It is a boy’s room, a spindly boy’s room battered and burned like Alija’s. The shattered glass is finer, more glittery, scratching underfoot like new frost on a lake. The mattress is knife-ripped. What did the Serbs find? A treasure, a tin of money, a key to a hidden door? The pictures and posters on the walls, like those in Alija’s room, are a scorched collage. Tupac with his grimace and tattoos; a soccer ball ancing toward a goal; a veiled woman in silhouette against a desert oasis; another woman, unveiled, an Albanian pop scar, I think, with a diamond stud in her nose, her face alight as if a candle or a projector from an old movie house flickers beneath her skin; Michael Jordan suspended in flight; a vintage Corvette, blue and parked on a beach. The Kosovar flag, with a crudely sewn black eagle, hangs in shreds above the dresser. A boy’s room with coiled belts and rummled socks and Koran pages scattered on the floor near the desk, and shoes: all is marred in the room except three pairs of polished shoes, waiting in the corner. I am like the Serbs, an uninvited guest glimpsing a stranger’s intimacies. Ardian? I feel like calling the boy I do not know. Perhaps he’ll come crackling over the broken glass, a boy in from the field, bringing in the cold and the scent of horses. I pull a picture of him from the soot. Ardian is in the mountains holding a rifle braced against his thin frame, almost too heavy. Girls have diaries, boys have guns.
“He’d call to me at night when he was little and scared.”
Alija walks in behind me; she has left her room and closed her buckled door.
“A dream?”
“The Serbs. Night patrols. They were part of our childhood. Ardian would hop out of bed and come to my room and stand at the window, listening to the trucks and watching the moving lights in the distance. ‘They might come tonight,’ he’d say. ‘Be ready.’”
She walks past me, deeper into her brothers room. She steps into the closet, pushing aside clothes, ashes falling around her. She bends and nudges a piece of wall.
“We knew each others’ secrets. This was his hiding place.”
She pulls out a bloodstained shirt.
“Remember, I told you that he was beaten by Serb boys a long time ago. This was the shirt he wore that day. He never washed it. He kept it folded in here.”
There are other things. A coin from Macedonia, the butt of his first cigarette, a marble, a ring, a tooth, and a picture of him, lithe and fine and smiling, his black hair combed back. He is sitting in a cafe, his arm draped over a chair, his face bright in the smoke and dim. It is different from the picture of him with a gun. It is the kind of picture a young man takes with him through his life; a picture that captures how a young man sees himself and how he hopes others see him too. A man doesn’t get many of those, but this is one of Ardian. Alija tucks it in her pocket. She looks down at the shoes and picks up a black boot.
“He kept his shoes beyond their worth. He polished them every day. When he was a child my father told him, ‘Ardian, clean shoes mean a pure heart.’ But, Jay, how do you keep shoes clean in these fields and on this dirt? With slush in winter? And in summer rain? But he did, every night. Sometimes, I’d peek through his door and watch him kneel with rags and polish. He’d light a match and warm the polish and soften the shoe. Circular, circular, circular, left then right with the cloth as if he had all night. Then he’d take the brush and shine, then wash his hands.”
She runs her hand over the leather.
“Once, after I had had a fight with my mother, Ardian came into my room and looked at me hard and said, ‘Alija, polish your shoes.’”
She puts the half-boot down, takes my hand, and leads me out of her brother’s room.
“Is there anything we can collect?” asks Brian.
“There’s nothing here I want.”
We leave the house, stepping over a large bloodstain in the hall. I do not ask. Shadowed dogs gather around the steps, confused over their scorched inheritance. They see that we are not staying and they trot away, noses down and seeking those who may never return. We drive past a felled electrical pole and a split wire snaking slowly over the ground, still crackling and alive. We hit the main road. Intermittent flows of donkey carts and tractors loaded with possessions are leaving the villages. MUP convoys muscle past. Men with guns and pale faces, huddling like hidden tribes, peek out from the canvas shadows of troop trucks. I must be older than I think. Soldiers seem so young these days. Are they men? When I first started in the business, I was as young as those holding guns. I shared their fear and that adventuresome tug of brief insanity that meets the enemy. Senses are never more alive. Staccato breaths, heartbeats echoing through bone, hairline sweat, eyes so alert they water, dry mouth and sweet nervous breath, all in unison, all waiting for the flash and rip, the flit of bullets that warm the air and then the mortars raining down stubby and bright, and the smoke and the ears go numb and speed becomes slow and in the instant you think you’re dead, you’re alive and you wonder how it can be and you think this will be the last time, yes, the last time you think and you promise this, until the next time the young men with guns appear and invite you to another battle somewhere in the woods.
“Lot of MUP, Jay”
“We may be up here awhile.”
“I just hope your sat phone doesn’t conk out.”
Don’t jinx it.
“I’m going to file something tonight.”
“Me too. Time to feed the beast.”
“Could be A-1.”
