Rose of Sarajevo (15 page)

“Look, Nimeta, I haven’t got your education or your brains, but I can tell you and Izetbegović both that if you’re waiting for the West to save the day, you’re waiting for nothing. People in the West will only start thinking about human rights when every last Muslim is dead.”

“How can you say that?”

“I’m more of a realist than you are. Go ask Izetbegović what he managed to wheedle out of the West in Lisbon. I can tell you right now: nothing!”

Deciding that there was no point in arguing with Azra, Nimeta changed the subject. “Do you want me to get you anything on the way home?”

“Just get yourself home safely,” Azra said.

Nimeta headed out and began walking briskly. She knew that fresh fighting was likely to break out soon. The commander of the Bosnian units, Sefer Halilović, had surrounded the barracks housing the YNA units under the command of Kukanjac and given them an ultimatum: surrender your arms and withdraw from all Bosniak-majority areas. Nobody expected the Serbs to sit on their hands and let that happen.

As Nimeta walked along thinking about this latest development, the city was shaken by another explosion, and all the pedestrians darted into nearby doorways and under eaves. When it was clear that the bomb had landed somewhere else, they started walking again. Bosniaks had learned to hug the doorways as they made their way down the sidewalk.

Nimeta turned a corner and began running toward the post office. The sound of gunshots was getting closer. All of a sudden she was enveloped in smoke and a red glow, the sky turned scarlet, and the clouds were tinged red.
There must be a fire, a terrible fire somewhere
, was her first thought. She sprinted down the street and turned left. Rounding the bend, she froze in her tracks, horrified by what she saw.

Shards of glass were raining down from the sky, a crystal waterfall, and crunching under the feet of people, who were dashing in all directions as flames burst forth, licking and swallowing everything in their path. Everything. The newly renovated post office had been reduced to a heap of glass and stone and was ablaze.

Nimeta stood knee-deep in broken glass, straight-backed and spellbound, watching Sarajevo burn: the post office, the national theater, the law school. A new series of explosions erupted, followed by waves of fresh flames. Fanned by the wind, an inferno was spreading across the city.

Now this, this is hell!
Nimeta said to herself.
I’ve lived to see hell on earth. God must be making us pay for our sins here and now.

When the Serbs were fighting in Croatia, they’d used the YNA units to reduce cities to rubble, leveling buildings and eradicating centuries of history, before they moved in to capture what was left. They were now employing this same strategy of total destruction on Sarajevo.

“Hey, Nimeta! Are you in shock?”

“Mate! What are you doing here?”

“I was wondering the same thing about you. You looked like you’d been hypnotized. Come on, let’s get out of here before something lands on our heads.”

Mate had materialized like a guardian angel. Ignoring the heavy camera resting on his shoulder, he began dragging Nimeta away from the flames.

“Mate, I have to call my mother.”

“Forget it, Nimeta. The post office is gone, and the lines are all down anyway. They’ve been out since this morning. Didn’t you notice?”

They crunched through the broken glass.

“The car’s over here,” Mate said.

The car windows and windshield were shattered. Nimeta’s legs were a bloody mess from the knees down. She winced in pain as Mate helped her pull out dozens of slivers of glass.

“There’s a pharmacy over there,” Nimeta said, pointing to the right.

“They just bombed it.”

“What about the obstetrics clinic a little farther along?”

“It was on fire. Let’s go to the TV station. We can get you cleaned up there.”

“But Mate, the kids! My kids!”

“Where are they?”

“They went to class in a cellar a couple of streets down from our house.”

“We can’t go back that way, Nimeta. There hasn’t been any fighting or bombs in your neighborhood. Besides, their teachers wouldn’t let them leave class if it was dangerous.”

“But Mate—”

“No ‘buts’ about it. Are you coming with me?”

Nimeta opened the car door. The seats were covered in glass. They brushed away the glass with Nimeta’s scarf and sat down. Nimeta told herself that Mate was right: her own neighborhood was probably the safest place in the city. And she was certain that Burhan would come home early as she’d asked, despite their quarrel.

Mate drove at breakneck speed all the way to the television station in the western part of the city. When they got there, still reeling from the fire, they were informed that President Alija Izetbegović was missing. He’d flown out of Lisbon the night before but had never landed. His plane had either crashed or been hijacked.

With forty thousand phone lines out of order across the city since morning, it had been extremely difficult to conduct a thorough investigation. The television station’s direct working line to the presidential residence had been busy all day.

