Braco

by Lesleyanne Ryan

  “Got away, I guess. We separated. I haven’t seen him.”

  One of the Serbs stepped back, kicking Tarak.

  “Shut up, balije.”

  “Alija abandoned you.” The second soldier laughed. “He’s in Sarajevo sipping American beer.”

  The soldier kicked Tarak again and then returned to the tailgate.

  The truck turned onto a dirt road. Dust enveloped the vehicle behind them. They passed two wooden buildings and then swung around. The truck went into reverse. Atif looked up. The dust settled as they backed towards a brown barn. One soldier released the tailgate and jumped to the ground.

  “Out,” the other soldier screamed, pushing them over the edge.

  Atif hit the ground hard and rolled. Tarak and Ratib landed behind him. Soldiers who had been loitering next to the barn entrance descended on them. They stripped off Tarak’s shirt and boots, leaving him only his khaki pants and T-shirt. One of the soldiers dug through the pockets of his shirt but found nothing. They had better luck with Ratib’s shirt which contained Deutsch marks. A sergeant smacked Ratib across the back of his head and then turned his attention to Atif.

  “Let the boy go,” Tarak said. “He’s only fourteen.”

  The sergeant raised his hand to keep one of the soldiers from striking Tarak with his rifle.

  “Fourteen? No. He looks older. Sixteen. Seventeen,” he said, gesturing at Atif’s clothes and boots. “He certainly looks like a soldier.”

  “I gave that to him. He had nothing on his feet.”

  “If he is what you say he is then he will be okay. We have to check your names. War criminals will be tried and punished. The rest of you we will exchange for prisoners.”

  A soldier pulled off Atif’s green shirt, leaving his neon yellow T-shirt alone. Another soldier took his boots, checking to see if they were his size.

  “Inside,” the sergeant said.

  The soldiers pushed them through the barn door. Two dozen heads turned in their direction. Atif looked around. The men sat in small groups in the empty stalls. There were no boys and only three of the men were wearing military green. Ratib dropped to the ground near the door. Tarak led Atif to the back of the barn, to a stall with a window too high for Atif to reach. He sat down. Tarak peered over the window sill for a moment then lowered himself down beside Atif.

  “They’re watching out there.”

  “Do you know anyone?”

  Tarak shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

  “Do you know where we are?”

  “Yeah,” Tarak replied. “I grew up not far from here. We’re just south of Zvornik. They’ve brought us a lot closer to the front lines.”

  “What’s going to happen to us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think he told us the truth? That they’ll exchange us?”

  “Could be,” Tarak said then met Atif’s gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you to Tuzla.”

  “You got me farther than I would have on my own. I’m not sure I would have made it through that minefield without you. I would have stepped on a mine or turned back when I saw the flags were gone. Or I would have gotten lost after Kamenica and walked into an ambush.”

  “Or the blautsauger.”

  Atif smiled.

  Or I would have given up, he added to himself, his smile fading.

  A Serb soldier stepped inside. “Who’s from Cerska?” he shouted. “I’m looking for anyone from Cerska.”

  Four men put up their hands. The soldier told them to follow him outside.

  Another soldier entered. “I’m looking for anyone from Lolici or Kravica?” He motioned to a man near the front. “Are you from Kravica? Lolici?”

  Atif looked at Tarak.

  Tarak shook his head. “Don’t raise your hand.”

  “But why do they want to know? Where are they taking them?”

  A man shrieked outside the barn.

  Pop. Pop.

  Atif flinched and looked up at the window. Tarak stood up and peered through it. The screams continued. He dropped down.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” he replied, staring straight ahead. “They’re just celebrating. Shooting into the air.”

  “I’m not a child, Tarak. What did you see?”

  Another man screamed. Tarak’s next breath was long and hard.

  “They have some sort of gauntlet out there. The soldiers are beating the men. One man has a pitchfork in his head.”

  Atif shrank against the wall as the soldier called again for anyone from Kravica.

  What if they find out I’m from Kravica?

  “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?”

  Tarak said nothing.

  “Aren’t they?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Atif. I really don’t. The exchange may be real. They’ve done it before, many times.”

  “Then why are they killing those men?”

  “Revenge, I guess.”

  In the opposite stall, a group of men were praying.

  “My mother won’t know,” Atif said.

  Tarak stared at him for a few moments and then reached inside his sock and pulled out the laminated ID he had shown Atif earlier.

  “Put this in your back pocket.”

  “Why?”

  “Like I said yesterday, if anything happens to me, you can give it to the army in Tuzla.”

  “What good will that do? If anything happens to you, it’ll happen to me, too.”

  Tarak shook his head with purpose.

  “No. You’ll be okay. I made a promise. I intend to keep it.”

  “But….”

  A man’s voice begged for death on the other side of the wall.

  “Take it, Atif. Please.”

  Atif took the card, poking it into his back pocket.

  “You will see your mother again.”

  THURSDAY: MARIJA STAVIC

  SIX KILOMETRES?

  Marija looked down at Tihana, asleep in her arms, and tickled her cheek. Tihana opened her eyes.

