punishment they received together.
Before his next departure she put a short note in his bag, addressed with the name she spoke every day. She did not mention how long she had known him. She wrote that she missed him before he had even left. From his trip Nermin sent a photograph of an ordinary forest path and asked whether she wanted to join him next time. Dunja said she did, although she had no sense for maps and never had.