Nimeta had intended to make an appearance at work and then go straight home at the first opportunity, but Ivan ordered everyone to stay put until the “Izetbegović incident” was resolved. When some of her colleagues started grumbling, he bellowed, “We’re in the middle of a war! Your jobs demand total commitment. If necessary, you’ll stay on the job for the next twenty-four hours straight—or even forty-eight hours if that’s what it takes. If you’re not up to it, the door’s right over there!”

Nimeta sank into her chair with a curse. Azra had been right about one thing: Izetbegović hadn’t simply returned empty-handed; he hadn’t even managed to return at all.

Sonya told the others about a rumor that was circulating. Fikret Abdić, the president’s political rival, had supposedly plotted with the Serbs to kill Izetbegović, upon which Abdić would become the leader of the Bosniaks.

“Isn’t that the same guy who
opposed
independence for Bosnia?” Nimeta shouted. “Mirsada sent us some confidential information about him from Belgrade. If Abdić had taken the reins, the war would be over, and we would have joined the rump state of Yugoslavia.”

“We’d have spent our lives as a minority under the Serbian fist,” Mate said. “That’s not my idea of peace.”

Mu
š
a poked his head through the door: “Ivan wants everybody in his office on the double! With the phones down, he’s probably going to send us all out to gather information.”

At the meeting the team ironed out the final details of that evening’s broadcast. Their direct line to the president was still busy, and there had been no reports about him. Everyone was tense; Nimeta even more so because her thoughts kept returning to her argument with Burhan the night before. She was anxious to get home and make peace, but as usual everything had gone wrong. Whenever Burhan managed to come home early, she was tied up at work, but as soon as he left town on business, there wasn’t a single newsworthy incident in the entire country. Izetbegović had chosen a fine day to go missing!

“Stop looking at me with those pitiful eyes,” Ivan told her when the meeting was over. “If there are no more developments after the evening news, you’re free to go home, Nimeta.”

That evening, the anchorman presented the news, and Mate’s footage of the fire had just aired. The entire team was watching the live broadcast together when the phone rang. Ivan reached over and answered it. His face went chalk white.

“What? What are you saying?”

Ivan cleared his throat and relayed instructions into the news presenter’s earpiece: “We’ve got the president on the line. Start doing a live interview. Now!”

The presenter managed to conceal his astonishment. They’d decided not to cover the president’s disappearance on the news that evening, so the presenter simply asked him a couple of routine questions about the talks in Lisbon. Then Ivan prompted him to ask the question they’d been wondering about all night.

“Where are you right now, Mr. President?”

“I’m in Lukavica,” Izetbegović replied.

There was a collective gasp in the conference room. Every Bosniak living in Sarajevo knew that the Serbs’ most important military headquarters, the place where they planned all their attacks, was in Lukavica. The president had fallen into enemy hands.

In a voice that trembled slightly, the speaker asked a follow-up question. “In what capacity are you there, Mr. President?”

“It would appear that I have been kidnapped.”

When Nimeta finally stumbled home sometime near dawn, she was greeted by her husband’s ghostly white face.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Burhan asked.

“Do you have any idea what’s been going on? Haven’t you seen the news? Izetbegović was kidnapped. I was just on my way home and—”

“Is Izetbegović more important to you than Fiko and Hana, than your husband, your mother, and your brother? You couldn’t care less about any of us. Did a bomb fall on our heads? Did the kids get home in one piece? Are they hungry or ill? You don’t seem to give a damn.”

“How can you say that?” Nimeta shouted. “I started working part-time just for them!”

“Is this what you call working part-time? It’s nearly five o’clock in the morning.”

“What would we do if I lost my job? You haven’t been earning enough for us to get by. Don’t you realize that, Burhan?”

“When did you become so money hungry, Nimeta?”

“We’re in the middle of a war, and I’m doing all I can to make sure we don’t go hungry, even if it means working all night. When I do finally get home, this is how you welcome me?”

“Working all night where?” Burhan asked, eyes blazing in his ashen face. His hands were trembling, and his voice shook.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Tell me where you’ve been working all night. At the TV station or in that Croat’s bed?”

Nimeta clutched at the wall for support. Her heart pounded in her ears. She could hear her blood pulsing. It was deafening.

“I asked you a question,” Burhan said in a menacing whistle.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Nimeta managed to whisper.

