by Carrie Arcos
The words head trauma contain no emotion, reveal no hint of who the woman with the shaved head lying in the bed is.
I nod, mimicking his bedside manner—don’t appear upset; smile, keep your eyes on the patient.
“They said she was found underneath a structure. It could have been that collapse or maybe some other debris that knocked into her.” He notices what I’m holding for the first time. “Is that her shoe?”
“Yes.”
He turns from me then, but not before I see the anguish in his eyes. He brings his hand up to his mouth to stifle a sound, but I hear the sharp intake of breath. If Dad loses it, I think I will freak.
“When will she wake up?” I ask.
He clears his throat. “That’s what we’re waiting on. She’s currently in a coma.”
It’s not exactly an answer to my question, but I remain quiet. I sit down in the chair next to Mom, suddenly feeling exhausted.
“You can hold her hand. It might help.”
I haven’t held Mom’s hand in years. I can’t even remember the last time. Was it crossing a street? I stare at one of them. I used to think they were so pretty. Now her fingers are swollen; her nails are bruised deep purple. There is dirt underneath them.
“You can speak to her too, if you want.”
“She can hear us?”
“I don’t know, but it helps if you speak to her. In case she’s listening.”
He checks his phone.
“Zara,” he says, his eyes on the screen, “will you be okay here?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He kisses me on the head.
“I love you, Z.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
“We’ll get through this. Your mom”—his voice cracks a tiny bit, and my eyes water because I’ve never heard uncertainty in his voice before—“your mom is a fighter. The bravest person I’ve ever known. She hasn’t gone through all that she has . . . for this,” he says. “Courage, Z.”
He leaves me alone with my mother.
I listen to the machine click. I listen to her breathe.
I’ve never really thought of Mom as brave. I know she survived a war and came here from a refugee camp in Eastern Europe, but she’s always seemed more anxious, more tightly controlled than courageous. Still, it must have taken a lot to start over. She met my dad two years after she arrived in the States. He was in his first year of residency when she walked into the ER with a broken arm. After he set it, he asked her out.
Now Mom’s arm lies battered and uncovered next to me. I touch her hand, surprised to find how soft it is.
“Mom?” I say. “Can you hear me?”
I wait for a response, but there’s nothing except the slight movement of eyeballs flitting behind the lids like they’ve been doing since I stepped into the room.
I don’t know what else to say.
My mouth is dry. My back and legs are sore, but nothing like they’ll probably feel in the morning. I sit there as Mom’s chest rises and falls, and I wait.
Minutes pass, and my breaths come faster. I try to slow them down, but I can’t. I feel myself giving in to the fear. Fear because of what’s happened. Fear because sitting next to her now doesn’t feel that different from being in the presence of her silence. She’s probably taking so long to wake up to punish me.
But then it hits me—
She could really not wake up. She could be gone forever. Even though I have wished her horrible fates both under my breath and in my own head, suddenly, the reality of my mom dying chokes me. I would never have the chance to know her. I’d never know where I came from.
And she wouldn’t know me.
She doesn’t know me.
I finally think of something to say to her.
“Don’t you die on me,” I whisper.
And I hold her hand like I imagine a dutiful daughter would.
1992
Spring
Višegrad
BiH
NADJA EXHALED, ADDING her own plume of smoke to the already hazy living room. Uma, her best friend since the age of seven when they met in class, sat next to her on the couch. On the other side of Uma sat her parents. Nadja’s parents occupied two separate chairs across from the couch. Nadja held Uma’s hand and played with the green-and-purple rope bracelet she wore. The power was still out. Thick yellow candles on the coffee and side tables cast large shadows on the walls that moved like apparitions every time someone shifted in their seats. They listened to the radio, hunched over, leaning closer, as if proximity to the device would give them more answers. Benjamin, the only one not smoking, drew superhero characters from his comics in his notebook. Nadja recognized one as Wolverine. She shook her head. She couldn’t get into comics. She preferred words to pictures. And not even superheroes could help them now.
There was fighting in the north and talk of villages being burned. Even Sarajevo had experienced violence. At a protest in the city, there had been a woman shot dead in the street.
Nadja’s dad tried another channel. This one spewed propaganda about how Muslims were organizing. How they couldn’t be trusted. The voice warned about Muslim neighbors hiding guns and planning to kill everyone. Serbs needed to band together against a possible jihad. The voice called for a holy war to protect Greater Serbia.
Nadja’s dad turned the radio off.
She wondered who the voice was talking about and if she needed to be afraid of such Muslims. The Muslim faces staring back at Nadja in the room looked just as confused and afraid as she was.
“We shouldn’t have come back,” her dad said.
It had been only a couple weeks ago that tanks and Serbian paramilitaries and blasts like thunder engulfed their small town. Bags were quickly packed and then they were running, dodging bullets, heading for the car. They passed others doing the same. They escaped to Goražde, only thirty-nine kilometers upriver from their town. They spent seven days there, all in one small room of another family kind enough to help them. The residents of Goražde had been welcoming, offering help, turning their sports center into a processing center for those fleeing Foča and Višegrad.