  “Can you walk for a little while?”

  Tihana nodded; Marija knelt down and stood the little girl on the hot pavement. Then she checked the bottles in her bag.

  Empty.

  “I haven’t any left either,” Ina said.

  “Are you sure they said six kilometres?” Adila asked. “It feels like twenty.”

  “Yeah. Six.”

  Marija took Tihana’s hand and started walking. Tihana pulled the toy soldiers from her waistband with her other hand.

  “The tunnel,” Ina said, pointing ahead. “It can’t be much farther.”

  Marija swallowed, her throat sticking. They walked into the tunnel and paused in the shade. A cool breeze brushed their sweat-soaked hair and clothes.

  “I can see tents,” Ina said. “And some buses.”

  “Oh thank God,” Marija said, hugging Tihana. “We’re almost there.”

  Peacekeepers and doctors were crowded along a line of tables. Marija picked up bread and juice before they boarded the bus. She shivered as a blast of cold air met her at the door of the vehicle.

  “Air conditioning!” Adila said. She stopped and took a long deep breath.

  Marija followed them to the back of the bus, where Adila collapsed into a window seat. Tihana sat on her lap and went to sleep. Ina cuddled up with Lejla next to them. Marija laid her head back.

  She woke to the swaying of the bus as it turned into the Tuzla air base. They stopped next to an ocean of white modular tents. Tihana held the soldiers up to the window.

  “Are we really safe?” Adila asked.

  Marija rubbed her eyes.

  “Yes. We’ll be okay h
ere.” Marija whispered.

  When they stepped off the bus, the heat rose from the pavement to meet them.

  “Where do we go?” Lejla asked.

  Marija pointed to a blue beret moving among the crowd.

  “That way, I guess.”

  They followed the others into a makeshift receiving area. More peacekeepers sat behind a line of tables, taking information.

  “My son’s name is Atif,” she told the Pakistani peacekeeper.

  “Where is he?” he asked without looking up.

  “He’s in the woods. With the men.”

  “Oh.”

  “He needs to know that I am here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The peacekeeper turned a page, looked up, and pointed to the opposite side of the tent. “You can proceed. There are doctors there if you need medical attention.”

  “But what about my son?”

  The peacekeeper scratched his forehead and stifled a yawn. “I don’t know what to tell you about that, ma’am. You know about as much as I do. You might want to check with the Bosnian army.”

  Marija turned away. She found Ina in the medical tent; a medic was examining Lejla’s arm.

  “They want to take them to the hospital to treat the rashes,” Ina said. “They want us to go now.”

  Marija caught her breath.

  Is this good-bye?

  “If you need a place,” she said, “you know where we are going.”

  Ina nodded and wiped a tear. “I’m pretty sure I still have a cousin nearby. When we are settled, we will try to come by to see you.”

  They put their arms around each other and held on for a long time.

  “Thank you,” Ina said. “For everything. And let us know when Atif shows up.”

  “I will,” she replied, letting the tears fall. “I promise.”

  The twins hugged Marija and Tihana. Behind them, a medic was motioning to a truck waiting outside the tent. The women embraced again, quickly this time, and walked outside together.

  “Take care,” Marija said. “All of you.”

  They climbed into the truck. Ina rolled down her window and took Marija’s hand. Tihana waved with her fingers opening and closing like spider legs. Then Ina rolled the window up and the truck drove away.

  Marija stood on the tarmac and looked around.

  What do we do now?

  Refugees were flocking towards a large tent. Marija picked up Tihana and followed. They joined the line; soon tables full of food came into view. Trays of sandwiches, fruits, and vegetables covered the tables and cases of water and soft drinks towered above them. Three years of near-starvation, of watching her children cry themselves to sleep from hunger, and here, only a short drive away, was more food than she had seen in all that time.

  “Marija!”

  She turned around. Yassir’s older brother, Vlatko, was standing alone, grinning from ear to ear. He wore clean jeans and a T-shirt and his face was shaved. His smile reminded her of Yassir.

  “Oh my God, how did you find me?” she asked, giving him a quick hug.

  Vlatko kissed Tihana. “I saw you get off the bus and then I lost you in the crowd. Where’s Atif?”

  Marija grit her teeth for a moment and then told him everything.

  “I didn’t realize they were taking boys so young,” he said, picking up Tihana. “I will talk to the army, but I should get you home first.”

  Marija looked at the food.

  “Don’t worry. We have plenty.” Vlatko looked at Tihana. “Your aunt Kata is at her mother’s place until Monday, but I’m sure I can bake cookies as well as she can.”

  Tihana smiled.

  “Okay.” Marija picked up her bag and followed Vlatko towards the gate. They passed a wall full of notes written on paper and cardboard tacked and taped to it. Marija stopped to read them.

  “They’re notes for the men,” she told Vlatko. “I should leave something. For Atif.”

  “We can make something at home. I will come back after dinner and put it up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Come,” he said, tousling Tihana’s hair. “We have so much to talk about.”

