Lie in the Dark

by Dan Fesperman

  “He’s down here, Vlado. He found me before I found him. Come on down and then I’ll move off to a discreet distance so you can talk in private while I keep watch.”

  Vlado took another two steps and stopped, now within ten yards of Damir and the edge of the riverbank, but still saying nothing. Damir was squinting into the blackness, trying to find Vlado, and a look of worry began to crease his brow.

  “Vlado, it’s okay. Nothing can go wrong. I’m here.”

  “And that’s really the problem with this setup, isn’t it,” said Vlado, startled by the sudden loudness of his own voice. “Especially now that you’re collecting my soldiers. Do you get the rest of them once I’m down in the river? Is that part of the deal?”

  With that, Damir’s smile collapsed. His lighter snapped out, and someone else took the moment in hand. The jeep’s headlights flicked on, illuminating Vlado against the building like a man on a stage. He ducked away from the beams, running for the middle of the street. As he did a gunshot crackled. Vlado turned sharply toward the river, darting behind the second car and diving for the ground as another shot sounded.

  It was so loud, he thought, so loud. Then he was down on the grass and rolling, well out of the headlights now, feeling the wet blades brush his face, then rolling again, footsteps clattering quickly toward him, voices shouting. An iron railing brushed against his back, and as he rolled beneath it Damir shouted, “He’s going for the river!”

  Free of the railing he was suddenly plunging, his stomach leaping toward his throat. He bounced once, a glancing blow against the stone wall, then fell fifteen feet to the water below. He hit with a loud splash, shocked first by the cold and then by the stony bottom. The river here was no more than two feet deep, and the impact nearly knocked the wind from him. He spluttered and gasped, hearing shouts and more running. There was another shot, striking in the water somewhere to his right. He dove, but found it hard to stay under in the shallowness. But the current, which had always seemed so lazy from up on the bridges, was already driving him downstream, pressing him toward safety.

  The shouting continued, Damir’s voice joined by two others, Vlado recognizing neither. Then he realized that for the moment he was safe, rescued by the city’s helplessness. The river was an impenetrable gorge of darkness, with neither streetlamps nor city lights to pierce it. Someone had turned the jeep around, but its headlights were useless, leaping out above the river like searchlights aimed to the heavens. Nothing could angle them down to where Vlado paddled.

  His problem now was the cold. He kicked for the opposite bank, but his legs were already feeling heavy, his wet clothes sagging around him. His satchel floated ahead of him, the strap chafing at his neck. The gun sagged in his pocket like an anchor, useless by now, and with difficulty he pulled it free and it sank to the bottom. The water tasted gritty, metallic, like a handful of dirty coins.

  By now he was some twenty yards downstream. He heard a small splash, followed by cursing and thrashing. His teeth began to chatter. He realized he couldn’t stay in the water much longer. There were a few more minutes at the most before he would collapse from hypothermia. Climbing out and clawing up the bank was still too risky, nor was he sure he could make it to one of the spots where iron rungs laddered up the wall. The jeep’s headlights were now easing downstream along the road above, the driver probably peering down the bank to see if Vlado had emerged. Whoever was in this bunch probably had the connections to mobilize more men to stake out the north bank for the rest of the night, on one pretext or another, although the New Year’s bombardment would complicate matters for them at midnight.

  Damir’s voice sounded again.

  “The spillway! The spillway! Get on the bridge and we’ll see him as he comes through!”

  Vlado knew exactly what he meant. Every quarter mile down the river were three-foot drops creating a series of small, neat waterfalls that trapped garbage and toy boats at their base. Even in the darkness, a body coming through would show up against the white cascade, an easy target for someone quick on the trigger. Even if the bullets missed, the current might trap him underwater and slowly do the job for them. He kicked again for the opposite bank, legs heavier than before, arms going limp. The current seemed to answer each movement with a force twice as strong. Now he could hear the approaching rush of the spillway, a hiss rising to a roar. He glanced toward the bridge just downstream and saw a figure vaguely silhouetted against the dim sky. A second form appeared, and a beam of light leapt from it and vectored into the river. They had a flashlight.

