Rose of Sarajevo

by Ayşe Kulin

  The city was deathly quiet as she walked down Ciglane. The streets were deserted. Winding back behind the church, she emerged in front of the parliament building. Spotting a group of men farther up the street, she huddled in the doorway of an apartment building until she could no longer hear their voices. Then she started scurrying toward Suada Bridge, which had been renamed after the young medical student who had been the first victim of the Bosnian War.

  Nimeta had just begun crossing the bridge when someone shouted, “Halt!” She wasn’t sure whether to make a run for it or not. Then she heard a round being loaded. I’m about to become the second victim on this bridge, she thought, and stopped in her tracks.

  “Don’t move. Turn around and put your hands on your head.”

  She did as she was told and listened to the sound of approaching footsteps. The night was so quiet that she could hear the wheezing breath of the person coming up behind her. The barrel of a gun poked her in the back. A pair of hands patted her down from her underarms to her heels. When the hands were done with her back, they moved to her front, hesitating a moment on her breasts.

  “It’s a woman,” a man’s voice said.

  The hands kept patting. The flashlight was pulled out of her pocket and examined.

  “Turn around!” the voice said.

  She was facing two armed men.

  “Who are you? What are you looking for out here at night?”

  “I’m a broadcast journalist. I need to get to the station immediately.”

  She began to reach into her pocket for her ID card, but one of the men pointed his gun at her chest.

  “Move again and I’ll shoot.”

  “I was going to show you my ID card.”

  “Shut up!”

  While the first man kept a gun pointed at her chest, the other one thrust his hand into her pockets. He found and examined her ID card and curfew permit, using her flashlight.

  “Okay, put the gun down,” he told the first man. “Nimeta Hanım, were you looking to meet your maker out on the streets like this tonight?”

  “People die during the day too,” Nimeta said.

  “We’ll take you as far as the TV station,” the other one said. “The streets are dangerous after dark.”

  “I think they’re safer. At least snipers can’t see us,” Nimeta said. “Don’t worry. I can go alone. I’m used to it.”

  The TV station was actually nowhere near where she wanted to go. She’d have to give these guys the slip.

  “Do what you like,” the first man said, “but I’d use the backstreets and stay away from the riverbank.”

  Nimeta thanked them, followed a street to a boulevard, and waited for a few minutes. Then she turned heel and didn’t stop running until she’d crossed the bridge. On the opposite riverbank she crept along, staying close to the buildings. She’d just reached a run-down neighborhood when it started drizzling. As she was walking up the hill toward some two-story homes, the rain grew heavier, until it was a torrent. She thanked God for sending anyone who might have been loitering on balconies and in courtyards back into the shelter of their homes. Plowing through the mud, she started climbing a steep incline. There wasn’t a soul around. She crawled under and clambered over fences, moving from garden to garden, going higher and higher. When her feet slipped in the mud, she grabbed hold of bushes and branches and pulled herself up. The gurgling streams of water and pouring rain ensured that no one heard her. When she finally reached the Jewish Cemetery, her sweater and jeans were torn, her nails broken, and her hands blackened. She looked as though she’d been dipped in mud.

  Located exactly halfway between the Serbian and Bosniak military positions, the Jewish Cemetery was a woeful place of huddled ancient tombstones, many of which were crazily aslant. Nimeta couldn’t help but feel that the tombstones were gazing at the ground, ashamed perhaps that the three Abrahamic faiths had so often been misinterpreted to inspire bloodshed, whether by Jew, Christian, or Muslim.

  She sank down onto a stone. The rain was letting up, and the moonlight filtered through the ragged clouds, illuminating the freshly washed city below. Nimeta could see the Miljacka River glistening in spots as it snaked through the heart of Sarajevo. She gazed to the right and made out the ruins of the post office, the theater, and the law school. When her eyes landed on the School of Engineering, she began to recall images of her youth—a youth that felt as though it had been a thousand years ago.

  She saw herself emerging through the gate of the Law School and walking briskly along the riverbank on Kulin Ban Avenue, before she broke into a run, her long blond hair trailing behind her. She crossed Cumuriye Bridge and entered the old town. She was on her way to meet Burhan. First, they went fishing a little farther up the river. Then, holding each other close, they walked to Alifakovac, where they kissed for hours in the open air, along with dozens of other young couples. It was a kind of lover’s lane, a place where nobody leered or disturbed anyone else; a place where couples touched lips, warm and secure in their love, the way Nimeta and Burhan had once been. She and her husband had spent a lifetime together in this city nestled at the foot of the mountains. She had never upset him, never hurt him. She’d always loved him, the husband she’d finally pushed toward his death.

  If Burhan was shot before she had a chance to talk to him, she would never forgive herself. She wouldn’t be able to bear the condemnation in her son’s eyes and the insinuating tone in her mother’s voice. The raindrops wetting her cheeks were replaced by the teardrops welling up in her eyes.

  Turning her back on the city, she faced the military position, with its guns trained on the city, and began shouting, “Burhan! Burhan! It’s me, Nimeta. Come out. If you can hear me, come out from wherever you’re hiding!” Her voice grew choked, but she kept shouting.

