Rose of Sarajevo (13 page)

Nimeta badly missed being the lady of the house. She was fed up with the disapproving glances every time she smoked a cigarette or sipped a drink, as well as with the disturbingly neat and tidy state of her home. Sometimes she felt like knocking the books—lined up biggest to smallest—off their dust-free shelves, flicking her cigarette ashes into every corner, and tossing the cushions stiffly arranged on the sofa onto the floor. She sometimes thought back to growing up like a soldier in her mother’s tightly run barracks, all the times she was ordered out of bed to screw the cap back onto the tube of toothpaste, or to pick her clothes up off the floor and hang them in the wardrobe. She could almost hear her father saying, “She’s still a little girl, Raziye. Leave the poor thing alone.”

“I made Hana a big jar of jam. Be sure she has some every morning at breakfast.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Nimeta gathered up the dishes and carted them off to the kitchen. A moment later Raif came in with another stack of dishes.

“Where’s the cognac?”

“You’re going to drink cognac after all that plum brandy?”

“With coffee. Just a finger.”

“Don’t, Raif. You’ve got to get up early tomorrow and drive all the way to Bijeljina.”

“If you don’t give me cognac, I won’t take Mother away tomorrow.”

Nimeta pulled a bottle of cognac out from the cupboard and said, “Okay then. Poison yourselves until you pop.”

“Has Mother been getting on your nerves?”

“I just want to be home on my own for a while, Raif. She’s been a great help. I don’t know what I’d have done without her. But when she’s around, I feel like I’m living in boarding school.”

“She does have something of the retired schoolmarm about her. A real disciplinarian.”

“Thank God she’s missing her other grandchild. I was at the end of my rope. I’m a little worried, though. Serbian commandos have begun patrolling Zvornik. I hope nothing happens while she’s there.”

“We can’t let the Serbs stop us from living our lives. We’ve got to get used to their threats even as we ignore them. Relax. I promise not to bring Mother back before autumn. She might even decide to stay in Zvornik for good.”

“I’m ashamed to say it, but I really do need some time on my own.”

“Are you two talking about me behind my back?” Raziyanım said from the door to the kitchen.

“Yeah, that’s our one and only pastime. You’re all we talk about when we see each other,” Raif said. “How could there possibly be anything more important in our lives than you?”

“Ingrates,” Raziyanım said. “But anytime you get yourselves into trouble, it’s me you come running to. Ah, is that a bottle of cognac in your hand? You’re getting up—”

“You’re getting up early tomorrow, and you’ll be driving,” Raif said, mimicking his mother’s voice. “Don’t drink, Son. Be a good Muslim, and perform your prayers five times a day.”

“Do what you like. I’m going to bed,” Raziyanım said.

“It’ll be a brand-new day for you tomorrow when we walk out the front door,” Raif said, winking at his sister.

“It’ll be a brand-new day for us all,” Nimeta said. “Let’s see what another dawn brings.”

APRIL 9, 1992

Raif whistled all during the trip, but he was feeling glum. His head was in a muddle, and he knew things would only get worse. Like all Bosniaks, he wanted to believe in his heart that war wouldn’t break out, but a nagging voice deep inside kept telling him otherwise. Still, he kept whistling.

“I expect you’ll give up whistling completely after today,” Raziyanım said. “You’ve been tooting every song you ever learned right in my ear ever since we got in the car.”

“Mother, you’re already against cigarettes, booze, and cursing. Are you telling me whistling is forbidden as well?”

“I’ve never been able to understand why our people are so fond of drink, tobacco, and swearing. Why are you unable to talk without resorting to profanity and expletives?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. I asked you if whistling was forbidden.”

“And I asked you why you all love cursing so much.”

“Who do you mean by ‘you all’?”

“You, the Bosniaks.”

“Well aren’t you a Bosniak too?”

“I can’t stand vulgarity.”

“So does that mean you’re not a Bosniak? Have you decided to become a Turk? Believe me, they’re even worse than we are when it comes to cursing.”

“How would you know?”

“Don’t you remember all our summer holidays in Istanbul? If Nimeta hadn’t fallen for that guy, we’d have gone to Istanbul even more than we did. But you didn’t want to give up your daughter.”