“The meaning is this,” Burhan said, approaching his wife so that their faces were mere inches apart. She could feel his breath, could smell the brandy on his breath.

“The meaning is that you’ve been sleeping with that Croatian dog for years. You’ve cheated on your husband and betrayed your family, and you’ve behaved shamelessly. You had a breakdown because of him, but you made it look like it was my fault, which is just another kind of betrayal. Did you think I’d never find out, Nimeta? Well, I have! And if you only knew how I found out.”

He went quiet, breathing hard; one of his bloodshot eyes began twitching. Nimeta was glued to the wall. Pressed back against the hard concrete, she wanted nothing more than to somehow push her way through and lose herself in the wall. But she was stuck in the hall, unable to speak, her heart bleeding and aching more than her legs had throughout that terrible day. “It’s not like that,” she wanted to say. “It’s not what you think. I fell in love, that’s all. I couldn’t help it, but I couldn’t leave you and the kids either, Burhan. I could never leave you.”

“Speak!” Burhan shouted. “Tell me how you could do this to me. Tell me what I’ve done to deserve such a terrible punishment. I don’t remember doing anything bad to you. Am I paying for the sins of my ancestors? Is that it?”

Nimeta felt like she was shouting at the top of her lungs but not a sound left her throat.

“You don’t even bother to deny it,” Burhan said as his right hand sliced through the air and landed on Nimeta’s face.

For a moment she thought she really had gone through the wall, was inside the wall. She felt like she had a mouthful of broken teeth, and she saw flashes of light. When she came to, Burhan was gone. Bending over her as she lay stretched out on the floor at the end of the hallway was Fiko. The wounded look in his eyes, the pain and fear in his expression, were unspeakable.

MAY TO JUNE 1992

Nimeta set the table for dinner as though nothing had happened. Burhan would be home soon. She decided to act normally and wait until the children were in bed before she talked things over with her husband. She had nothing to hide—Burhan now knew all about her affair—but he also needed to know that the affair had been over for a long time. She had to tell him that she’d been unable to leave him, that her family meant more to her than anything else in the world. She would ask Burhan to understand her and forgive her. She was only human.

During a difficult period in their relationship, when they’d drifted apart and she was feeling particularly lonely, another man had appeared, and she’d been carried away. Except she hadn’t gone anywhere. She’d stayed. She’d stayed with her husband and children, and she’d promised herself that she’d never see Stefan again. Never again would they meet, talk, kiss, and make love. Stefan had left Yugoslavia and gone to London out of respect for her decision. Would Burhan ever be able to appreciate how difficult it had been for her to break it off with Stefan?

A tear ran down her cheek and spread onto the freshly laid tablecloth. No, nobody would ever understand what a struggle it had been—not Burhan, not the kids, not her mother, nobody. In everyone else’s eyes, she and Stefan were nothing but a pair of impulsive adulterers.

She’d fallen hard for him, but even when her heart was soaring above the clouds, she’d never forgotten she was a married woman with two children; even when their love had been at its most ecstatic, she’d felt cursed. Guilt and a sense of impending doom lurked always in the background. She knew that her mother would never forgive her if she found out. She doubted that even her own children could forgive her. Hana might when she grew into a young woman, but only if she learned through her own experience that a married woman with children might still have a heart and body open to love and feelings she couldn’t control. But she’d never want that to happen to her daughter, even if it helped her to understand her mother. It was better that Hana never forgive her than she suffer the same pain and shame.

She brought in a stack of dishes and set the table. One plate on each side. She set the table just as she had all those years ago when she’d made her final decision to break it off with Stefan. She’d been bracing herself to tell Burhan that she loved another man. She’d imagined the table the following day, one plate short. A missing plate—Burhan’s plate. Her hand had shaken so badly that the plate slipped through her fingers and broke. A broken plate and the shattered heart of her husband when he heard what she had to tell him.

She’d fetched the broom, swept the broken pieces into the dustpan, and dumped them in the trash. Later, after she’d finished setting the table and heated up dinner, she’d inexplicably dashed into the kitchen and retrieved the broken pieces from the trash. She’d washed the pieces of porcelain and set them aside.

When Burhan saw them, he’d said, “Why don’t you throw them away, darling? We can always get new plates.”

“I want to glue them together,” she’d said.

“That plate will never be any good, not after it’s been broken. Just throw it away.”

