World in Between

by Kenan Trebincevic

  I’m thrilled to not have class or exams. I want to go outside and celebrate with the guys, get a couple of extra games going now that I’ve passed their test of courage and I’m in again.

  But Dad tells me and Eldin, “Listen, something bad might happen. If it does, we’ll be okay and it won’t last long.”

  What’s he talking about? I think of the Croatians in the park and feel a pang in my gut. Who’ll get hurt next?

  While Eldin stays to talk to Dad, I run outside. My friends are by the gate, so I go over to say hi to Vik. But Ivan blocks my path. He crosses his arms.

  “We don’t hang with rebels,” Marko says. Then he spits on me.

  The warm slobber runs down my cheek. I can’t believe it. The four of us survived our army mission and the fallout from the authorities together. I didn’t tattle or break under pressure. Some of the stuff we took is still under the weeping willow—and they’re back to treating me like the enemy? Oh, come on!

  I harden my expression and wipe his slime off my face with my shirtsleeve. I clench my fists.

  “Play by yourself, you separatist turncoat,” Ivan says.

  That must be a new Serb insult for Muslims and Catholics. I stare right at Vik, waiting for him to stick up for me and tell his brother off.

  But Vik won’t meet my eyes. “Yeah, play your own game,” he mumbles.

  Then they turn and walk away, laughing at me. My teeth are clenched so hard my jaw hurts.

  I broke my parents’ rules to do their robbery, got into trouble with the school, and was hauled in front of the army—all for Vik. And this is how he repays me? I did every single thing they did, but I’m the turncoat? I think of how Vik and I were closer than he was to Marko and Ivan, and how I can’t even talk to my best friend now. I’m done being betrayed by him. I’m not the traitor, Vik is!

  The next day, as I’m walking down my building’s stairs, I see Ivan sitting there. I can’t avoid him, so I try to go around him. But he trips me, laughing when I fall on the cement.

  My palm gets scratched and the scab on my kneecap is bleeding. I look up at my balcony to check if Mom is watching. I don’t want her to see me weak. I picture her screaming at my friends, humiliating me more. Luckily, nobody from my family can see how they’re treating me.

  I go back upstairs to wash the dirt off my hands and put on a bandage. I’m madder than I’ve ever been, swearing inside my head. I can’t figure out if they already hated me during the army theft. Did they set me up, use me to steal stuff and take the fall? I’m sick of how mean they are.

  * * *

  With school closed, there’s no homework, no early bedtime, no getting up at six a.m. But when I look out the window, there are no kids out playing—not that my ex-friends would let me play anyway. Only Serb soldiers standing at the end of our block.

  In the living room, the TV is on. I used to have to plead to watch more television. Now they never turn it off—but all it shows is the stupid news, over and over.

  Mom insists we stay home. “Everyone’s keeping their kids inside,” she tells Dad. They don’t go to work, either. We sit on the sofa, watching the news for hours. I’m bored out of my brains. The next day’s the same dull story. So is the day after that.

  Later that week, Uncle Ahmet comes by. I’m happy to see him, but he says he can’t stay. He’s in a hurry to drive my Aunt Maksida and cousins Minka and Almira six hours to the north so they can escape to Vienna. I don’t want my uncle, aunt, and cousins to leave.

  “The battles are getting worse,” he tells Dad. “The army’s slaughtering more Muslims each day.” He isn’t hiding adult things from me anymore.

  “Why would our National Army do that?” I ask.

  “It’s just the Serbs’ army now,” Uncle Ahmet says. “I can take the boys with me,” he adds, gesturing to us.

  We both turn to Dad. I want to go with my uncle and cousins. With no school, and friends who aren’t my friends anymore, there’s nothing to stay here for.

  “Keka, maybe it’s a good idea,” my mother says, her voice tense but pleading.

  “No!” Dad shouts. “I will not break up my family. We are all remaining here under one roof. I’ve lived in peace my whole life. I am not leaving my business—or my home. This will blow over.”

  “You’re being stubborn and pigheaded,” Uncle Ahmet argues. “It’s too dangerous for the kids to stay here.”

