by Glenn Meade
We take the train and meet in Vienna and have three glorious days together in a nice hotel with wonderful food. His parents adore the children, and bring them presents.
A Barbie doll and clothes for Carla, and a Thomas the Train backpack and more clothes for Luka. And a real silver dollar each, to commemorate their births. The children are fascinated by the shiny coins.
The silver dollars minted in 1986 have a lady—Liberty—on the front and the eagle and stars on the back—thirteen five-pointed stars, Carla tells me.
Luka tells me his coin is pirate treasure, and guards it proudly in its plastic cover.
David’s father warns us that there are rumors of war. That it may be wise to leave our country, and come to America.
David tells them if it gets too bad we will leave but for now we will get on with our lives. David’s parents can’t hide their sadness, and when we leave, David hugs his father and mother—and we promise to keep in touch. We all cry. I’m happy at least they have buried their differences and found peace.
The only shadow on our lives is this rumor of war.
Dubrovnik is besieged by Serb forces and no one can leave. We suffer food and water shortages and the electricity constantly fails. The old town is shelled, buildings destroyed, and snipers terrify us.
We are beginning to live in constant fear of death. Daily, we hear stories of ethnic cleansing, murder, and pillage.
Today a rumor goes around that there is fresh bread being sold at one of the few bakeries still working. David volunteers to go.
He’s gone two hours when I hear a loud explosion. I pace the room, my nerves shattered. Another ten minutes and David has not come back. I can bear it no longer. I warn Carla to stay inside with Luka and not venture out.
“I’ll be back, my darlings. Stay here.”
I zigzag through the streets trying to avoid snipers. My heart’s pounding when I reach the bakery. In front of me is a scene of carnage.
Medical staff attend to bodies lying around, some wounded, others dead. Legs, arms, bits of bodies are strewn in the street, awash with blood. A man is hanging over a railing, half his torso blown away.
Horrified, I freeze.
I spot David—covered in blood, bits of bone and flesh clinging to his clothes. He’s upright, walking, helping others. He’s not wounded, thank heavens. He tells me as people lined up for bread, a mortar shell landed, killing men, women, children. He was so far back in the line that he was only concussed. I kiss him, hug him, relieved he’s alive.
The shelling ends after Christmas, when the Serbs abandon their siege.
David wants us to leave the country at once and go to America.
“I insist on it, Lana.” I hear the alarm in his voice.
He calls his parents, who are anxious to send us money for air tickets.
But that day I learn my father is ill.
Too ill for him to move.
I tell David we must drive to my father’s farm and try to take him back with us if he is well enough to travel.
I can’t leave my father alone. I have to save him.
David’s unhappy about our journey, it could be dangerous, but he will bring his American passport, which may offer us some protection.
“And then we get out of this country, okay?”
“I promise, David.”
And so we say goodbye to Mr. Banda, telling him we do not know when we will return, but hopefully soon.
We set out one gray Saturday morning with some belongings.
That same morning, unknown to us, Serb tanks and paramilitaries roll north of Sarajevo to begin a murderous campaign . . .
Looking back now, I realize that our journey to save my father was a tragic mistake.
That I put the lives of my husband and children in mortal danger.
But how was I to know?
How was I to know that this was the first step of our journey into hell?
There are those who say that there has always been a war going on in these lands. That for centuries the Orthodox Christian Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Bosnian Muslim ethnic groups that mostly make up this country have always been at each other’s throats.
I cannot lie—history and wars has often made us enemies, even when we share the same town or village—simply because of our ancestors’ blood.
But in truth, nobody hates anybody. Only stupid people hate. We have all lived together in peace for far longer than we have fought one another.
But now the drums of war are sounding again. Tito once held the country together with an iron fist but he is long dead. Yugoslavia is splitting apart. But the evil, mad dictator Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade is in love with power and fears losing it. So he inflames old ethnic hatreds, blaming Croats and Bosnians for ripping apart the country.
