The Cellist of Sarajevo (17 page)

There is no time to ponder this insight, however, because a second after Nermin’s office comes into view an explosion hurtles the doors off the building, sending the plywood covering the windows flying through the air. A ball of fire follows, blowing outward and then sucking back in on itself. The street is showered with dust and debris.

Arrow doesn’t know if she was knocked off her feet by the explosion or if she went to the ground of her own volition. At first she doesn’t even notice that she is on her stomach, watching the building burn through the scope of her rifle.

Nermin’s office is on the ground floor of the three-storey building. The rest of the building is also occupied by the military. Arrow doesn’t know what goes on in the other rooms, but she knows right away that there wasn’t anyone in them when the building exploded. Only one office would have had anyone in it.

The fire brigade arrives and puts out the fire. Men in uniforms block off the building and conduct a search. They don’t find any survivors. It’s lucky, they say, that the shell fell after work hours. A small miracle.

Arrow hears them talk to each other, can tell they all know it wasn’t a shell that hit this building. No one wants to say it, or perhaps they’re in on it. Either way,
this explosion came from the inside and wasn’t shellfire from the men on the hills. But no one says anything. After all, people are killed every day. Murder is commonplace. Why should this one be any different?

For several hours Arrow lingers, hoping that Nermin somehow escaped, that he had one more trick up his sleeve no one knew about. Then, after almost everyone has gone, two soldiers come out of the building carrying a body wrapped in a blanket. They load it into the back of a truck and drive off. She shoulders her rifle and turns away from the building, begins the long walk home.

The bombarding hasn’t let up at all. The men on the hills are having a busy night. Arrow lies in her bed, listens to the sound of shells falling, of automatic gunfire, of sirens. She wonders what will be left standing when morning comes, whether there will be any noticeable difference in the appearance of the city. There must come a point where so much has been turned to rubble that ruining a little more makes no difference. It’s possible that point has already been reached.

Does a person work the same way? She can’t tell. It seems that she should be more upset about Nermin’s death, or more angry, or more anything. She wants to be, but she isn’t. She can’t even claim to be surprised.

It’s cold tonight, and the electricity is still off. She has no more firewood for her improvised woodstove, hasn’t
bothered to scrounge for any. She shivers under her blankets, gets up and goes to the hall closet for more, returns to bed and continues to shiver. Her stomach grumbles, protesting her small supper of rice and weak tea. She can’t stand rice. She never ate it before the war, except once in an Indian restaurant while on vacation. She doesn’t remember disliking it before the war, but now the very thought of rice revolts her. It’s all she has, though, all that’s left from the last round of humanitarian aid. She gets paid in cigarettes by the army, which she trades for small things like a square of chocolate or a bar of soap. She managed to get a bag of apples a few weeks ago, and even though they were soft and mealy, they were well worth the ridiculous price she paid in a moment of weakness. She still has cigarettes to trade, a drawer full of them, but she can’t be bothered. It seems a waste to her, somehow, and she can’t shake the feeling that she may need them later on. So she eats rice, works her way through the ten-kilogram sack in the corner of the kitchen, augmenting it with bread and weak tea.

“Disappear,” Nermin told her. He’s right, she should disappear. Her stash of cigarettes might be enough to buy a pass through the tunnel. She has no idea what that costs. But she can’t stop thinking about Slavko’s funeral, the fat man and the grave. Is there a difference between disappearing and going into a grave? Does it
matter whether she succumbs to the wishes of the men on the hills or the men in the city?

There is, of course, the question of survival. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to be shot by anyone, regardless of whether they’re on the hills or in the city. But the young girl who was overcome by what it means to be alive, the girl who was so happy and afraid and awestruck that she had to pull her car to the side of the road, doesn’t want to die either. That girl may be gone for now, may have no place in the city of today, but Arrow believes it’s possible that someday she might return. And if Arrow disappears, she knows she’s killing that girl. She will not come back.