  For the first time ever, I believe my uncle over my father. My neck gets hot and scratchy. I feel guilty, disloyal.

  Dad folds his arms. “Nobody will hurt us.”

  My mother glares at him. “How do you know that, Keka?”

  His face is set and stubborn, like when he orders a player to get back in the game. “Because I did nothing wrong. I didn’t join a political party. I didn’t even vote!”

  Later, when we’re lying in our beds not sleeping, Eldin explains the backstory. “The Serbs won’t let Bosnia or Croatia get independence from Yugoslavia. That’s why they’re going to war.”

  “Against who?” I’m still not understanding how the Serb army can fight Bosniaks and Croatians when we’re all Yugoslavs who live together.

  “Against us,” he says.

  * * *

  Vik and Marko’s and Ivan’s fathers now wear a different kind of green military jacket, with Serbian flag patches. Dad says all the Serb men are quitting their jobs at the factories and construction sites. They’re being paid by the army to be soldiers. When they leave in the morning in their uniforms, I’m scared they’ll do the terrible things to Muslims that Uncle Ahmet and Dad talked about. I hear Vik, down in our courtyard, bragging that his dad’s joined up. I notice the only guys out there playing with him now are Serbs.

  Alone in my room, I divide my green plastic army men into three teams.

  “Boom! Ksshhhh!” I drop a marble bomb from my tin airplane onto a fort made of matchboxes.

  The news stays on, even through dinner each night, which we now eat while sitting on the couch in front of the TV. Mom gives me and Eldin extra napkins so nothing spills.

  Tomo calls to tell Eldin that his family’s leaving town. Then we hear all the phones of Muslim families are being tapped, so Eldin stops calling everyone altogether.

  We’re eating moussaka as a news commentator says, “Separatists who aim to overthrow the government must be stopped. These traitors are causing civil unrest and trying to destroy the country.”

  I don’t know any “separatists,” and I can’t figure out how my family has ended up on the wrong side. Except for my one-time robbery with the gang, I follow rules and laws. Dad always makes me and Eldin act like “polite gentlemen.” We aren’t “overthrowing” anything. None of my relatives have ever hurt anyone.

  This is pissing me off.

  “Are the TV news reporters lying?” I ask Dad.

  He tosses an embroidered pillow at the set. “That station’s controlled by Serbs!” he yells. “The politicians are brainwashing everyone with this bullshit propaganda.”

  It’s the first time I’ve ever heard my father swear. I’m too shocked to ask anything else.

  By the last week of April, I can tell that something terrible is about to happen. Eldin says all the Muslim people we grew up with are sneaking themselves and their families out of the country any way they can, by bus, train, plane, or car.

  One morning over breakfast, Dad says that Huso and his family have fled in the middle of the night. They’ve lived in the apartment below ours since I was born. I go out into the hallway and look at the stairwell, not believing they’re gone.

  “But why didn’t Huso say goodbye?” I ask Mom.

  “They had to leave fast,” she says, throwing an angry glare at Dad.

  “And he couldn’t even knock on the door or call me?” I say, stung. I’m getting used to being betrayed by my former Serb friends—but not Muslims like us.

  Dad takes a deep breath and says softly, “Hasan learned they were on a blacklist to be killed.” He lo
oks pale and scared.

  What? People are doing that? I picture my friend Huso, his smiling mom and kind dad, Professor Hasan, who teaches me English. His younger sister, Nadina, is in my grade. “Why?”

  “Hasan voted in the party elections last February and spoke up for Bosnian independence,” my father explains. “But don’t worry. I didn’t vote, and we’re not on the list.”

  Is that why Dad broke up the fight between Obren and Hasan? To keep Hasan’s family safe? I feel like I’m not getting the real story. They’re hiding something.

  All I know is that Huso and Nadina are gone, just like my cousins Minka and Almira. And Lena and her sister. And all my brother’s and parents’ friends and their families. Are Eldin and I the only Muslim kids still here?

  From the window I see Vik and my old gang hanging out by the stairs. I used to love that this building was our meeting place. Not anymore. Every time they’re in the courtyard, my stomach hurts from being reminded they hate me.

