by Ayşe Kulin
“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 jou
rnalists 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.
Burhan didn’t come home that night or the next. Or ever.
Nimeta went to Burhan’s office early the next morning. He hadn’t come to work, and nobody knew where he was. When she got to work, she tried to reach her husband’s relatives in Travnik, but she was unable to get through. On the spur of the moment, she even called his old office and the construction site in Knin, but nobody knew anything. Finally, she turned to her boss.
“Ivan, I’m terrified something’s happened to my husband. What if he’s been shot or stabbed in a dark street?”
She started to cry.
“It’s easy enough to find out, Nimeta,” Ivan said. “I’ll have them call the hospitals and police stations. We’ll find out everything we need to know by this evening. Stay calm and get to work on the interview you’re doing with MacKenzie. I want you to fire off some tough questions. He’s the person most to blame for not lifting the arms embargo.”
“Ivan, I’m sorry. Could you give that assignment to someone else?”
“We can’t allow our personal lives to interfere with our work. Now that’s the end of it.”
Nimeta slammed the door on her way out. Sleep deprived, exhausted, and guilt ridden, she shuffled over to her desk and pulled out the file on MacKenzie. She didn’t think she could think straight without a coffee but knew the stash she kept in her locked drawer was gone. At least she had a couple of packs of cigarettes left over from a carton an English colleague had given her. She lit a cigarette. When these two packs were gone, what on earth would she do?
Lewis MacKenzie, a Canadian, was the commander of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Sarajevo. Even during the bloodiest days of war, he’d failed to grasp the severity of the Bosniaks’ situation. In his eyes, Izetbegović was an unreasonable politician who was seeking to get the UN forces embroiled in a hot war and who was paranoid enough to believe that the Serbs and Croats planned to do nothing less than wipe Bosnia from the map. Trained for war, MacKenzie was inept when it came to political maneuvering. He’d badly botched things when Izetbegović was kidnapped, wasn’t particularly fond of either the Muslim Bosniaks or their Muslim president, and was known to rue the day he’d been posted to Sarajevo. Rumors had been circulating that MacKenzie had even been receiving funds from Serbian-American lobbyists.
Nimeta had been jumping through hoops to land an interview with MacKenzie. Now she had to prepare a series of pointed questions that would lead to other, more penetrating ones. It always happened this way. Every time God presented her with a spoonful of benevolence, she got poked in the eye with the handle.
She started working simultaneously on her questions and on a list of places Burhan could be. He didn’t have that many close friends. Slumped across from an ashtray now brimming with butts and ashes and distracted by other thoughts, Nimeta eventually completed a rough outline of her interview questions. She hadn’t even taken a break for lunch. The latest round of reports had arrived from the police stations and hospitals. Burhan had not been wounded or killed within the municipal boundaries of Sarajevo.
When Sonya screamed, Nimeta was in the middle of translating an article from a British newspaper. She sprang up and ran over to Sonya’s desk. Mate had grabbed Sonya by the waist, while Muša tried to restrain her flailing limbs. She was crying and screaming so violently that nobody could understand what she was saying.
As others came running in from another department, Nimeta leaned against the wall for support.
“Has she gone mad?” Ibo asked.
“She’s about to,” someone said. “Snipers just opened fire on a busload of children in front of the Oslobođenje newspaper offices. They’re all dead.”
Nimeta sank to the floor and retched. Sonya fainted. They laid her out on a desk, and Ivan administered a few short, sharp slaps to her cheeks.
From where she lay in her own puddle of vomit on the floor, Nimeta could hear Ibo say, “Sonya, the bus belonged to an orphanage. The children were all preschoolers. Nothing’s happened to your child. Do you hear me? Hey, Sonya . . .”
The next day Nimeta took a few photographs of Burhan with her and went to visit the city hospitals and police stations. She was unable to find out anything. When she got home that evening, Fiko was waiting for her in the window.
“I haven’t been able to find him, Fiko,” she said.
“Look harder; you’re the one who lost him,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know what happened. Dad left because of you!”