Then there is the cellist. A part of her job is done. She has killed the sniper they sent. But if the cellist is true to his pledge, and Arrow believes he will be, then he is not yet finished. So they may send another sniper. They will have trouble finding a willing man, knowing what happened to his predecessor, but it is possible they will try again. And where will she be if that happens? Will she be protecting the cellist? She wants to protect him. If it is in her power, she will.

Arrow wakes to the sound of boots in the stairway. She doesn’t remember falling asleep and feels as though she hasn’t. But her eyes open, and she knows that the boots she hears are not on the feet of any of her neighbours. There is a pounding at the door. She gets out of
bed, pulls on her clothes and opens the drawer to the small table beside her bed. She takes out her father’s revolver, the gun he used during his time as a police officer, and puts it in the pocket of her coat. Her rifle sits on the table in the kitchen, clean and ready, but she leaves it where it is.

Whoever is there continues hammering away, and she hears her neighbour’s door open. There is a pause, during which no words are spoken, and then the neighbour’s door closes again. Arrow checks that her gun is loaded, then answers the door.

Three men wait on the other side. One of them has his fist raised, ready to strike the door again, and the other two stand farther back from him. They carry guns, appearing casual. She knows they are anything but. They all wear hiking boots. The one who’s knocking is wearing green fatigues and an army jacket with a patch bearing the country’s insignia sewn on it. The other two wear street clothes, with no identifying badges on them at all.

The man in green looks at her in a way that reminds her of the way men used to look at her in nightclubs. He pauses before speaking, looking at the other two. “Are you Arrow?” His voice is intended to sound tough, but comes across as almost comic.

“Possibly. What do you want?” Her hand is in her coat pocket, but she hasn’t decided what to do yet. She could
kill all three of them before they even raised their weapons, but that doesn’t seem like the correct course of action. They don’t appear to pose an immediate threat to her. They’re more likely messengers. Don’t shoot the messenger, the old saying goes, though she can’t remember exactly why. She decides to make no move for now.

“Come with us.”

Arrow pauses, wonders what her choices are. Does a refusal mean she must kill these men? “I don’t think so,” she says.

The two at the rear move their hands on their guns to a less casual position, raise the barrels slightly, and Arrow gets the answer to her question.

“This is not a request,” the one in front says, though she can see it is. He is jumpy, she thinks. These men have heard of her. They might not be sure if the stories they’ve heard are true, but they’ve heard enough to be afraid. She feels pleased, momentarily, and then is irritated with herself for revelling in the fear of others. She never wanted anyone to fear her.

“Where are we going?” she asks, her voice low and smooth. She wants them to know they do not intimidate her.

“To see Colonel Karaman,” he says. “Bring your rifle.”

Arrow waits, lets them sweat it out while she decides what she’ll do. She can say no, and she will have to kill these three men, which will result in her being
a fugitive. It seems easier and more prudent to go with them. She has never heard of a Colonel Karaman, and that makes her nervous. She nods and walks away from them, into the kitchen. She picks up her rifle and returns to the door. She closes the door, and the three men fall into step with her, the one in jeans beside her and the other two behind. She gets the distinct feeling they are treating her as a prisoner.

Arrow steps out of a blue BMW and is directed to wait while one of the men goes inside a café in a narrow street just north of the library. The other two men stand nearby, smoking, but they don’t try to talk to her. After a few minutes the first man returns and motions for her to follow him.

The inside of the café is poorly lit, and the air is stale. The windows have been barricaded with sandbags, and there is very little furniture left in the room. At a table in the back corner sits a man in uniform. He is in his late forties, and his hair and beard are greying. His face is tanned, his eyes an indistinguishable shade of brown. He looks hard, a man used to fighting. Arrow is immediately aware that he’d make a dangerous enemy.

“Sit,” he says, pushing out a chair with one of his feet. “And leave your rifle by the door.”

Arrow sets her rifle down, gently, and sits. She feels uneasy, aware that the situation is getting out of hand.
She waits for the man to speak, eager to try to find a way to regain some control over what will happen.

“My name is Colonel Edin Karaman,” the man says, his voice curt. “You are known as Arrow?”

“Yes.”