Nimeta had phoned Stefan the following day and said, “I couldn’t tell Burhan. I won’t be able to leave him. Forgive me, Stefan.”

If she told him about that plate tonight, would he understand? Would Fiko, who’d stared at her that morning with such horrified, accusing eyes? Would her son ever understand how she’d battled with herself not to abandon her family?

She hadn’t even tried to explain.

“Fiko, sometimes husbands and wives fight,” she’d told her son. “The war’s making us all a bit jumpy. Go get me some ice. And don’t say a word to Hana.”

“Mom, why did Dad hit you?”

“We were arguing.”

“Why’d he hit you?”

“He didn’t hit me. I fell. I slipped and fell.”

“Why’d he hit you, Mom?”

Nimeta tried to get up off the floor. “Fiko, why don’t you help me instead of asking silly questions? What did I tell you? Get me some ice quick.”

“Mom, I heard what he said. Dad said something about paying for his sins. What did he mean?”

“Fiko, do as I say. Get me some ice. I’ll explain everything later.”

She needed to buy a little time and stop her face from going purple and swollen. When Fiko went into the kitchen, she somehow managed to get herself up off the floor and into the bathroom. Afraid to look in the mirror, she locked the door, buried her face in a thick towel, and began to sob.

It had taken all her powers of persuasion to convince Fiko that the altercation had been nothing more than a typical marital dispute that simply got a little out of hand. Nimeta hadn’t gone to work that morning. The only thing she’d wanted that day was to talk to Mirsada, so she’d gone to her mother’s house to use the phone. Thankfully, her mother had been out. Turning her back to Raif, she’d dialed her friend’s number. But there was no answer. She longed to unburden herself to her best friend, but Mirsada wasn’t home yet again. She hadn’t heard from her friend in ages. Nimeta knew she’d been planning to leave the city with Petar and tried not to fear the worst.

Raif had frowned at her black eye and swollen face but hadn’t said a word.

“Raif, aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” she’d asked.

Her brother didn’t respond.

“Have you been taking your medication?”

Raif didn’t so much as blink.

“Not talking won’t solve anything. Do you think I don’t know it’s a form of escape? While everyone else is facing up to the painful realities of war, you just go and clam up. Raif, you always did that as a boy too. Whenever something bad happened, you hid under your blanket for hours. But you’ve grown up now. It’s time to come out from under your blanket.”

She had kept an eye on the door as she spoke to him. Their mother would never have let her talk to Raif like this. He had been babied and coddled and loved always. Sometimes Nimeta had even wondered whether she’d been adopted; it was the only explanation for how differently Raziyanım treated her children. While her mother had been scolding and criticizing her ever since she was a little girl, Raif could do no wrong. He was Mama’s little pasha.

“Raif, I know you blame yourself for not being at home that terrible day. I’m not stupid. But nothing would have turned out any differently, except that you’d be a corpse today instead of a deaf-mute. You wouldn’t have been able to save your wife and son. Nobody could have saved them. They’d have killed you to get you out of the way. Get that through your head and talk to me!”

Nimeta realized there was no point in trying to get Raif to talk. She walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. This time her mother’s phone was dead. Cursing, she stormed out of her mother’s house and went back home, where she spent the entire morning in bed, sleeping and crying. She was in no state to do anything else. Only one thing mattered: saving her marriage. She had to explain everything to her husband and tell him how sorry she was. Neither of them had the right to turn their home into a second war zone; it wouldn’t be fair to the kids. Even if Burhan was unable to forgive her, they needed at least to continue living together until the war was over.

What would Burhan do if she said, “I gave of myself by walking away from Stefan; now it’s your turn to give of yourself by forgiving me”? Did men realize that some things were more important than their pride and egos? Like the ability to forgive, devotion to one’s children, or being able to view a woman as a person and a friend. She’d give it a try.

That afternoon she’d waited an hour in line at the supermarket meat counter and paid five times the normal price for six hundred grams of lamb in order to make Burhan’s favorite dish. She was wearing the green blouse he had always liked. She’d concealed her black eye with some heavy makeup and pushed any more thoughts of their argument out of her mind. Finally, everything was ready, and she and the children waited for Burhan to come home.

But he never did.

Nimeta didn’t serve dinner and instead asked the children to wait, like she always did when Burhan was late. But when the clock ticked from eight to nine, she let Hana eat, and she dished out Fiko’s dinner when the clock struck ten. Since the phone was dead, she couldn’t call his office.