  He surged again for the opposite bank, finally reaching it but feeling only the slime of a wet stone wall, too smooth and steep for a handhold. The current rose around him, the water deepening in the lull before the spillway. The roar of its cascade now drowned out every voice from above, though he could sense the beam of light playing about on the water behind him.

  A black, round hole appeared just above him, two feet out of the water. It was one of the storm sewers draining the south side of the city, and with a grunt Vlado was just able to raise his left arm high enough to grab the trailing edge of the pipe as he slid by His feet slipped into the surge of the spillway, and it took all his strength to pull himself back against the current, though now he had both hands on the pipe. With his final reserve of energy he pulled his head, shoulders and chest into the opening, wondering all the while when he would be spotted and shot. The men on the bridge must be pinning all their hopes on the spillway.

  Vlado dragged up his legs and sagged into a shallow stream of water sluicing down the pipe. The air was warmer here, refreshing even, despite its heavy sour smell. The bottom and sides were slippery with algae, but there was ample room to move around. He needed to get away from the opening before the beam found him, so he crawled, wobbly at first, his head bumping lightly against the top. It wasn’t so bad, he told himself, although the absolute darkness ahead was ghastly The only sound was the gurgle of water, echoing from deep into the blackness. But he was out of the river. More important, he was out of sight.

  He rested for a few moments, letting his muscles relax even as his teeth continued to chatter. Feeling a bit stronger, a little warmer, he began to blindly crawl ahead. There would be no exiting the way he had come. Eventually someone might realize where he must have gone and decide to come in after him. The tunnel headed uphill, in a direction that could only mean trouble, he knew. The wrong side of the lines was no farther than a hundred yards or so. But for the moment it seemed there was no such thing as a right side of the city. Now all of Sarajevo was off limits for Vlado. He continued his slow, steady crawl.

  Stopping briefly to rest, he remembered his cigarette lighter. It was in his pocket, down by the little soldier. Reaching for it he felt the tiny sword, taking care not to break it. He drew out the lighter. The flint was soaked, but after a dozen or so tries it flickered on. The tunnel snaked onward as far as he could see, well beyond the range of the light.

  He took stock of himself. His satchel, although wet, was still zipped shut, perhaps sealed enough to have kept everything inside reasonably dry. He let the light go dead and continued.

  He kept crawling for what must have been another half hour, across sticks, a dead rat, and other objects he could only guess at, stopping every few minutes to light his way and catch his breath. Each time the path ahead was nothing but further blackness. He passed a few smaller pipes connecting from either side, but so far each had been too small to allow a detour.

  A few moments later he felt something smooth and metallic pass beneath him. It was round, roughly the size of an inverted salad bowl, and almost immediately his face came up against a rough tangle of iron wire smelling strongly of rust. Pulling his face away he felt a sharp snag at his left cheek, followed by the warm ooze of blood, and with a gasp he realized where he must be.

  He flicked on the lighter and rolled onto his side, seeing that he had passed across a land mine. By all rights, he should be dead now, but the mine had bea
ten him to it, overcome by its prolonged exposure to the water. Beyond it was a rusting coil of razor wire, and he spent the next twenty minutes gingerly untangling it and pulling it aside, nicking his hands several times in the process. Slowly he pulled the uncoiled strands past him toward his feet, and when the way was cleared he continued, flicking on his lighter every few minutes to check for further mines. If one side had bothered to mine the tunnel, both sides might have.

  But there were no more mines, no more coils of wire. Now he was in enemy territory.

  He continued for another half hour, passing another opening on his right. During one stop he heard a vehicle rumbling overhead. Finally he saw a dim shaft of light ahead, reaching it to find a storm grate directly above. There was enough room to rise into a crouch, and he clutched at the iron grid. It was heavy, but movable. He flicked his lighter just below the grating, waiting a full minute for any reaction. When there was none, he forced the grate aside and lifted himself free.

