Rose of Sarajevo

by Ayşe Kulin

  But thinking of her husband, brother, and son also made her a little angry. They’d all abandoned her. They hadn’t considered what it would be like for her to be left alone, entirely responsible for a young daughter and an elderly mother. She was most cross with her son. Raif hadn’t had his wits fully about him when he left. He’d run off to an honorable death to bring an end to his pain. Burhan had found out his wife had deceived him and was heartbroken. But Fiko? What excuse did Fiko have for running off without even saying good-bye? She’d never wronged him in any way. One of the main reasons she’d broken it off with Stefan was to protect her son, who doted on her, from dishonor.

  “We’ll be there in an hour,” the driver said.

  Nimeta wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. Life went on. Her heart had been broken too, but she hadn’t been able to flee to the mountains. She earned enough to keep her mother and Hana fed, even if that meant a slice of stale bread and a tin of sardines bought on the black market.

  Penny McGuire, an English journalist, was asleep next to her, her head resting against a bag that she’d used as a pillow. Penny was going to Tuzla to visit a four-year-old rape victim who was being treated in a shelter there. Nimeta felt a little ashamed of herself for having cursed the giaours so many times over the past two years.

  Serbian women had gathered in their windows to throw stones and buckets of boiling water at the Bosniak women and children who were huddled in the beds of trucks that were taking them from their homes and homeland. Nimeta had seen it with her own eyes and praised God she was a Muslim. She truly believed that no Muslim would ever treat even her worst enemy with such cruelty. Once she’d said to Azra, “Can you believe the way Christians pride themselves on being the religion of peace, on turning the other cheek?”

  “Don’t believe it for a minute,” Azra had said. “For all their talk of human rights, Europeans have no mercy for anyone but their own.”

  She’d reproached Azra. They both counted many Croats and Serbs among their close friends. And hadn’t she once been madly in love with a Christian?

  But less than a week later, Azra seemed to prove the truth of her words by getting killed in Ferhadiya while waiting in line for bread. Nimeta was working that day, so Azra had also been waiting in line for her neighbor’s monthly ration of half a kilo of sugar and three kilos of flour when a mortar attack ended her life and those of twenty other women. Limbs and severed heads had scattered everywhere, and Nimeta hadn’t even been able to find a corpse to bury. When she got home that evening, she’d collapsed in front of Azra’s door, not crying, not talking . . .

  “Please, Mother,” Hana had pleaded, “come home.”

  Did Hana remember that day years earlier when her mother had been unable to move? Nimeta had seen the fear in her daughter’s eyes, shaken herself, and stood up.

  “Come on, Hana,” she’d said. “Let’s go inside and pack our bags. We’re taking the cat and moving to Mother’s. Azra’s gone now. It’s time for us to get out of here too.”

  “Who killed her, Mother?”

  “The giaours.”

  Now, the giaour woman sleeping next to her was risking her life to talk to a Muslim girl who’d been raped by Serbs so that the world would learn the girl’s story. For years, Nimeta had loved a giaour, one she knew wouldn’t harm a fly. But her husband, whom she also knew would never harm anyone, had gone up to the mountains to kill. So had her innocent fifteen-year-old son. It was a funny old world.

  She hadn’t wanted to worry her mother or agitate her daughter, so she hadn’t told them where she was going today. She’d simply informed them that she’d be away for two nights, saying she had to work until dawn. Raziyanım had been having anxiety attacks ever since Raif left and was distraught whenever Nimeta had to leave Sarajevo.

  The English journalist stirred in her sleep.

  “We’re almost there, Penny. Time to wake up,” Nimeta said.

  Penny opened her eyes and rubbed her neck. The feeble sun was no match for the March chill. They were both shivering. Nimeta pulled the dirty, torn blanket back up over her legs. Up ahead she saw a road sign for Tuzla. Both women said a silent prayer of thanks for having made the journey safely, neither of them aware that they were doing so in unison.

  The two-story house had a red tile roof and was painted white. From the outside, it looked like the sort of place that would contain just another happy family. Who knows? Before the war a husband and wife who loved each other might have lived here with their children. There was probably room for grandparents too in this cheerful home. These days, however, the house sheltered women and children who’d survived the massacres in the area. Women and children scarred by war.

  Outwardly, they looked healthy, with all their limbs in place. But they suffered from what was called “war syndrome”: persistent insomnia and recurring nightmares, headaches, and backaches. They either had amnesia or remembered too much. They couldn’t concentrate or even carry on a conversation. The house was full of them.

  A girl sat on a table, her yellow ringlets plastered to her forehead with sweat, her wide blue eyes staring at something visible only to her. She sat and stared—always. Without speaking, without getting hungry, without getting thirsty or tired. She had another affliction: she couldn’t swallow. The doctors and nurses did everything they could to get food in her stomach, but she was getting thinner by the day. She coughed up whatever watered-down food they spoon-fed her, though there was nothing wrong with her throat, her esophagus, or her windpipe. In a few days they’d have to move her to the hospital and hook her up to an IV drip. The doctors had delayed it as long as possible, knowing what the girl had been through and hoping against hope that she’d begin eating.