Nimeta’s hand rose in the air to strike her son, but she was able to restrain herself. They stared at each other for a moment. Nimeta lowered her hand, and Fiko stalked off to his room and slammed the door behind him.
Nimeta was only able to keep Burhan’s disappearance from Raziyanım for a week. Fiko had told his grandmother all about the fight.
“Be grateful your husband didn’t kill you,” she said. “There’s no point being sorry now. You should have thought about it earlier.”
“But Mother, we’re not the first couple to have a fight.”
“Your father and I never argued.”
“That’s because nobody dares pick a fight with you. You’re always right.”
“And furthermore I never deceived my husband, never had to hang my head in shame in front of him.”
“What are you talking about? Anyone listening to you would think I’d cheated on Burhan.”
“I can see right inside my children’s hearts and minds, Nimeta. I’ve always been able to,” she said, fixing her hard hazel eyes on Nimeta.
She truly could. But for some reason, she always did it to Nimeta, not Raif. Whenever Nimeta had done anything wrong, her mother had always found out. Whenever she had a crush on a boy, her mother sensed it. She’d been questioned and cornered and badgered all her life.
Nimeta said nothing. She was exhausted, upset, distraught. Burhan had been missing for a week, and she’d begun to think that it really was all her fault. She needed a sympathetic ear and missed Mirsada more than ever. She just wanted to speak to her childhood friend, the only person who would understand her right now. But Mirsada had disappeared, just like her husband. Private lives were not immune from the destruction of war.
Day after day, Nimeta stopped by Burhan’s office, hoping he’d gone in to work. Every night she set the table and waited. But Burhan never came.
Could God have inflicted a harsher punishment? Fiko wasn’t speaking to her, and Hana had soon picked up on the tension between mother and son. Thankfully, Hana had befriended a girl named Zlata at school. Zlata was a bit older than Hana, an intelligent girl and a good influence. Even Raziyanım approved of her. Zlata was keeping a diary chronicling daily life in Sarajevo, and Hana was one
of her faithful readers. On some days Hana even joined in with some of her own experiences. She asked to visit Zlata every day after school. Normally, Nimeta would have insisted that the kids come straight home after school, but she was pleased that Hana had interests that got her out of the house during those difficult days.
Having tried everything else, Nimeta decided one day to put a missing person ad in the paper. She included her name and those of her children. The tiny ad began running in Oslobođenje every day.
When she got home a few days later, she found an envelope stuck in the front door. Her name was written on the envelope, but there was no stamp. She tore it open before entering the house and, with trembling fingers, unfolded the sheet of paper inside. On it was written: “Burhan is alive. He’s fighting up on the mountain behind the Jewish Cemetery.” There was no signature, and the writing wasn’t in her husband’s hand.
At work the next day she tried in vain to find someone who would take her up to the Jewish Cemetery. Nobody wanted to travel through the wide-open streets, exposed to Serbian bullets and bombs. They looked at her like she was crazy. Ivan was no different from the others. She thought of Mirsada and sighed, knowing that everything would be different if she were there. Where oh where was her friend?
If Mirsada were in her shoes, Nimeta knew she’d go up to the Jewish Cemetery all alone if she had to. Nimeta made up her mind. She’d go tonight. She’d do whatever it took to find Burhan. She couldn’t take the accusatory looks in her son’s eyes and the nagging voice of her own conscience a moment longer, not now that she knew where Burhan was.
Nimeta waited for nightfall. Once the children were in bed, she exchanged her skirt for a pair of jeans. She left a note on the table by the front door and made sure she had her papers allowing her to break the nighttime curfew. She pulled on a sweater and slipped into her son’s basketball shoes. She was just stepping out the door when she turned back to get a flashlight. As she rummaged through the drawers, she turned up toys, envelopes, letters, and pictures. There was a photo of Hana—her first—in her father’s arms in the delivery room. For some reason Nimeta put it in her pocket. She found the flashlight at last, made sure it was working, and stuffed the contents of the drawers back inside. It had been drizzling since morning. She stuck Fiko’s cap on her head, pushed her hair up under it, and left the house.