Resistance fighters, just regular civilians from Višegrad and other nearby villages, had taken control of the power station and dam that served the whole region. Murat Šabanović, the leader of the rebels, had threatened to blow it up, wanting to flood and destroy Višegrad instead of turning it over to the Serbs’ control. Shelling began, and this was what led people to flee. Murat didn’t have the explosives, but he did pull the turbines, setting the Drina free. The flood damaged many homes and buildings in Višegrad. Thankfully, Nadja’s own home was on high ground, up on the hill, so it had survived without detriment.
After five days, Serbs came to Goražde and told the people who had fled to come back. Told them all Muslims would be safe. The JNA, specifically the Užice Corps, had freed Višegrad from the Serbian paramilitaries. They would reopen schools, stores and cafés. Everything would go back to normal. The power plant and dam that had been the object of the fight had been secured by the Serbs. Nadja’s family came back to find some flood damage and a couple of buildings shot up, but otherwise things did go back to normal. But still the Četniks remained and roamed. Thousands had set up camp in the area. Nadja’s family tried ignoring the now open contempt with which some people treated them, people like Mr. Radić, teachers her dad worked with, the mailman and some of Nadja’s mother’s customers, who stopped buying her jewelry.
“We were foolish to trust the JNA.” Nadja’s father, his broad shoulders hunched over, sounded bitter and tired. She worried at his tone.
“But they are here to keep peace,” Uma’s father said.
“They are pulling out. Besides, the JNA is in the hands of the Serbs. They are leaving us to the Četniks.” The men with long, dirty hair and beards who patrolled the town all ho
urs of the day.
Nadja’s mother took her husband’s hand, watching his face intently. He lowered his voice, as if it were wrong to speak freely in his own house. “Why do they make us sign a loyalty oath? Why have they confiscated all Muslim weapons? Not only guns, anything. Kitchen knives? What is that telling us? We have nothing to defend ourselves with. We are sitting ducks. Some of my Serb colleagues have left, and many are acting strange, like they know something. It is not coincidence. We are leaving at the end of the week for certain.”
Nadja and Uma exchanged looks but remained silent. Uma’s hand tightened around hers. Nadja wondered about Marko. She hadn’t seen him in days, and she was worried about what that meant.
“Where will you go?” Uma’s father asked.
“I don’t know. Sarajevo, I think. It will be safer in a big city. I have a friend there from college who is willing to house us until I can find transport out of the country.”
“I heard they are not letting Bosniaks leave by car,” Uma’s mom said.
“We will journey on foot, then. I must protect my family.”
“You should join us,” Nadja’s mother said.
“But we have lived here all our lives,” Uma’s mother said. “Why should we have to go? What will happen to our home? There is nothing for us in Sarajevo or any part of the world. It won’t get as bad here as you think.”
“You think Karadžić and his animals will stop?” Nadja’s dad said. “They call us balije.” He waved his arm. “No one would say such a derogatory remark to me before. You will see. Only Serbs will be allowed to remain. It is fascism all over again. No more Tito. No more Yugoslavia. Nothing to stand in the way of old hate.” He stood up and paced in front of them. “We will be caught here. Your home may not last another shelling. It has stopped now, but who knows if or when it’ll begin again? And what about the burned homes already? We are right next to Serbia. What makes us think we will be safe here? Our history? Our population? With this”—he pointed at the radio—“being broadcast all the time? We leave. If I am wrong?” He shrugged. “So what? We are inconvenienced for a time. If I am right . . .”
Silence answered him.
Nadja didn’t want to leave Marko. Maybe her dad was exaggerating things. Why would anyone want to hurt them? They were not soldiers in an army. They were just a regular family. But she couldn’t deny the holes she saw outside the buildings, the crater in the street she’d had to walk around on their return from Goražde. The one that looked like a bear had clawed its way through the town.
Nadja and Uma hugged each other longer than usual at the door. They hugged like it was the last time.
“I’m afraid,” Uma said in her ear.
“Don’t be,” Nadja said. “You will see, this will all be resolved. We’ll be back in school and complaining about it in a few days.”
Uma pulled away, tears in her eyes. “I never thought I’d say I miss school.”
“Me neither.” Nadja touched Uma’s ear, the small silver third piercing she had gotten recently. “Looks good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Uma and her parents opened the front door, and her dad looked down both sides of the street. It was a quiet, clear night with the power still out. You could see some candles flickering in windows. The mood was ominous, like something was coming, though nothing was there. If the darkness had something to tell them, some knowledge of deceit or death, it remained silent.
“God be with you,” Nadja’s father said, and then he closed the door.
* * *
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙
Up in her room, Nadja packed a bag of essentials. That’s what her mother had told her—only take essentials. This is so stupid, Nadja thought. What are essentials? Marko, he was essential. The way he touched her, the way he looked at her, the way he made her whole body feel like it was alive. Maybe he could come with them? How could she make him fit in her bag?