  She was making so much noise that she didn’t hear the bullet whiz by above her head, but she felt a muscular arm grab her round the waist and a hand clap down over her mouth. She resisted at first, but then, too weak to put up much of a fight, she allowed herself to be dragged off like a sack of potatoes.

  “Are you out of your mind? You were shrieking like a madwoman. You almost got a bullet in your head.”

  It didn’t sound like Burhan, but she was still full of hope as she turned to look him in the face. It was too dark to see clearly. Could he be the one who had sent the letter?

  “What are you doing here at this time of night? How’d you get here? Who sent you?”

  “Nobody sent me. I came here to find my husband. Burhan Kulinović. They said he was fighting here.”

  She pulled out the photo of Burhan holding Hana. He took it and studied it with her flashlight.

  “Commander Burhan went to Stup this morning,” the man said. “He’s not here anymore. You risked your life for nothing. Now how do you expect to get back down?”

  “I’m begging you, help me find a way to get to my husband. Please!”

  “Everyone’s got a husband or a son or a brother fighting somewhere, but nobody else has come up here and started screaming in the middle of the night.”

  “This is a special situation. I absolutely must see him, even if it’s only for ten minutes.”

  “Why’s it so urgent?”

  “That’s private. There’s something I have to tell him.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  Nimeta couldn’t believe her ears. “What?”

  “What else could make you do something like this?”

  “Just get me to him for five minutes.”

  They heard a rustling sound somewhere behind them. The man pulled Nimeta behind a tombstone and crouched over her.

  “This is supposed to be a neutral zone, but you never know with the Serbs,” he said.

  They waited a moment, and then they sat down across from each other, their backs resting against the tombstones.

 
; “If I could see him . . . for just a second.”

  “You’ve gone from ten minutes to five to a second,” the man said, laughing.

  Nimeta rested her head on her knees and began weeping softly. She was a pitiful sight—a middle-aged woman soaked to the skin, covered in mud, and apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown in a cemetery in the middle of the night.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Nimeta.”

  “Look, Nimeta, I’m sure you’ve got a good reason to want to see your husband or you wouldn’t have put yourself through all this. We’re going to be making some deliveries to the area where your husband’s stationed. I don’t know the exact day, but it should happen sometime next week. How can I find you?”

  “I’m always at the TV station. I work there.”

  “Ah, I thought I recognized you. I’ll get word to you the day before. You can go and see your husband then. But if you hit a mine or get bombed on the way, don’t blame me.”

  Nimeta seized the man’s hands. “Thank you, thank you so much. I didn’t catch your name.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Esat.”

  “Esat, I’ll never forget your kindness.”

  “Wait here, and I’ll get someone to escort you down the mountain. You’d better clear out before dawn. And don’t ever do anything like this again. You’re lucky to be alive. The odds were against you.”

  “I can go back down on my own the same way I climbed up.”

  “No, you can’t,” Esat said. “The rain’s stopped, and they’ll shoot at the slightest sound. Wait here.”

  Nimeta crouched even lower. As she looked up at him, she noticed how young he was—and how thin. They all were these days; man or woman, all the Bosniaks living in Bosnia had shed ten or fifteen kilos since the war started. Though Nimeta couldn’t tell what color his hair or his eyes were, she could see he was handsome. He was wearing dark clothing. She wondered whether Burhan was wearing something similar or fighting in the trousers and shirt he had on when he left home.

  “Don’t go anywhere and don’t move,” Esat cautioned her as he walked off.

  Fiko stared in shock at his mother when she walked in the door that morning.

  “Where were you?” he asked in an icy voice. “The TV station?”

  “Didn’t you read my note?”

  “It said you’d gone to work.”

  “Why are you up so early? It’s not even six o’clock.”

  “Mother, where were you?” he demanded, raising his voice.

  “I was out looking for your father,” Nimeta said as she removed her mud-caked sweater and shoes.

  Forgetting how upset he was with her, Fiko yelled, “What did you just say, Mother?”

  “Your father’s joined the volunteer forces. He’s gone up to the mountains to fight. He’s alive. He’s not dead. He’s not dead, Fiko.”

  Fiko found himself in his mother’s arms, tears streaming down his face. He felt overwhelmed with guilt at the way he’d been treating his mother. He’d been upset with her for some time, for reasons he didn’t fully understand. When his father disappeared, he’d sensed that she was responsible in some way, and he’d blamed her. Even so, he’d missed her terribly when they weren’t speaking. He missed her hugs, missed resting his head in her lap as he stretched his legs out on the sofa, missed being spoiled.

  “How’d you find out, Mother? Who told you?”

  “I got a response to my missing person ad. Not from him, but from someone who knows him.”

  “Did you get to see him?”

  “No, but I found someone who’s going to arrange it.”

  “So you haven’t found him or seen him?”

  “No, not yet. But I know where he is, Fiko. I’ll be able to go and see him.”

  “When?”

  “Within a week.”

  “He might be somewhere top secret. That’s why he didn’t tell us himself where he was going.”