I look into the rearview and roll my eyes.
“Okay, A-3, but with a picture. Three-column picture.”
“Of?”
“Some quasi-artsy thing. I hope we find this dateman, Jay. Otherwise it’s just another shitty war.”
The sky is dust gray awaiting pewter; it snows at pewter. We stop at a gas station/restaurant for windshield-wiper fluid. Brian laughs when we see a guy whose hands are smeared with grease and tomato paste.
“Whether it kills me or not, I gotta eat one of this guy’s pizzas.”
“I could eat.”
“Alija?”
“A bag of chips.”
Alija gets up and walks toward the guy to put in our order. I see her between a break in the curtain that separates the garage from the kitchen. She and the guy talk close, heads bent. It reminds me of my childhood days in the confessional, whispering sins through a purple scrim and awaiting penance. Alija’s working this guy for information just like I worked the priest for forgiveness. You can get anything with the right timbre and strategic pauses. From this short distance, Alija seems to be conspiring with him. But I discern nothing. It’s their language. I can’t get in unless invited. Alija’s smart. I love to watch her work; she pulls, gently, word by slow word, unraveling what’s meant to be kept tangled. She’s pretty and you want to give her things, you want to see recognition in her eyes that you have unearthed a treasure, offered something of value. She’s so young to know this rhythm; part of it is compassion, and part is the hope that somewhere in the sentences is a sound, an inkling, a map to her brother. To Ardian. The young man in the back, like a carrot being skinned, is surrendering to her; he’ll tell her more alone than he would with Brian and me sitting there. This guy’s serious. No smile. No squint of the eyes. Alija nods her head. She steps through the curtain and sits back down with us.
“Brian, you want fish on your pizza?”
“I never mix the two.”
“What’s going on?”
“Always business, huh, Jay?”
“Well?”
“The guy and I have the same cousins, once or twice removed. He says the guerrillas come down here at night for gas and supplies. The supplies are hidden in the back. Mostly food, but I saw two boxes of grenades and one box of night-vision goggles. This guy’s scared. There’s MUP all over the place. His father and some of the village elders told him it is his duty to help the resistance.”
“When did it become the resistance?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’d be scared too,” says
Brian, “if I were selling pep-peroni pizzas and night-vision goggles.”
“Alija, I know you asked the obvious question.”
“Yes. He says he thinks we can come here tonight and wait.”
“What do you think?”
“I think they won’t talk to us.”
“Brian?”
“Success is mostly about showing up.”
“Alija, let’s go visit this guy’s father and make sure it’s okay.”
The old man is slight, straight shoulders, solid as stone. He offers tea, and we sit on a floor in a big room around a kerosene heater. His wife whisks in with glasses of juice and butter cookies. She doesn’t look up. She disappears out the door, and the cool air from the rest of the house rushes in. The old man rolls a cigarette. He looks at us without talking. I’m sure he’s thinking, Why don’t they go away? Mountain hospitality and his distant relation to Alija prevent him from booting us out. Village elders intrigue me. They rule small worlds legislated by blood ties and ancient oaths. The good ones are calm and methodical. They are gossip and judge, law and order. They understand balance, playing clan grievances off one another and limning justice from adulteries, violated honors, stolen sheep, and other indignities that could splinter a village and jeopardize the land. Life springs from land. Betray the land and you are cursed. Lose the land — even a centimeter — and you are condemned to a punishment worse than hell because you have robbed the unborn and shamed the spirits of those who came and fought before you. The old man leans toward Alija. They whisper. Syllables coil and spark the air. I am a fantastic listener to things I don’t understand. They speak awhile, and the old man winces and squints, and his voice goes from somber to light to somber again. They hush. He sips his tea and rolls another cigarette, a flash of thumb and forefinger. He slips the cigarette between his lips and stands, embracing Alija and shaking our hands as he leaves the room.
“Did we piss him off?” says Brian.
“No. He’s just a quiet old man. Wants no trouble.”
“Well?”
“We have his blessing. He says he will send word to the guerrillas that we will meet them tonight when they come for their weapons.”
“And pizza,” says Brian.
We wait in greasy darkness amid the tang of tomato sauce. One hour. Two hours. Brian is restless. The road is quiet, and the land is locked down. Scattered MUP units are wedged in bunkers. Helmets rise like dark bubbles from turrets of APCs. The MUP don’t like to fight at night. Who does? Only those forced to, only those silhouettes scurrying through fields and black gardens and across pricks of light in far-off windows. I hear them. Distant footfalls are coming quickly toward us. The scruff of dirt and gravel. A light knock. The door opens, and three men with big eyes and Kalashnikovs rush in like a whirlwind born from nothing. They look at Alija’s second cousin. They glance at us. It is a strange party of darting eyes. They raise their guns; their trigger fingers freeze into question marks. Who to shoot first? Alija chatters, and a staccato fury of words erupts. She yells and explains. Her voice cracks for an instant, but she stays strong like the first day I met her in the tent with her stitches and bruises. The old man had assured us this was a done deal. More footsteps scrape outside, and there’s another bang at the door. Two other figures enter, one with a twitch and a slightly off-rhythm gait.