  The clouds were breaking, and the moon shone through. Vlado’s watch had somehow made it through the evening, which made him wish he’d held on to his gun. It was just after 11 p.m. He had about an hour before the New Year’s celebration would illuminate the streets, although here, as on the other side of town, people seemed to have already battened down the hatches in anticipation. In windows here and there he could make out the pale glow from candles, lanterns, or meager gas flames, but mostly there was darkness.

  The street was vaguely familiar, though Vlado still didn’t know his exact location. But he knew from the heft and heaviness of a black looming hill just ahead that he was far across the river, and well into the Serb neighborhood of Grbavica. And as long as he was here, there was one stop he wanted to make before trying to find his way back. If the wildest of his hunches was correct, he’d find shelter, and perhaps even information.

  If he was wrong, there’d be no help at all, only further signs of death, including harbingers of his own.

  CHAPTER 19

  To be caught on this side of the lines would be fatal, and Vlado knew it. Yet he couldn’t escape the feeling that he was still very much in his own city, still on familiar streets. It had been more than two years since he’d been in Grbavica, lending a sense of detachment to being there now. As with a young man who returns to a former school or playground, he could recall the innocence of his old walks here, felt their familiarity even now, yet knew the place could never again feel quite the same.

  He also felt an odd exhilaration, not unlike what he’d known as a teenager sneaking out of his parents’ house after midnight. It was the same sense of sudden liberation, of being on the loose in forbidden territory—wary of the consequences but jazzed by the audacity of finally having slipped behind the looking glass.

  He stood above the sewer grate for a full two minutes, trying to get his bearings for the next move, and the grid of streets hazily took shape in his mind like a worn map. He was facing east to west. Which meant he needed to walk one block south, before a right turn back toward the west again. Then three blocks straight and another left toward the south, and there it would be.

  He stopped at the first intersection, listening for footsteps, watching for any movement. An automatic weapon chattered from a hill to the east, overeager celebrants literally jumping the gun on midnight, wasting ammunition. Looking up and down the boulevard, buildings loomed up in the dark like slumbering old friends. Here he had chased a ball down a hill with four friends. There he had run errands to a butcher shop that his mother preferred for special occasions, even though the shop had been a full mile from their home. But even in the dark, closer inspection revealed the symptoms of war’s terminal illness—the chipping, cratering decay of shot and shrapnel, the white plastic hanging limp in window frames, rainwater puddling on smashed cars, and all those special smells of urban survival—an essence of woodsmoke, burned garbage, and food long past its prime.

  To hear the people on his side of the city tell it, Grbavica had it made. And it was true that such items as sugar, coffee, eggs, and meat were easier to come by here, and at lower prices. But as far as the war went, Grbavica was very much in the thick of things, not at all spared from the brunt of fighting as were some of the suburbs held by the Serbs. Here, too, were hand-lettered signs that read, Beware, Sniper. Only these were lettered in Cyrillic.

  Just up the hill and a few blocks to the east was the edge of the Jewish cemetery, contested ground that had weathered many an assault by the Bosnian army. If an attack ever succeeded it would lay open the neighborhood to firing from three sides. It would become another Dobrinja, with the Serbs pinned against the river. Vlado had watched one of these attacks unfold, as many had on his side of town. They played out on the facing hillside like an outdoor drama in a distant amphitheater, war as a spectator sport. Helmetless men in green darted through tombstones toward a brown slash of mud, which poured smoke and metal back into the cemetery. The rattle of guns echoed across the city while attackers fell to the ground, some to take cover, some to join the assembly of the dead. The bodies of Muslims, Croats, and Serbs fell abundantly atop the buried Jews in a riot of multiethnic promiscuity.