Not all Serbs support him. Many are good and decent people who oppose his rule. But it only takes a handful of rotten apples like Milosevic and his followers to ruin the entire barrel.
When all out war finally comes, it comes with a ferocious bloodletting . . .
That Saturday in our old Volkswagen, three kilometers from my town, we see broken lines of terrified civilians fleeing on the road, walking, or on tractors and trailers. I recognize neighbors. They tell us the Serb paramilitaries attacked that morning, killing dozens of townspeople and destroying homes before they withdrew. They urge us to turn back.
David and I are agonized—he says we’re putting our family in jeopardy and need to leave at once—but I’m desperate to reach my father before another attack. He’s sixty-five, ill and alone.
We drive past deserted homes. In the empty town I see maimed, headless bodies in the streets. David and I cringe, horrified, as we try to distract Carla and Luka from the carnage. They know something terrible is wrong.
We speed to my father’s farm. The barn is smoldering, half demolished by a shell or mortar. Cattle lie dead in a field. And there, propped against the barn wall, dressed in his black prosecutor’s gown, eyes wide open in death, is my father.
His throat is cut, blood stains his chest.
I can’t believe the horror I am seeing. I rush to him while David remains with the children. My father was a shy man and in many ways a mystery to me, but at that moment I realize how much I loved him.
I break down, clutching his body. David is ashen-faced. He tells the children to remain in the car but Carla sees her grandpa and screams. We hear gunfire, and our blood curdles.
A terrified neighbor roars into the farmyard in his ancient tractor.
“Lana, you must get away from here. I came back to warn you.”
“Who did this to my father?”
“Mila Shavik’s paramilitaries.”
Everyone in the town knew Mila Shavik. The son of a Bosnian Serb lawyer, there was bad blood between his father’s family and mine.
“Shavik leads a unit called the Red Dragons. Some are local Serbs that you’ll probably know. Butchers, every one. They’re hell-bent on killing anyone who isn’t a Serb, or on their side.”
More ragged bursts of gunfire sound closer.
“Leave now, Lana, they’re coming back,” my neighbor urges, and roars off in his tractor, leaving a cloud of diesel fumes.
Overcome, I close my father’s eyes with my thumb and forefinger, and kiss his cold cheek. I want to bury him, but David drags me to the Volkswagen. “Look, Lana!”
A convoy of army trucks is heading toward the farm. David urges, “We have to get to the main road, it’s our only chance.”
The children are crying. David starts the car. The first truck spots us, and picks up speed. The uniformed men standing in the back take aim with their guns. My heart hammers.
A bullet explodes through our windshield, just missing Luka’s head. Two more thud into the roof’s metal. Carla and I scream.
Luka, terrified, pleads, “Mama, Papa . . . !”
David slams his foot to the floor.
Our engine roars like a scalded animal as we speed away fro
m Shavik’s men.
Carla paused. She noticed several pages were missing in the diary.
She looked up at Dr. Leon. “Some pages were torn out or worked loose. What happened to them?”
“I’ve no idea. The diary is just as I received it from Baize. Are you okay? Do you want to stop or take a break?”
“No, I want to keep going.”
Carla turned the page, and carried on reading . . .
We decide that our fastest escape route back to Dubrovnik is via Sarajevo.
From there, David intends for us to leave the country.
Once, Sarajevo was called the Jerusalem of the Balkans.
With its Catholic and Orthodox churches, synagogues and mosques, it’s a city of over four hundred thousand, known for its tolerance, art and culture, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims have coexisted for centuries.
But in April 1992, on the same day we enter Sarajevo, all that is about to change.
We drive there without stopping and barely make it when we hear on the radio that Serb General Stanislav Galic is sealing up the city.
Everyone inside Sarajevo is trapped in a siege.
I am still grieving for my father. I’m horrified thinking about his body lying unburied for the rats to pick at.
We find my cousin Raisa, whose small house is on Logavina Street.