She removed the mixtape from inside her cassette player and put it in the small open suitcase on her bed. She carefully folded each item before putting it in her case: panties, bras, jeans and shirts, sweaters, a sweatshirt, socks. She pulled some photos from an album and enclosed them in a letter-sized envelope along with her identification papers. The small stuffed bear on the bed was the last to go in. She shoved the case under her bed.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She froze at the sound on her window.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She opened the curtain. Marko.
She put her finger to her lips and helped him climb inside. He held her and sat on her bed. His hands cupped her face, and he kissed her.
“We are leaving,” she said after pulling away to breathe.
“When?”
“The end of the week. I have a suitcase packed.”
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“Sarajevo. My dad has a friend there.”
“Good. I was coming to tell you to go. You need to get somewhere safe.”
“What happened?” She searched his eyes and saw the fear.
“I have heard things. It’s crazy. I . . . Look, my dad has been called to duty. He says I will be too.” He grabbed her arm and looked deep into her eyes. “Tell your dad to leave tomorrow.”
“You’re scaring me.”
He dropped her arm. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you, don’t you see? I . . .” He kissed her, hard, too hard. She pushed him away.
“Protect me from what?”
“They want all the Muslims gone.”
She felt a sudden shiver in her body from the way he stressed gone. Did the they include Marko? And what did he mean by gone? Maybe her father hadn’t been exaggerating after all.
Marko knelt down on the floor and held Nadja’s body to his, burying his face in her stomach.
“Marko . . .”
He looked up at her, his eyes dark as pebbles. “I love you. The world is going mad, but I want you to know I love you. That is the truth.”
He got up and climbed out the window. She watched as he went, his figure hunched over, hands in his pockets, quickly walking away from her down the narrow street.
July 3
DAD HELPS ME out of the car, leading me by the elbow up the walkway to our house. My camera is slung over his arm. Aunt Evelyn opens the door.
“Zara, honey.” She hugs me too tight, and I shrink a little from her touch because of the pain. I’m still wearing the hospital gown open at the back. I didn’t want to have to put a shirt on over the wounds.
“Oh, your back! I’m so sorry. Here, let me help you.” She takes over Dad’s hold on my arm and leads me to the couch. Then she hugs my dad, pulls back and searches his bloodshot eyes.
“How’s Nadja?” she says.
“We don’t know anything new,” he says. “It’s still early.”
Aunt Evelyn reaches out and places her hand on his arm. “What can I do?”
Dad sets down the camera, puts his hands on his hips and looks around as if the answer is to be found somewhere in the living room.
“Can you stay the night? I need to get back, but I want to make sure Z and Benny are okay.”
I want to tell Dad to stay, that it would make me feel better to have him here, but I know he can’t bear not being with Mom in case something changes.
“Sure. Sure,” she says. “Whatever you need.”
Dad goes to his room, while Aunt Evelyn gets me a glass of water. When he comes back, he gives me a hug and kisses the top of my head. “I love you. Try and get some rest,” he says. And just like that, he’s gone.
Aunt Evelyn smiles while I slowly drink the water. She’s nice, the kind of aunt who always remembers to send birthday presents, but she and I aren’t exactly close. She’s pretty busy with her own stuff, so we don’t see her that often, even though she only
lives about thirty minutes away. The last time we spent any significant time together was when she broke up with her fiancé. She spent the night, and Mom made coffee and sat with her for hours. I hadn’t known what to say because she was crying a lot. Mom seemed to know exactly what to do.
Mom, who is now in a coma in the hospital. It doesn’t seem real.
“Where’s Benny?” I ask, placing the empty glass in her outstretched hand.
“He’s asleep,” Aunt Evelyn says. “Poor kid was really shaken up.”
“Yeah, I bet.” I stand up and feel woozy. Now that the shock and medication have worn off a little, and the adrenaline has left, the pain is intense. A wave of nausea hits me. I walk down the hallway and crack open the door to Benny’s room.
He’s sleeping on his stomach with his foot sticking out of the covers and hanging over the side. I creep in quietly and place my hand on his face. He looks peaceful. You’d never know that he almost died earlier today.
“Love you, Benny,” I whisper.
He doesn’t stir. I leave.
When I come back to the living room, Aunt Evelyn is waiting for me.
“Can I help you with anything?” she asks.
“I think I’m just going to wash up and go to sleep.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help?”
She takes a step toward me, but I hold up my hand. “I can do it.”
I’m not allowed to get my wounds or stitches wet for a full forty-eight hours, so I take a washcloth and wash slowly, carefully. But as delicate as I try to be, the fabric feels like sandpaper, scraping, bruising, revisiting sites of my body’s trauma all over again.
Afterward I put on a gray cotton skirt and the loosest tank top I have. I take one of the pills Dad left for me. I try to find a comfortable sitting position, but I can’t. So I lie in my bed on my side. Audrey texts that she’ll call me in a bit. We’ve been texting since I was in the hospital. My phone has been going crazy with texts and calls from all kinds of people. Somehow, word got out. I don’t have the strength to answer everyone, but I’ve sent a few texts out to my real friends, like Sibyl and Natasha, and let Audrey take care of the rest.