“Of course I didn’t. I was against her moving all the way to Istanbul.”

“You’re a selfish woman. You took her away from her first love, and she ended up marrying Burhan the following year.”

“At least she stayed where I could see her.”

“That’s right, you’ve got to keep your kids in your sight forever, so you can keep taking care of them.”

“When you’re a father, you’ll know how I feel.”

“Mother, just listen to yourself! I
am
a father.”

“You’ve only been one for three months. Your fatherly instincts haven’t kicked in yet. You’ll get more attached with each passing day. Do you think you’ll be able to leave Muho when he turns one?”

“I adore him already, but I’ll never smother him with attention.”

“Are you trying to say I smothered you? You’re impossible. There’s no point in trying to talk to an ingrate like you. You can go back to your whistling now.”

They drove through the green countryside in silence. As they were approaching Zvornik, Raif noticed a strange shimmer of color in the distance on the right-hand side of the road. He accelerated.

“Ah, look, Raif. There’s a big crowd over there,” Raziyanım said, forgetting for a moment that she and her son weren’t speaking.

As they got closer, they heard the buzz of voices.

Raif decided to park some distance away from the crowd and investigate on foot.

“Whatever you do, don’t get out of the car, Mother. Lock the door, roll up the windows, and wait here for me,” he said.

Ignoring his mother’s repeated calls, he broke into a run. Ahead of him were thousands of men, women, and children, all of whom were wounded and dying. Piles of corpses. People slowly bleeding to death from gunshots to the leg. Women whose flesh had been sliced to ribbons. Men disemboweled, their entrails trailing. Infants in shock. Young girls who’d been repeatedly raped and were now seeping blood. Elderly men who’d escaped the bullets only to die of heart attack
s . . .
dumb stricke
n . . .
deranged.

About half of Zvornik’s inhabitants were there—the Muslim half. Raif ran through the crowd, trying to understand what they were saying, what had happened. Trying to find a familiar face. The overpowering stench of blood and feces stung his nostrils.

“Arkan’s Tigers! Arkan’s Tigers!” That was the only comprehensible thing he heard. Arkan, the fascist commander of the terrorist Serbs. Raif’s blood froze and he felt faint, but he struggled to pull himself together. He’d realized something else: there were no young or middle-aged men in the crowd. All of the wounded, mutilated men he saw were at least in their sixties. The ragged screams of the women made it nearly impossible for him to understand what anyone was saying, but as he adjusted to the horrible din, he found he was able to pick out the odd word.

They’d come at night, broken down doors, and forced people out into the street. Word was put out that everyone had an hour to leave their homes. Then they’d rounded up and killed all the young men. They’d raped women and girls. They’d skewered babies. They’d stamped on Korans and shredded family portraits. Nobody had been allowed to take anything from their homes.

Raif searched for his wife and son among the five thousand people, turning over women and babies lying facedown in the field, never giving up hope.

“Rai
f . . .
Rai
f . . .
It’s me, Mijda.”

Raif straightened up from the corpse he was bent over.

“Mijda, have you seen my wife? My son, my aunt?”

“I’m so sorry, Raif,” Mijda said, and started sobbing.

“Don’t cry. Talk to me.”

“Raif, they’re dead.”

“Dead? How? How did they die?”

“Bianka came to our flat when the looting started. She brought the baby with her. We locked the door and hid in the linen cupboard. They kicked the door down. They might not have found us, but the baby started crying. Bianka was nursing Muho the whole time so he wouldn’t cry. But it was so dark and stuffy that he started crying.” Mijda was wracked with sobs. Raif waited for her to calm down. “They dragged us out of the cupboard. They raped us both. On the table, the two of us facedown, from behind. They pinned down our arms and legs. And raped us, one after the other. The pai
n . . .
Rai
f . . .
”

Mijda was too choked to speak. Raif noticed for the first time that her skirt was caked with dried blood and excrement.

“And Bianka? What happened to her?”

“Muho was bawling and screaming at the top of his little lungs. One of Arkan’s Tigers grabbed him and threw him out the window.”

A strangled growl rose from Raif’s throat.

“Bianka freed her hands and feet and rushed over to the window. She began cursing the Serbs. Then one of them grabbed her, pushed her down to the floor, and stuck his rifle between her legs. Raif, he stuck it way i
n . . .
And then I heard a gunsho
t . . .
I must have passed out.”