“Do you think something bad might have happened to Dad?” Fiko asked.

“He’s often late. You know that,” she said, but she was getting worried. What if he’d left her?

She gathered up the dishes she’d so carefully laid out. Alone in the kitchen, she had a few forkfuls of cold food. The leftovers went into the cat’s dish. Bozo took a couple of sniffs, turned her back, and curled up under the chair. Even the cat seemed affected by the subdued atmosphere.

Fiko tiptoed around Nimeta for a while before finally confronting her: “Maybe Dad’s not coming home because he’s angry with you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You two were fighting this morning. He was furious. I heard the way he was shouting.”

“Husbands and wives fight sometimes. It’s normal.”

“I’d never seen you and Dad fight like that, Mother.”

He was right. They never fought. Perhaps that was why she’d fallen in love with another man; perhaps she’d bottled up her desires, her disappointments, and her anger for too long. Burhan was as still as a pool of water, unruffled, unquestioning, and placid. The only outward sign of distress he permitted himself was to compress his lips and put on a long face.

“It’s time you went to bed, Fiko.”

“I wish we could call him, Mom.”

“Well, we can’t, because of this damn war! Go on, off to bed. You’ve got school tomorrow morning.”

It was only after Fiko had gone to his room that it occurred to her to try and phone from her mother’s. Forgetting that Raziyanım’s phone had also gone dead that morning, she woke Fiko up and told him she was going to his grandmother’s house to call his father.

“You can’t go out alone at this hour. I’m coming with you,” he said, pulling on a pair of trousers.

“I’ll be fine, Fiko. Stay here with Hana. I’ll be back in no time.”

“I won’t let you go out alone, Mom. Dad will get mad at me if I do.”

When had Fiko grown old enough to look after his mother? Nimeta couldn’t believe it. But there he was, fully dressed and standing across from her. She gave him an appraising look and what she saw was a tall, handsome boy of sixteen, the spitting image of Burhan in his teens.

“All right then. We’ll tell Azra we’re going out, so she can keep an eye on Hana,” Nimeta said.

“Don’t wake Azra at this hour, Mom,” Fiko said. “We can leave a note for Dad so he doesn’t get worried if he comes home.”

Nimeta was just about to step out the door when she remembered that her mother’s phone had gone dead.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said to Fiko. “Let’s wait until morning.”

“Why?”

Not wanting to appear scatterbrained in front of her son, she said, “I don’t want to worry your grandmother at this hour. We’ve done everything we can. Let’s not leave Hana alone at home.”

Fiko didn’t press her. After he had gone back to bed, she pulled a chair over to the window and sat down. She wanted a cigarette, but there weren’t any in the house. Cigarettes, like coffee, had become impossible to find. She stood up, got her handbag, and returned to her seat, then began rummaging through the various pockets on the odd chance that she might find a stray one. Nothing! She flung the handbag to the floor. Mate had rolled cigarettes from strips of paper and loose tea. Her grandmother had told her about the fine paper they’d used in the old days, and what a ceremony they’d made of rolling cigarettes. So history was repeating itself yet again. She’d take up the practice soon enough, provided she could find some tea.

For some months now the people of Sarajevo had been growing various herbs on their balconies and window ledges for that very purpose. Nimeta spent a lot of time with foreign journalists and had been able to keep herself and her friends supplied with tea, coffee, and cigarettes thanks to them. On those occasions when Nimeta had been unable to share her coffee with Azra, her neighbor had done what so many others were doing: pounded lentils with a mortar and pestle, roasted the powder, and used it as a substitute for coffee grounds. Nimeta had taken a sip of the result once and nearly spit it out.

“Drink it up,” her mother had said. “In the days ahead we’ll be missing even lentil coffee. You never know what people will resort to in times of war until you’ve been through one yourself.”

But you know, Mother, don’t you?
Nimeta had said to herself.
Is there anything you don’t know?

She was getting drowsy. It was good that she hadn’t gone to her mother’s. She was terrified of worrying her or arousing her curiosity. Raziyanım would have asked how she got a black eye. And if Fiko had let anything slip about what happened that morning, she’d have been interrogated until dawn and then had to face a flood of accusations. She tried to shake off her drowsiness; too lethargic to get up and go to bed, she waited in the chair by the window, nodding off and jerking awake until dawn.