  Her mother, who had crawled from room to room on all fours, too weak to stand after being raped by ten or fifteen Serbs, had found her daughter lying motionless on the wooden table in the kitchen, white foam frothing from her mouth, blood flowing from between her legs. The girl’s torn underwear was lying on the table beside her. She hadn’t been able to swallow since.

  The girl was sitting motionless at a table just then, being fed gruel by a nurse. The doctors had no way of knowing when or even if she would recover from the shock. Her vagina and bladder had been damaged but would heal with time. Her spirit, however, seemed broken beyond repair. She was four, old enough to remember the events of that day for the rest of her life.

  The boy in the playroom on the floor above was six. His head was swathed in gauze, and he couldn’t talk either. He stood before a table covered with sand, playing with tin soldiers. From time to time, he raced across the room and crashed into the wall. He then returned to his spot at the table. His forehead was dark purple.

  “My God, why are you letting him bang his head against the wall like that?” Nimeta cried.

  The nurse explained that it was the only way he could vent his rage.

  When Nimeta got home, she rang the doorbell and tried to act as though nothing had happened.

  “Mother,” she said, “I need to be alone for a while. I can’t even talk to you or Hana right now. I’m going to my room. Please don’t send in any food or ask me any questions until I’m ready to come out.”

  She locked the bedroom door behind her, buried her face in her pillow, and was instantly racked with sobs. She cried for so long that she forgot why she was crying or for whom.

  A light tapping on the door entered her dreams. She’d been having a nightmare. A bunch of men with horns and rams’ heads had been trying to force Hana into a chicken coop. Hana was screaming, but no sound came out of her mouth. White foam trickled from her lips.

  Nimeta sat bolt upright in bed. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. The room was dark. Was it morning? Was her mother trying to wake her up?

  “What is it?” she croaked. “Is it morning?”

  She fumbled for the lamp on the nightsta
nd and switched it on. Then she jumped out of bed and threw open the curtains. It was pitch-dark outside. She was fully dressed. She panicked. She ran to the door, but she couldn’t open it.

  “Mother,” she screamed. She could hear feet running down the hall.

  “What is it?” Raziyanım called out in alarm.

  “Help me! I can’t get out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She could hear her mother fiddling with the handle of the door. Then she noticed that she’d locked the door herself, from the inside. She turned the key, and the door swung open.

  Her eyes met her mother’s.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  “Nothing, Mother. I must have drifted off to sleep, and I woke up in a panic,” she said. She was beginning to breathe normally. “Was that you knocking on the door?”

  “Oh, Nimeta. You know I wouldn’t knock on the door after you said you didn’t want to be disturbed. But your friend wouldn’t listen to me. She insisted that she had to see you. I told her you’d come home exhausted, and that we shouldn’t wake you if you’d fallen asleep.”

  “What friend? What are you talking about, Mother?”

  “Your friend from work. Sonya.”

  “Sonya? Sonya’s here?”

  “She’s in the living room,” Raziyanım said, pointing with her chin. “Get undressed and go to bed. I’ll tell her you can’t see anyone right now. Go on, get to bed.”

  Nimeta gently pushed her mother aside and ran down the hall.

  “Sonya, is anything the matter? What are you doing here at this hour?”

  “Is anything the matter with you, Nimeta?” Sonya asked. “What were you doing in bed so early? Your mother wouldn’t even let me come in and see you.”

  “The trip to Tuzla was exhausting. I saw and heard the most horrific things. I lay down when I got home, and the next thing I knew I was waking up,” Nimeta said. “Anyway, enough about me. Tell me what brings you here.”

  “There’s someone who needs to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “Stefan.”

  Nimeta’s breath caught in her throat. Then she asked as calmly as she could, “When did he come?”

  “Today.”

  “What does he want?”

  “Ask him yourself,” Sonya said. “He says he doesn’t want to leave Sarajevo without seeing you. He’s returning to Zagreb tomorrow.”

  “Where is he right now?”

  “He’s waiting at the bar at the Holiday Inn.”

  “Tell him to come to the office tomorrow. That way he’ll be able to see his other friends too.”

  “He’s already been to the office and seen his friends. He wants to see you, Nimeta.”

  “I can’t go out now,” Nimeta said. “I’m exhausted.”

  “He’s leaving tomorrow.”

  Nimeta shrugged. “I haven’t offered you anything. Can I get you a bowl of Mother’s stewed apples?”

  Raziyanım walked over as soon as she heard her name. “Has anything happened, Nimeta?”

  “Sonya just wanted to know how my trip to Tuzla went.”

  “You went to Tuzla?” Raziyanım asked. “Didn’t you promise me you wouldn’t leave Sarajevo?”

  “I’d better get going,” Sonya said.

  Nimeta walked her to the door.

  “What am I supposed to tell Stefan?”

  “Tell him I was asleep and you couldn’t wake me up,” Nimeta said. “Thank you, Sonya, for coming all this way. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  She shut the door and went into the living room to smoke a cigarette.

  “So you went to Tuzla,” Raziyanım said.

  “Mother, please,” Nimeta said.

