By the time I visited those battlefields, I knew that they had been retrofitted as the staging ground for a great deception, and this was my only security, because they could no longer insult me by lying to me. I knew—and the most important thing I knew was that, somewhere deep with them, they knew too. I like to think that knowing might have kept me from endangering you, that having understood and acknowledged the anger, I could control it. Furthermore, I like to think that it could have allowed me to speak the needed words to the woman and then walk away. Furthermore, I like to think this, but I can’t promise it. The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control.

Between the World and Me