  “I don’t care where he is. I just have to see him,” Nimeta said.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Nimeta was about to say no, but then she considered the advantages of having Fiko at her side. Burhan might refuse to see her if she went on her own, but he wouldn’t want to upset Fiko. She could always arrange for a word or two alone with her husband, even with Fiko there.

  “All right, Fiko. We’ll visit your father together,” she said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out where we’re going, and how. Don’t breathe a word about this to anyone. Even Hana.”

  They rattled along in a jeep, sending up clouds of dust in their wake. Two soldiers in yellow and green uniforms the color of a spinach omelet sat up in front, while Nimeta and Fiko sat in back among the boxes of provisions. It was hot outside—and even hotter inside the jeep. From time to time, Nimeta fanned Fiko with her straw hat.

  “Stop it, Mother,” he said.

  He was tired of his mother hovering over him and treating him like a child, especially in front of these soldiers. Neither of the soldiers had uttered a word to them. The occasional breeze would carry the acrid stench of their stale sweat to Nimeta’s nose. They obviously hadn’t been near any water for days or even weeks, and their cracked skin had been blackened by the sun.

  “How much farther is it?” Nimeta asked.

  Fiko squirmed in embarrassment, but he didn’t say anything. Who knew how many times his father had traveled up and down this same dirt road? Women were so impatient. They loved complaining. His grandmother, his mother, Hana—they were all the same.

  “We’ve got another half hour or so to go,” one of the soldiers said.

  “We’ve already climbed up quite a way.”

  “The higher we go, the safer it is.”

  A few minutes later, Fiko suddenly asked, “Do you know my father, Burhan Kulinović?”

  “The tall engineer?” one of the soldiers asked.

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “The engineer commander. I know him. He designs underground tunnels, secret shelters, and bridges.”

  “Does he ever fight?” Fiko asked.

  “Of course he does. We all do. But everyone’s got other duties as well.”

  “Like what?”

  “There are doctors, engineers, tailors, drivers, cooks, laborers . . . Everyone does what they do best and fights as well.”

  “How many of you are there?” Nimeta asked.

  “That’s confidential, sister,” he said.

  “Do you need more soldiers?” Fiko asked.

  “Why? You plan on joining us?” the other soldier asked.

  “He’s still just a boy. He’ll join later when he’s grown up,” Nimeta said.

  Fiko bridled with resentment.

  “There are a lot of guys his age up in the mountains.”

  “Fiko’s tall for his age. He’s only—”

  Fiko couldn’t stand it a moment longer. He broke in, “The women in our house all think their boys never grow up. My grandmother’s the same way.”

  “Mothers are all like that,” the driver said.

  They all fell silent. As they approached their destination, Nimeta grew increasingly frightened. What would Burhan do when he saw her? As they rounded a bend, she saw a makeshift shelter in the distance. A rope of smoke curled up from the chimney.

  The moment the jeep stopped, Fiko leapt out and began running toward the shelter.

  “Wait for us!” one of the soldiers shouted. “They don’t know you. Don’t get us in trouble.”

  Nimeta watched as Fiko waited for one of the soldiers to catch up, then walked off toward the shelter with him. She stayed put. Fiko would surely mention that she was outside. It would be better if she waited for Burhan to come to her. She got out of the jeep and sat down in the shade of a tree, her back resting agains
t the trunk.

  “Aren’t you coming?” asked the driver. He was unloading something from the jeep.

  “I’ll let Fiko catch up with his father first,” Nimeta said. “They can have a man-to-man chat. Then I’ll go in.”

  Suddenly, after all those days of desperately trying to see Burhan, of wanting to touch him and hold him, of doing everything in her power to find him—including risking her own life—she felt a strong urge to run off before his eyes met hers. Her desire to see him had been waning ever since she’d learned that he was alive and healthy. It was all she could do to keep herself from bolting headlong down the mountainside.

  Time slowed to a crawl. Nimeta slumped back against the tree trunk; then she stretched out on the ground. She put her hands under her head and looked up through the green foliage at the blue sky. It was such a tranquil blue, a sky that belonged not to a country torn apart by war but to a happy country where everyone was on holiday all the time. Would Bosnia ever know peace and family holidays again?

  She was so engrossed in her musings that she lost track of how long she’d been lying there. When she finally got up and brushed bits of grass and dirt off her clothes, her limbs and back were stiff. She started walking toward the shelter. It was time to put an end to this torture. Whatever happened would happen.

  Several armed young men stood guard at the entrance of the shelter. One of them was the soldier who’d driven the jeep. He pointed to the back of the shelter, and she walked over to it. Burhan and Fiko were sitting at a wooden table in the shade. Nimeta couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could tell they were deep in conversation.

  Burhan had his back to her. When she got a little closer, Fiko spotted her, pointed, and shouted, “Look, it’s Mom!”

  Burhan stood up and turned around. Nimeta’s heart sank; his arms were stick thin, his face gaunt, his cheeks sunken. He’d grown a beard and was wearing one of those omelet-colored shirts over a pair of his own trousers, which he kept up with a thick piece of twine knotted around his waist. He looked so different she might not have recognized him on the street. But those dark blue eyes she knew so well were exactly the same. She raced into his arms. He didn’t recoil but simply kissed her on the cheeks.