She is blonde, petite—so petite she always wears high boots—and is a bundle of nerves, but happy to see us and offers to take us in.
Raisa is divorced, with an eight-year-old son, Peter. He calls David and I his aunt and uncle. They have a twitchy little spaniel, Pablo. At least Carla and Luka will have friends to play with.
Raisa has always suffered with her nerves, and chain-smokes constantly. She is worried for her son, worried about surviving.
“The shells and the snipers are driving me crazy.”
When cigarettes become scarce, and she’s smokeless, Raisa’s nerves are as tight as violin strings. She paces the house like a restless dog.
“God forgive me, but I’d give my left leg for a smoke.”
Over three hundreds shells and mortars smash into the city each day, starting at 5 a.m. It is impossible to get a full night’s sleep. Everyone is red-eyed.
Yesterday two young lovers—he a Christian, she a Muslim—tried to flee the city by crossing the Vrbanja Bridge. They were mowed down by snipers. Their bodies were left to rot. People are calling them Sarajevo’s Romeo and Juliet. Today, when it was dark and the snipers couldn’t see, I left flowers near the bridge for them. Checkpoints and barricades are everywhere.
On a wall opposite the house someone has painted: “Welcome to the Capital of Hell.”
I shiver. Something tells me it’s going to get even worse.
In the streets, we all hear the rumor—Sarajevo’s siege will be like another Stalingrad.
As if we needed an omen, tonight there is a violent storm. Loud and frightening, the darkness crackles with lighting and thunder.
Storms worry Luka. He clutches his piece of blue blankie, and cries, “Mama, Luka scared . . .”
I move to snuggle him but Carla says, “No, Mama, let me.”
She hugs him close. “It’s okay, Luka. It’s nothing to worry about. Carla will keep you safe.”
Luka cuddles into Carla, and clutches his blankie. He will not close his eyes without it. On restless nights, or when we’re troubled by the shelling, it’s a godsend. The only way Luka will sleep is holding that piece of old blanket in his hands.
Looking down at my two cherubs, I smile at how much Carla loves Luka, and how protective she is toward him. They are so close. I worry if anything were to happen to one of them, the other would be lost.
A parent is a hostage to a child. Not until they have a child of their own do children understand how a parent would sacrifice their life to protect them.
I worry desperately that we all remain safe through this siege.
They say Sarajevo has become the world’s biggest concentration camp.
There is no gas, no electricity. Water is cut off for days at a time. Food is becoming scarce. Trees are being cut down for firewood.
As always, people try to fight the bleakness with grim humor.
On a wall someone has scrawled a sick joke: “What is the main difference between Sarajevo and Auschwitz? Unlike Sarajevo, at least Auschwitz had a regular gas supply.”
The trams and buses have stopped.
Trains no longer leave the city, for the lines are blocked.
The only way in and out is by air. But the airport is held by Serb troops.
Rumor has it that you can buy a plane ride out if you have enough money.
But we have none, not enough anyhow. And what little we have we must keep for rations. Food is running short. Everything is running short.
Black humor seems to keep us alive. “The bad news is, your house has been half demolished by a shell. The good news is, you’ll get to see it on CNN.”
Even the radio station we listen to each night begins its broadcast with the words “Good evening, to all three of you who still have batteries for the radio set . . .”
There is no end to the terror and madness.
Days are spent running the gauntlet of snipers. They call it the Sarajevo Shuffle. A hesitant back-and-forward motion people make before they risk dashing across a street exposed to sniper fire.
Every movement in the street seems to attract a sniper’s bullet. Elderly women trying to get some food to keep from starving, young mothers clutching children. The snipers don’t care who they target.
Last night, a rocket struck near to the house. It tore slates off the roof. Now it leaks when it rains.
Raisa puffs on a butt she found in the street, and stares at the leaking roof. “Look on the bright side. At least now we can all have a shower.”
Yesterday I saw some locals parade a Serb sniper they captured. He turned out to be an angel-faced fifteen-year-old boy with his uncle’s old hunting rifle. The boy hid in a bell tower and shot at everyone.