  She decided she didn’t need a cigarette after all and headed for her room. As she was passing the door to Hana’s room, she opened it a little, glanced inside at her sleeping daughter, and gently closed it. She changed into her nightgown and stretched out on the bed with her hands laced under her head. Her gaze resting on the ceiling, she lay there like that for a long time, letting her mind wander. Then she got up, changed out of her nightgown into a skirt and blouse, ran a comb through her hair, and put on some lipstick.

  When she left her room, the living room was still. Her mother must have gone to bed. She tiptoed to the front door and quietly slipped outside. The cool night air struck her like a slap to the face. She began running down the hill toward the Holiday Inn.

  Nimeta was stopped at three different checkpoints. When she showed them her press card, they asked where she was going in the middle of the night. She insisted that she had a critical meeting at the Holiday Inn, and they let her through.

  She entered the hotel through a back door—the front entrance had been closed ever since the war started—and went straight to the bar. But the lights had been turned off and nobody was there. She scanned the magenta armchairs and sofas one last time. Nobody. She woke up the receptionist.

  “Stefanoviç,” she said.

  He blinked at her several times.

  “Stefanoviç. Could you tell me Stefan Stefanoviç’s room number?”

  The man glanced at the registry in front of him and then at his watch.

  “I’m a journalist,” Nimeta said, pulling out her press card.

  “I recognize you. I’ve seen you on television,” he said. “Stefanoviç. Room number 500.”

  “Call him, please.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Tell him it’s urgent.”

  The receptionist dialed the number and waited.

  “There’s no answer. He must be sound asleep.”

  “Try again.”

  He dialed the number again and handed the receiver to Nimeta. She waited until the twentieth ring and handed it back.

  “Could he already have checked out?”

  “No. He’s still registered.”

  Nimeta searched the lobby again and even pushed open the door to the men’s restroom. But even there the lights were off. Some of the buildings in the city were being provided with emergency power, which was only enough to generate twenty watts’ worth of light. As a result, everyone looked jaundiced when she visited the Holiday Inn, the hospitals, and the presidential residence.

  “Aren’t you going to leave a note?” the receptionist asked as she walked back toward the closed front entrance by mistake.

  “No,” Nimeta said.

  She went out the back door and trudged back up the same street she’d run down a half hour earlier. Later, as she walked past her husband’s old office, she asked herself why she’d even gone to the hotel in the first place. Why had she told Sonya she couldn’t go out, only to jump out of bed and rush over there? What had she been expecting?

  For all she knew, Stefan was asleep in Sonya’s bed right now. She felt a pang in her heart, and her throat and eyes stung. She had no rights over Stefan. He was someone she’d once loved very much a long time ago. That was all. He could sleep with whomever he liked.

  She started walking faster. It was getting chillier. As she strode along, head bowed, a man cut her off. She gasped in fear. He’d opened his arms wide as though determined to block her path.

  “Please get out of my way,” Nimeta said.

  “Nimeta!”

  Nimeta stared blankly. “Do I know you?”

  He was tall and wore a woolen beret. He pulled off the beret, and she saw he was bald.

  “I . . . I’m sorry. It’s dark,” she said.

  “It’s me, Nimeta. Stefan. Stefan!”

  “Stefan! What happened to your hair? And your mustache?”

  “I’ll explain everything. What are you doing out here? Do you know what time it is?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “I was heading back to m
y hotel.”

  “I went there to see you,” Nimeta said.

  Stefan clasped her hands. “Sonya said you couldn’t make it. Why did you come so late?” he asked. He was rubbing her hands, trying to warm them. “Let’s go to my hotel.”

  “No, Stefan. Let’s not go to the hotel.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you.”

  “I don’t want to go to the hotel.”

  “But weren’t you just there?”

  “I was going to meet you and suggest we go somewhere else.”

  “All right, let’s go to the park then. When I couldn’t sleep, I went out for a walk in Veliki Park. We can sit on a bench there. You can tell me everything that’s happened since I last saw you. It’s been ages, hasn’t it?”

  He pushed a lock of hair back from her forehead, cupped her face in his hands, and softly kissed her on both cheeks. Arms linked, they walked through the darkness to the park.

  It was getting light by the time Nimeta got home, but Hana and her mother were still in bed. She pushed the cat away with her foot and went straight to her room. She was about to get undressed when she decided not to go back to bed. She went into the kitchen and heated some water on the grill her mother had set up there, squeezed in some lemon juice, and drank it steaming hot. It was the closest thing to tea they’d had for weeks.

  Her nose was running, her throat hurt, and she kept sneezing. Even so, she hadn’t felt this good for a long time. A great weight seemed to have rolled off her shoulders. She realized how much she’d bottled up and how desperate she’d been for a sympathetic ear and a kind word. If only Mirsada had never gone to Belgrade. If only!

  She’d told Stefan everything, starting with the massacre in Zvornik, then moved on to Burhan’s departure for the mountains, followed by Raif and Fiko, Azra getting killed in a breadline, the decision to move in with her mother, word of Mirsada’s death . . . every last detail, with the exception of her last night with Burhan.