1992. Three months into the siege of Sarajevo, a convoy of children leaves the city for Italy. Most of them come from a Sarajevo children’s home. Not all of them are orphans.

Among them is Damir Begić, four years old, whose family was driven out of eastern Bosnia that spring and who is handed over by his own parents. There is one place on that coach and they have two children of the same age. They have about four seconds, and what they do is barely arithmetic. They guess the boy is in more danger. They send the boy.

Four years later an Italian court writes to Bosnia to ask his father whether he wants his son returned. The letter never arrives. His silence is entered as consent, and the adoption is granted. 2026. A ministry finally puts the 1992 transport lists next to the death records and finds they do not match. A government car comes up a track above Vareš with a folder.

Damir is alive, in Italy.

What was he told? Has he ever looked? Does he know they exist? From a mining town in the Bosnian mountains to a block on the edge of Milan, Ferid Begić and the daughter he kept set out to find the son he sent away.