They say he shot ten people dead, one a five-year-old. The boy sniper looked so innocent. I heard him cry and beg for his life as he was dragged off.
I cringe and turn away when the crowd hangs him from a lamppost, the boy’s screams ringing in my ears for days.
Raisa is in one of her black moods.
She begs that if we ever go to America, we try to take her and Peter with us. David promises he will do his utmost. Raisa is jubilant.
She and Peter dance like two children, Peter excited, all giggles.
He tells David he loves to watch baseball. He shows us his rubber tennis ball he plays with, and pretends it’s a baseball. He opens a school geography book and wants us to show him where in New York David’s parents are from.
“Can we go to New York, Uncle David, and will you buy me a hot dog? Can I have a real baseball and will you take me to a game?”
David winks. “A hot dog and a baseball game—we’ve got a deal, Peter.”
That night Raisa cracks open a bottle of pear brandy.
We adults get drunk. To further celebrate, Raisa smokes one of her precious cigarettes. She has bought two packs that cost her a fortune. With the siege, they have become like gold.
Raisa tells us of rumors of mass killings, Muslim and Serb. Of villages where women, young children, and babies are brutally massacred. Of adults forced to watch soldiers kill their children. There is madness on every side. I can’t bear to listen to any more.
Raisa swears that if the Serbs ever completely take the city and have their revenge she would kill herself and Peter.
Another drink and she brightens. “With luck, this misery can’t last forever.”
She tells us a joke about a man who puts his precious cigarette behind his ear before he runs across a street that’s being fired on by snipers.
Halfway across a shot rings out, and the bullet shears off the man’s ear. He gets down on his knees, one hand covering his bloody wo
und, the other hand searching the ground.
His friend screams, “Get under cover, you idiot! You’re got two ears.”
Raisa slaps a hand on her boot and laughs as she gives the reply: “Hey, I don’t give a damn about my ear, I’m looking for my cigarette.”
The next day Raisa leaves to try to find us all some food.
Three shots ring out. Raisa comes running back, screaming. “My child . . . my child . . . for God’s sake do something!’
David run out, and I follow, forcing Carla to keep Luka inside.
We see Peter lying on the street in a growing pool of blood.
Raisa let him play his pretend game of baseball in a narrow side street, not troubled by snipers. Peter threw his ball and it bounced down the street. When he ran to fetch it he was shot through the head. His left leg is twitching, he’s still alive.
The dog runs to him, another shot ricochets off the pavement, and the dog scampers back.
Raisa is distraught as I and some neighbors try to hold her back. A volley of shots erupts as someone tries to pin down the sniper. Peter’s body is still twitching. David runs to him and cradles him in his arms. Then another shot cracks, barely missing David as he runs back, carrying Peter.
The poor boy is already dead.
We’re all inconsolable. Raisa is like a woman possessed; she screams and wails, and pleads with God. A doctor sedates her with some pills.
With the neighbors’ help, we lay Peter out in his bedroom. It seems so bizarre—one day he’s talking about hot dogs and baseball, and the next he’s dead. All that night his spaniel, Pablo, whimpers outside Peter’s room.
I hardly sleep, taking turns with David to watch over Raisa, who seems in a coma from the pills. I drift in and out of a nightmarish sleep, weeping for Peter.
As dawn creeps, I wake and Raisa is gone. My heart stutters. I find her in the bedroom where Peter’s body is laid out.
She is lying across her beloved son’s chest, embracing him.
Her body is still.
And then I notice the kitchen bread knife, and the congealed crimson where she cut her wrists . . .
Carla and Luka are in shock.
We are all heartbroken.
It is too dangerous to transport Raisa and Peter to the graveyard. We must bury them in the back garden for now. Neighbors help David dig the grave. We recite prayers. When it is over, the poor dog curls up in the garden, miserable, as if it knows its life is changed forever.