  I decide to go out anyway. Vik is sitting with his legs stretched across the stairs, and as I pass him, he trips me. Marko spits on me again. Ivan laughs.

  I wish I could punch them, but I’m outnumbered. If I get jumped by the gang and defend myself, Mom will yell at me for fighting. If I tell Dad or Eldin, they’ll think I’m a loser for not defending myself.

  I go back upstairs.

  * * *

  That night my father and I are out on the balcony, watching flames rise in the sky in the distance. The sound of bombing thunders down from the north, and I flinch. I’ve only seen these kind of explosions in war movies, never in real life before. My heart pounds so fast it’s like an explosion in my chest.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be okay staying here.” He pats my arm. “This won’t last very long.”

  I love my Dad so much, but I don’t believe him anymore.

  I know he’s not lying to me on purpose. He thinks everybody is kind and honest, like he is. But those Croatians from the park were good people too. And they still got beaten up, shot at, and driven out of their towns.

  We aren’t safe here, not even in our home. I know we should have gone with Uncle Ahmet to my aunt’s family in Vienna. But my father won’t budge, and Mom refuses to leave without him. Nobody asks Eldin’s opinion, or mine.

  We’re the only Muslims left in town. There’s nothing I can do but wait until they come for us.

  Six

  My father storms into the apartment one afternoon like an angry tornado. “I was just at the bank. You won’t believe it! Our account’s completely empty,” he rages. He’s panting, his hands shaking.

  My mother rushes to the foyer, Eldin and I following right behind her. “What happened?”

  “Thousands of dinars erased. Those greedy Serb bastards. Damn them all to hell!” Dad’s voice keeps getting louder. I’m getting used to his cursing.

  Mom puts her hands over her heart. “But how could all our money just disappear?”

  “It’s gone. Our life savings, wiped out.” He looks shocked, his eyes bulging. “The Serb government stole it for supplies and weapons. They think they’re above the law.”

  “They are the law now,” Eldin says.

  Mom’s face turns the color of ashes. “How . . . How will we survive? What will we do without money?”

  The room feels hot and cold and blurry and bright all at once. I want her to stop asking horrible questions, though I’m wondering the same things she is. Who can just steal a family’s money like that—from a bank!—and get away with it? Bank robbers in old movies like Bonnie and Clyde get chased, put in jail, or shot. But in our case, the police, soldiers, and bankers are the ones doing the stealing.

  “All we have is in our wallets,” Dad says, opening his. He empties it right there on the dining room table. Then he goes to the liquor cabinet, where he keeps extra cash. He pulls out six bills, dinar notes showing President Tito’s picture.

  My mother goes to her purse, and then to the drawer where she keeps spare cash, and gathers up what she has. I run to my hiding place in the bedroom closet, my heart pounding, and take out the birthday bills and coins from Majka and Aunt Bisera. I hand it all to my parents. Eldin offers what he’s saved from his birthdays and allowance too.

  We count out the bills and coins. Seven thousand dinars altogether. It isn’t much, about the cost of the BMX bicycle Dad’s supposed to get me for my twelfth birthday. I have the awful feeling that’s not gonna happen.

  “Wait, I have some cash at work!” my father says. There’s a cash register for when he sells sports drinks, and he keeps a safe in his office. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He puts on his jacket as he rushes out the door.

  Mom tells Eldin to clean up his side of our room and me to do my homework, forgetting there’s no school. We’re all on edge, waiting for Dad to return.

  Then the lights go out. Mom tries to turn the lamps back on, but they won’t work. We walk around the apartment, flicking all the switches. Nothing. No TV. No light on in the fridge. We have no power at all.

  What’s going on? Is this happening to everyone in our complex? Next, the faucets go dry. The toilets stop flushing. How will we live with no water? Where’s my dad?

  Mom lights a candle in the living room, even though it’s not dark out yet. Her face looks pale and trembly. I don’t know if it’s the candlelight flickering or her fear.

  “What if I go get us some water?” I ask, picking up two empty jugs in the kitchen. I’ll go to the well we use after playing street fudball games.

  “Good thinking,” Eldin says. “I’ll come too.”