“Jay, Jay, Jay. You’re turning up in the most wonderful places. Isn’t it a lovely night? So much happening. Ah, Jay, things are changing. Hi, Brian. Hi, Alija.”
“Vijay, what are you doing here?”
“Stories, Jay, so many stories. I hear things. I listen. I follow. Let’s have a sip of brandy. Sssshh. Sssshh. I should be whispering.”
Vijay reaches for his flask, and the big-eyed guys lower their guns. The Leopard stands behind Vijay, stroking his impeccably trimmed mustache and peeking out the window. His sidearm is unholstered. He looks to Brian.
“Did you ever get your press pass?”
There is a pause.
Brian smiles, and so does the Leopard.
“We’ve done much since the last time I saw you,” says the Leopard. “Remember the night patrol? We killed three or four MUP, as I recall.”
“That’s right.”
“We’ve done many more attacks. Our strategy is refining.”
“You have help, I hear.”
“Jay, Jay, Jay. Always to business with you. Let’s have a drink.”
The big-eyed guys put down their guns and step into an adjoining room. Alija’s cousin vanishes. Blankets are thrown back, and a truck appears outside. The men load boxes and crates of rifles, grenades, night-vision goggles, fatigues, and boots. They are quick, and the only sounds are Vijay sipping his brandy and the creaking of rope handles on the crates. The engine rattles, the men grab their guns and pull down the tarps, and the truck pulls away, disappearing into the black without lights.
“Aren’t they worried about a MUP checkpoint?”
“We have sympathizers. War, Jay, has taught me so much about human nature. So many Judases. Money and fear. Fear and money. What great motivators. Very sordid, really. I’ve become disappointed in human nature. What nasty little creatures we are. I think I shall study that on my fellowship to the John F. Kennedy School in Boston.”
“You got in, huh?”
“I’m accepted. I leave this summer for six months in the U.S. I’ll have to shut down the paper, I suppose.”
“You’ll miss all this.”
“I’ll be back, a mere pause in my evolution.”
The Leopard rolls his eyes.
“How do you two guys know one another?”
Before the Leopard answers, Vijay — like an annoying Jeopardy player — bleeps in.
“I met Mr. Leopard in grade school before he took on his animal persona. He decided to go into law. He thought he could change the MUP through jurisprudence. The Gandhi approach. Isn’t that nice to think? I became like you, Jay. A journalista. Isn’t that what they call us in Bolivia, or someplace like that? I thought I could change the MUP through words. But we see now there is only one way to change the MUP.”
“You always talked a lot, Vijay. Even as a kid,” says the Leopard.
“A surfeit of verbal gifts.”
“The old village man sent word that you were here waiting,” the Leopard says. “We think it’s time you came to the mountains. It’s moving faster than we thought.”
“Is that good?”
“We’ll see. We are ready for whatever.”
“Jay, what’s that saying, ‘We have cast our lot’?”
“What’s your role, Vijay?”
“I’m a chronicler of events.”
“I think something more.”
“Ah, Jay, you give me too much credit.”
The Leopard opens a map. He flicks on a penlight and traces contours with a knife tip. He is solid. I suspected that from the first time we met. He has made the commitment: freedom or death. It sounds romantic — a bit over the top — but it’s the purest thing about war. I’m sure the Leopard’s quiet zeal intoxicates the young guerrilla recruits, those waiters and office boys gathered from across the continent who linger in the mountains with knapsacks, guns, and fear. But how does a man find such simplicity when the counterpoint to death is not life but a concept he has only imagined? The Leopard knows nothing of democracy except a handful of pretty words that are supposed to add up to something more than his current predicament.
“I see you have boots.”
“You can’t win a war without boots.”
The knife blade shines over the map.
“We control here and here.”
“Why are you telling us this?”
“Frankly, I don’t want to. Orders come from higher. You want a story?”
“What’s attached?”
“Nothing. Just write.”
I didn’t need the map to understand the strategy. The guerrillas are trapped in the mountains, staging night attacks and retreating. They
need to hold land, but they can’t. They’re stuck. The MUP don’t have many skills, but they have patience and they have perfected the art of torching villages. Hundreds of thousands of families, with their tents, broken tractors, and diseases, are floating, displaced amid the fighting.
“There are other ways.”
“Not if you can’t hold land.”
“The West won’t let all our villages burn. There’s a limit.”
“You may be right. NATO may be your cavalry.”
“What?”
“Your savior.”
“A Christian word?”
“A euphemism.”
“I don’t know that one either, but, yes, we think NATO will come. But some of our leaders in the mountains want different things.”
“Such as?”
“How far will a man go to free his land?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’ll see. We have special camps in the mountains.”
Promised Virgins Page 10