  In Grbavica, just as on the other side of the river, U.N. trucks and jeeps rumbled about at all hours, with their cargo of international troops in blue helmets, or with sacks of flour, rice, and beans. That thought momentarily gave Vlado pause, with the idea that Chevard, or whoever had been in the U.N. jeep with Damir a few hours ago, might come looking for him over here. But even the U.N. was easily stymied by the siege boundaries cutting through the city. A crossing would be virtually impossible at night, especially on such short notice. Even at daybreak, some paperwork and smooth talking would be required at any location other than the airport. General Markovic, he supposed, might be able to arrange something in a hurry, but he doubted the smuggling operation would risk a move that would alert so many others—on all sides—to the fact that something extraordinary must be going on.

  Twice during the next few minutes he heard the rumble and scrape of trucks grinding their gears uphill, but the sound seemed to be coming from back across the river. It surprised him how close they sounded. He felt as if he had traveled hundreds of miles, yet an unimpeded walk would put him on his own doorstep in less than half an hour.

  As he rounded the last corner, he saw the house he was looking for, recognizing it instantly from its gables, its roof line, and, as he drew closer, from the mullioned windows on its upper floors, two of which seemed to have survived. In the dark he could not tell how extensively the place was damaged. Thus, it still seemed an imposing example of the empire architecture left behind by the Austrians in the nineteenth century.

  Vlado was pleasantly surprised to see a dim light from behind a second-story window. He knocked at the front door and waited, then tried a second time, still with no answer. He tried the knob and the door was unlocked. He stepped inside, quietly shutting the door behind him.

  It was surprisingly warm, though he shivered involuntarily, partly in relief and partly in sudden exhaustion. Unmistakable in the air was the smell of recent cooking. Fried meat, he guessed, and his mouth watered. From around the corner he heard the crackling of a fire, which cast an orange glow across an Oriental rug in the room before him. He also heard the steady ticking of a clock.

  From upstairs, a floorboard creaked. He looked up the stairwell and a glow appeared, then brightened, gliding like a foxfire. It was a lantern, and he expected to soon be confronted by the wary face of some refugee, some newcomer sheltering in the home through the war who would have plenty of questions to ask, who might be alarmed enough by Vlado’s appearance—for surely by now he looked horrendous—to call for the authorities, or to ask for identity papers.

  But instead the face, like the house, was instantly recognizable, even though now it was deeply lined. Her hair had gone white and wispy, tied back now in a bun with a girlish pink ribbon. She wore a long, white flannel dressing gown, much like the ones his
own mother used to wear. And for some reason she seemed neither surprised nor alarmed to see him, despite the sight he must have made, not to mention the smell, as he stood there dripping in her doorway. In fact, she seemed almost glad to see him.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Vitas,” he said.

  She paused, as if the voice hadn’t been what she’d expected. “Esmir?” she said. “Is that you, son?”

  Before Vlado could speak she supplied her own answer.

  “But of course it’s you. You’re late, Esmir, and wet. Come in and warm yourself by the fire.” She continued down the steps.

  “No. I’m sorry, it’s not Esmir. I’m Vlado Petric, an old friend of his.” He added, a bit sheepishly, “From school days.”

  Her expression didn’t change. She moved within a foot of him, holding the lantern into his face with one hand while reaching to lightly stroke his brow with the other. She smoothed his wet forelocks back into place. Only then did her vacant smile fade, a look of concern knitting her brow.

  “You’re right,” she said wearily, as if forced to concede a point in a debate. “It isn’t Esmir. I’m sorry.” As if it had been her fault. “I had thought not, really. But you have seen him? You have come from him?”

  He decided then he would not be the one to bear the bad news. For all he knew she might never learn of her son’s death until after the war. Although she had genuinely seemed to expect him to appear, which could either mean that she was deluded and out of touch, or that he indeed had visited from time to time, through whatever channels of influence.

  “Yes, I have seen him.”

  “And he is fine?”

  Once more Vlado had a chance to set her straight, and if he had believed he was dealing with a sound and rational mind he might have found a way to gently let her know. But her demeanor seemed to indicate the opposite. He was also thrown by the home’s surreal comforts, its heat and light, its smell of a good meal. Everything, the furnishings as well, suggested a world that had been sealed years ago, well before the war.