  “No.” Mom stops him. “Obren said men over eighteen are being rounded up. Eldin should stay here.”

  “I’ll go myself.” As I walk down the stairs, I feel proud to be useful.

  “Be careful, Kenji,” Mom calls.

  The street’s weirdly quiet. It’s four p.m. but nobody’s outside. Where is everyone? My heart races as I hurry through the deserted streets to the well a few blocks away.

  As I’m filling the jugs, I look around at the store windows and telephone poles, plastered with political posters for Croats, Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims, and it hits me: my whole country has divided into three rival teams.

  Eldin is standing outside our building when I return. Without a word, he takes one of the heavy jugs to carry upstairs with me. Dad still isn’t home.

  “Just drink a bit,” Mom says, pouring us little cupfuls. “We don’t know how long it has to last.” Her voice is shaking. She’s trying to act as if everything is okay, but we know it’s not. I grab her hand and squeeze.

  We wait for almost an hour. Finally we hear footsteps in the hall. It’s Dad! He’s home safe. Mom rushes to the foyer to hug him while I swipe away the tears leaking from my eyes so Eldin doesn’t call me a wuss. I’m so relieved we’re all here.

  “It’s bad,” my father tells us. His jaw is clenched. His shirt’s wet under his arms. He smells sweaty, probably from running. “I heard gunfire and bombs going off on the street next to the gym.” He takes out more bills from his pockets and counts all we have. “Not even enough for plane tickets.” He shakes his head, looking crushed.

  He never imagined getting ripped off by the bank or pushed out of Brčko. He knows he’s waited too long to get us out of here. I feel sorry for him. I knew we should have gone weeks ago. Why didn’t he?

  Eldin takes out his old ham radio. We spend the night listening for the latest news. The ice cream in our freezer melts, so we drink it from the container. Mom and Dad forget to send me to bed. I’m excited to be up so late with Eldin, but hearing what’s going on makes my insides jumpy. It’s hard to stay calm when everything’s getting crazier. The radio announcer says he’s “Senad Hadžifejzović, with battle updates from our capital Sarajevo.” From his name, I can tell he’s Muslim. They’re getting bombed too, he reports. All airports are closed. Cabs and trains aren’t running either. Brčko is surrounded by Serbian troops.

  W
e can’t leave now, even if we try.

  The next morning, Dad hears that Uncle Ahmet and other Bosnian Muslim men have formed a resistance army miles away, on the outer edges of Brčko. I’m impressed my uncle got Aunt Maksida and my cousins to Vienna, then came back to fight. What a tough guy he is.

  Dad and Eldin want to join up, but Mom warns they’ll get killed walking outside or driving now. And even if public transportation were running, the cashiers would ask to see ID before selling tickets. While Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks like us all look alike, the name Trebinčević might give away our religion.

  I wish I were old enough to be a soldier like my brave Uncle Ahmet, my hero.

  Seven

  May 1992

  On Friday, May 1, I’m eating dry honey flakes cereal for breakfast when I hear a blast so loud, it’s like thunder inside my head. Mom, Dad, Eldin, and I hold each other close. The floor rattles beneath us. We wait to see what happens next, but it goes quiet. Mom eventually lets go and opens the door to find out if there’s been any damage to our building.

  “The war is here,” I overhear a Serb neighbor tell her in the hallway. “Don’t let your husband go outside. Or Eldin, since he’s fighting age. They’ll definitely take him.” What about me?

  “It’s not safe for any of us to go out anymore,” Dad says. He locks the door, shuts the windows tight, and pulls down our shades.

  Explosions in our subdivision come at all hours, off and on. You never know when they’ll hit. I thought I’d be happy with no school, but now I miss my classmates and Mr. Miran. I hope he’s okay. I just want to go back to normal, but we can’t. I’m not sure we ever will.

  We’re the only Muslim family left in the building. I’m afraid they’ll shoot us or blast us to smithereens.

  “We’re actually lucky so many Serb soldiers live here,” Eldin says. “They won’t blow up their own people.”

  Living with armed bad guys on all sides of us makes us lucky? At least my family’s not sugarcoating everything, treating me like a dumb kid. I feel like I’m an adult now too.