“And what is your real name?”

He looks at her, expecting an answer. Arrow straightens her spine and looks back at him. “Arrow is as real a name as I have,” she says.

He pauses. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “If I needed to know your name I’d already know it.” He takes a file from some papers sitting on the table, opens it and lights a cigarette. “Your unit has been disbanded. You have been reassigned to me.”

He doesn’t look at her as he says this, but Arrow is aware that he is gauging her reactions. “What about Nermin Filipović?”

“Filipović has been killed, as you are aware.” He looks up. “I have been watching you for some time. You possess an impressive range of abilities.”

Arrow looks at Edin Karaman’s hands. They are smooth, clean, and have no calluses. They are at odds with the rest of him. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to continue what you have been doing,” he says, closing the file. “But under my direction.”

“No,” Arrow says, “that’s not how I work.”

He smiles. “You misunderstand.”

Arrow shakes her head. “I don’t think I do.”

“Yes,” he says, “you are very much mistaken. I am not asking you. I am ordering you. We are at war. I didn’t ask for this war, but they insisted, and now they must bear the results. You are a part of the solution, and will act as such.”

“I have an assignment already,” she says, “which I must finish.” She is sweating, feels a drop trickle down the back of her calf.

“The cellist is no longer your concern. We have assigned someone else to him.” He inhales a deep drag of his cigarette.

“Why?”

“Because I say so. Filipović has misused your talents, allowed you to be wasted on ordinary soldiers and irrelevant endeavours like this cellist business.” Edin Karaman stands. “You will go with the men outside. They will take you to meet your spotter. He will give you the details of your first assignment.”

Arrow doesn’t get up. She places her hands on the table and stares up at him. “I don’t work with a spotter. I choose my own targets.”

He looks down at her. “No, you don’t. Again I remind you that you are not being presented with a choice here. You will do what is required to defend this city, as decided by me. Now go.”

She hesitates, unsure of what to do. She has been
naive and has lost control over herself. She is entirely without options.

As she rises to her feet and turns to leave, she wonders what her father would say to her if he were alive. Did he know this would happen? Did he understand better than she realized the mechanics of a war and the people who operate on each side in a war? She doubts it. He was just a father wanting his daughter to be safe. He couldn’t have known that she would be so good at killing, or that this skill would make her vulnerable.

“One last thing,” he calls. She turns to face him. His face is severe, his hands folded in front of him. “Some in this city like to think that this war is more complicated than it really is. In case you are one of those people, I will tell you the reality of Sarajevo. There is us, and there is them. Everyone, and I mean everyone, falls into one of these two groups. I hope you know where you stand.” He unfolds his hand and waves her away, the way one would shoo a fly off a dinner plate.

Arrow bends down and picks up her rifle. Its familiar weight comforts her. If they want her to kill the men on the hills, then fine, she will kill the men on the hills. Whatever has happened in her life, the choices she has already made, they have led her to this point. All that remain are the consequences.

Kenan

K
ENAN MOVES AT A DETERMINED PACE THROUGH
town, over the eastbound tram tracks, north through the Strossmayer Street and over the westbound tram tracks. As he reaches the other side of the main road he stops for a rest, lets his bottles sink to the ground. As he prepares to lift them again he sees Ismet coming down the hill, and he waits as his friend approaches.

Ismet smiles when he sees him. “What took you so long?”

Kenan doesn’t smile back. He isn’t sure what to say. “There was shelling at the brewery.”

Ismet nods, his face turned grim. “Are you okay?” he asks, looking him over.

“I’m fine. Where are you going?” He knows that Ismet can tell he’s not fine, but he doesn’t want to talk about it now.

“The market. Come with me,” he says, moving to pick up Kenan’s water.

“Are you out of centipedes already?” Kenan heaves the water up before Ismet can take it.

“Let me help you, at least.”

“It’s fine. There’s no way to balance it if you help. Really.” He turns west, towards the market. “Let’s go.” He has fifteen marks in his pocket. If he’s lucky, he might be able to find something that’s a deal. Something for the children, perhaps.