  THURSDAY: ATIF STAVIC

  ATIF WAS TREMBLING. He had his hands against his ears to dull the screams. The lengthening slats of sunlight moved up the side of the stall as the Serbs kept piling men into the barn then coming back to prey on them. When the men stopped responding to requests for residents of certain villages, the Serbs picked anyone.

  They selected Ratib.

  Atif imagined the young soldier’s walk around the barn to the gauntlet of soldiers armed with rifles, bats, shovels, and axes. A high-pitched squeal penetrated Atif’s hands. He squeezed them harder against his ears.

  He’d heard that sound before and his mind slipped back to Kravica.

  The pigs.

  A Serb neighbour had kept a few pigs; they squealed the same way when he slaughtered them.

  Atif’s stomach churned. He began to gag and spit.

  “Are you okay?” Tarak asked, squeezing Atif’s shoulder.

  “Why aren’t we doing something?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There must be three hundred men here. Why don’t we just rush them when they open the door?”

  “You didn’t see them out there, did you?”

  “See who?”

  “There are two trucks parked on the edge of the cornfield. Chetniks have a fifty-calibre machine gun set up inside each one. If we rushed the door, they’d cut everyone down.”

  Atif spit, trying to clear the burning sensation in his throat.

  Silence.

  No screams. No gunshots. No soldiers dragging men from the barn.

  “What’s going on?”

  Tarak shook his head. An engine revved up. People shouted. Three hundred heads turned towards the barn door. Atif’s heart slammed against his chest. Then the door opened. Soldiers poured in. A truck backed up against the door.

  “Get up,” a soldier shouted, pulling a man to his feet and pushing him towards the truck. “Fifty. We need fifty for this exchange.”

  Two soldiers grabbed the man, yanked his arms behind his back, and tied his wrists with wire. They helped him onto a wooden box and then into the truck. Other soldiers seized more men, striking them with rifle butts and bats as they pushed them towards the truck.

  Why would they beat them if they were going to an exchange?

  Atif glanced at Tarak. He was facing the door, but his eyes were unfocused and shifting.

  “What was your little brother’s name?” Atif asked.

  Tarak looked at him. “Fadil.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  Tarak looked away, nodding.

  “I told you I was in Srebrenica when the war started. I spent three days trying to get back home. Salko and some others came along to help me find my family. When we got to Zvornik, the Chetniks were already there. We sneaked into an empty building to watch while they rounded up all the Muslims and brought them down to the river.” He hesitated for a moment, clearing his throat. “They tied the families together. Husbands and wives and children. Then they shot the parents and pushed them over the bridge. The children drowned.”

  Atif realized his jaw had dropped; he clamped it shut.

  “You couldn’t stop them?”

  “There were only five of us. When I saw my family up there, I went crazy. Salko and the others had to hold me down so that I didn’t give away our position.” Tarak paused. “He was only eleven years old.”

  “You used to call him Braco.”

  A smile crept up one side of Tarak’s face.

 
; “Yeah. I was so much older. He liked it when I called him that because it used to remind everyone that we were brothers.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “They died together,” Tarak said with a shrug. “That’s all that matters.”

  “If….” Atif said after a few moments. “When we get out of this, will you come with us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To another country. You could come with us. You said you have no one left here. You don’t have anything left to fight for. Come with us. You could be my big brother.”

  Tarak’s smile went up the other side of his face and he draped an arm around Atif.

  “Is that what you want, Braco?”

  Atif’s head bobbed.

  “Then I’ll go with you.” Tarak held him tight. “We’ll be okay.”

  Another truck arrived and left with a load of men, then another. Eventually, only a few dozen of them remained. Atif wiped his face hard; his hands were shaking. He wished he could change the past. When their Serb neighbour offered to smuggle them out, he had given his father the choice between Tuzla and Srebrenica. Atif’s father had chosen Tuzla, but the Serb said it would be safer to go to Srebrenica and his father had agreed.

  One decision and it changed the course of his life.

  He could have spent the last three years in Tuzla. He could have eaten more than one meal a day. Maybe even gone to school and played soccer in the streets.

  Another truck arrived and the Serbs herded the remaining men towards the entrance. The soldiers had run out of wire, so they piled the men aboard unbound.

  “Stay close to me,” Tarak said, grasping Atif’s hand. He pulled him into the centre of the group at the back of the truck.

  “Where is Alija now?” one of the Serbs said, pushing them forward with his rifle.

  “He’s having dinner with Oric in Tuzla,” another replied. “He doesn’t care about you. They’ve left you to rot.”

  Tarak kept Atif in front of him and they managed to scramble into the truck before a rifle butt made contact. Tarak pushed Atif as deep inside as possible. Shouts and gunshots echoed behind them. Tarak pushed his way to the side of the truck and peered through a slit in the tarp.

  “What’s happening,” Atif asked.

  Tarak told him what he had seen. Four men had sprinted away from the truck into a cornfield. The first man was shot dead then the Serbs ran into the field after the other three, firing bursts from their weapons. After a few minutes, they came out pulling a body between them.