Raziyanım was tired of waiting in the car. She slowly opened the door and got out. It was a mild day. Spring had come early to the Balkans. She breathed in the smell of fresh grass and began walking toward the milling crowd. While waiting in the car, she’d made up her mind: if her children were really that fed up with her and she could only do wrong in their eyes, she’d move in with her widowed sister-in-law. She would live in Zvornik for as long as God gave her sister-in-law a healthy life.

APRIL 10, 1992

Bijeljina was no more. Zvornik was no more. Raif’s young wife, Nimeta’s sister-in-law, was no more. His baby boy was no more. Thousands of young men were no more. Thousands of young women and children were no more. And those who remained behind would lead poisoned lives. All that was left were women with torn sexual organs and anuses, children who would never speak again, old people who’d suffered strokes and heart attacks and were ashamed to be alive. The ethnic cleansing was complete. Emboldened by Belgrade—that is, by Milošević—under the orders of Radovan Karadžić, deployed and commanded by the radical nationalist Šešelj, Arkan’s Tigers had “liberated” Zvornik.

But whom exactly had Zvornik been liberated from?

It had been liberated from people who spoke the same language, shared the same culture, enjoyed the same events, joined in the celebrations of their neighbors’ feast days and Christmases, presented gifts on each other’s holy days, and sympathized and grieved with them when times were bad. The only thing that was different about these people—the ones who’d been plundered, cut down, clubbed, skinned alive, and raped, all in the name of liberating Zvornik—was that they fasted one month a year, performed special prayers on the first day of their own religious festivals, and had their sons circumcised. And because of this, they had lost their lives, their families, their livelihoods, their possessions, and their land. The five thousand survivors of the massacre had become destitute overnight.

Nimeta listened to the afternoon news on the radio, stock-still, her face blank, her eyes glassy. Ivan brought her a cup of hot coffee and said, “Drink it, Nimeta. It’ll do you good.”

“Are you asking me to just give up hope for all those people?” Nimeta asked.

“We have a list of the survivors. There’s no hope for those who were rounded up outside the valley. Say a prayer for the dead, and save your strength for the living.”

“Mother’s been in the hospital since yesterday. They keep giving her sedatives,” Nimeta said. “My brother’s been kept asleep.”

Ivan remembered Nimeta’s earlier breakdown and had been afraid she’d have another one. But Nimeta had turned out to be stronger than he’d imagined possible.

She didn’t seem surprised—it was almost as though she’d been expecting this all along. There was a heavy dullness to her, that was all. And she kept repeating the same thing.

“Can you believe it, Ivan? Alija Izetbegović asked the Serbian army for help—the very same army that was behind this massacre. How could anyone be so blind? Tell me, what on earth was he thinking? As the Serbs began filling Zvornik with their paramilitary forces, their arms, their wireless phones and jeeps, Izetbegović actually extended an official invitation to the Yugoslav National Army to come and stop the slaughter.”

“Don’t get yourself worked up for nothing,” Ivan said. “If he hadn’t asked the army for help, would that have stopped them? Even if Izetbegović had demanded that the federal army not set foot in Zvornik, they still would have come and slaughtered everyone. The Serbs are engaged in ethnic cleansing. You’ve got to understand that.”

“What are we going to do next, Ivan?”

“Either we find a way to flee, or we stay and wait our turn. They’ll come for us, you can be sure of it.”

“Stop it! You’re depressing me!” Sonya shouted. “The world would never allow it. The whole world’s watching, and they’d never turn a blind eye to another genocide. Even if nobody else cares, the Jews with ties to the Balkans would never let it happen. I haven’t given up hope. The madness has to stop.”

“They’re waiting for the Bosniaks to be wiped out before they put a stop to the madness,” Nimeta said. “My neighbor, Azra, has been right all along,”

“Who do you mean by ‘they’?” Sonya asked.

“Those who don’t want a Bosniak presence in the Balkans.” Nimeta’s voice was flat and hollow, as though it were coming not from her throat but from a metal pipe.

“Well, we’re here,” Sonya said. “And we’re staying here. We Bosniaks will be here till the end!”