The Day of the Pelican

by Katherine Paterson

  Nexima gave her bed in Granny's room to Mama and Baba, and she brought her children into the small parlor. The four of them were to sleep with the five young Lleshis. The couch pulled out, so Nexima and her children slept there. Cushions were put on the floor for the Lleshi children. The small space was carpeted with bodies. Baba took one look and laughed. "I've seen orange slices with more room than this," he said. Everyone laughed with him. It felt so good to laugh, and, actually, they were less crowded than they had been in the tent. They were a lot warmer, too, and there were no rocks poking into their backs.

  The next morning the household was stirring by the time the first rooster crowed. Uncle Fadil and Baba were like the generals of a little army. Everyone except Nexima's three had duties to carry out. The cow and the goats had to be milked and given hay, the chickens fed. Meli found herself in charge of the water brigade. Uncle Fadil didn't have running water in the farmhouse, but why should that bother her? A backyard pump and a proper outhouse seemed luxurious after a mountain stream and a shack straddling it a short way down the hill.

  Meli was so excited about her job as sergeant of the water detail that she had her little brothers and Vlora help her fill every pot she could lay her hands on. Auntie Burbuqe threw up her apron in mock amazement. "Ah," she said, "you children are such marvelous water carriers that you have left us nothing to cook in! Oh, well, fill up the tub—we'll have to bathe the babies before the day is done, I'm sure."

  Uncle Fadil and Baba had brought in most of the crops while the family was waiting on the mountain, but there were still potatoes to be dug and wood to be chopped and split, and every day there were the chickens to be fed and the goats and cow to be milked.

  Between his chores with the men, Mehmet held school for Isuf and Adil. Vlora was always jumping up and down, demanding to be included, so Mehmet soon gave up and let her join them. "But you have to be in charge of her," he said to Meli. It was the closest he came to suggesting that Meli, too, would be a teacher in his school. The house was too small for indoor classes, so the children put on their coats and once again held lessons outdoors. November in the plains felt much warmer than October in the hills.

  Despite the crowding, Meli felt that she had never been happier. Even Mehmet seemed more content than he had since ... well, since before the day of the pelican. Baba and Uncle Fadil took care to treat him as one of the men. The farm had the traditional men's chamber—a building behind the farmhouse that only men could enter—and when the brothers retreated to it, they often invited Mehmet to join them. Meli couldn't help but notice that when news from the outside world reached the farm, Mehmet was told first, even before Auntie Burbuqe or Mama.

  So it was from Mehmet that Meli learned—even before they heard it on the radio—that the American ambassador was bringing in some cease-fire observers. "Observers!" Mehmet snorted at that. "They don't have any guns," he said. "What can they do? All they do is talk. They can yell and threaten all they like, but Milosević just thumbs his nose at them. We need action."

  "But the threats worked," Meli argued. "Haven't most of the soldiers gone back to Serbia now?"

  "Only a fool would trust that snake Milosević. Just wait. We'll be back at war in no time."

  ***

  Meanwhile, on the farm, peace reigned. The milking was done, the cheese made, the bread baked, the water pumped and brought in, the livestock as well as the large extended family fed. Auntie Burbuqe made the best pepper and eggplant sauce Meli had ever tasted, but she was careful not to say this aloud. She wouldn't want to hurt Mama's feelings. They ate goat cheese with bread and pepper sauce, and thick potato soup. As a special treat, the women would make a savory cheese pie, which they filled with leeks or potatoes or spinach and even sometimes a bit of meat. The hunger of the lean days in the hills seemed long in the past.

  The twins, with the nourishment of their mother's milk and constant attention from the rest of the family, were growing fatter and funnier by the day. While the others worked, they would often sit crammed together on Granny's lap, laughing while she tickled them and spoke to them in a language all their own. Meli was always eager for her turn with the twins. She couldn't remember enjoying her own little brothers and sister nearly so much. "Don't carry them all the time," Nexima half scolded her. "They'll never start walking."

  Meli tried not to think of the continuing unrest in the country, but by January it could not be ignored. She secretly wondered how much of it was the KLA's fault. KLA soldiers had attacked four policemen near Racak, and the Serbian security forces retaliated by killing forty-five Albanians, then twenty-four more. NATO, that mysterious European military alliance led by the Americans, demanded that both sides meet in a peace conference in February. Milosević refused to attend. He sent, as Mehmet put it, "his flunkies" to represent Serbia, and by March, despite NATO's threats, Serbian troops were massing on the border of Kosovo.

  "Didn't I tell you?" Mehmet said as they heard the news on Uncle Fadil's radio. "It'll be all-out war soon." He was smiling as he said this—with the kind of smile that made Meli's stomach knot. How could her brother smile at the thought of more killing and misery? But still, how else could Milosević be stopped?

  ***

  "They re going to do it!" Mehmet had come running from the house to where she was feeding the chickens.

  "What? Who?"

  "NATO is going to begin bombing the Serbs! Bill Clinton says so!" He was jubilant. "It was on television in America. They re really going to help us!"

  How could Mehmet be so happy, Meli wondered. Bombs don't know, when they fall, if you are a Serbian soldier or a Kosovar child. Bombs don't ask if you are guilty or innocent. They just fall, and if you are below, they kill you.

  The bombing began, so far away at first that it was only a dull thud in their ears. Then at night they heard the planes roaring overhead, and if they went outside they could both hear and see the distant explosions. Mehmet was beside himself with joy. Even Meli, for all her fears, couldn't suppress a thrill when she saw the sky light up.

  But with the hoped-for NATO bombs came disaster. A westward parade began to pass by on the road below the farm: laden-down cars, overloaded wagons pulled by tractors, weary people on foot, all heading toward the Cursed Mountains—heading for Albania. Some stopped and asked for water or food. Some reported that they had been driven from their farms by masked men, others that a nearby village had been burned and they d left rather than wait to be driven away—or killed. There had been killings, they said. Many killings. A woman to whom Mama was giving water told her, "The man said, 'You wanted NATO? Ask NATO to help you now! Then they killed my husband before my eyes and took me..." She saw Meli standing beside her mother and didn't finish the sentence.

  ***

  A few nights later, their time on the farm came to an abrupt end. Meli was sleeping close to the front door when she heard what seemed to be a gentle, rhythmic rapping.

  She sat up and listened. Yes, someone was at the door. Should she open it? Tap tap tap—a pause—then tap tap tap tap. She was close by, but something held her back. She waited. There it was again: tap tap tap—pause—tap tap tap tap.

  She must get Baba. He would know what to do. She slid out from under her blanket and made her way carefully across the sleeping bodies on the parlor floor toward Granny's room, but before she could get there, she met Uncle Fadil stumbling out of his own bedroom.

  "I think," Meli whispered, "I think there's someone at the door."

  He put his finger to his lips. "I'll handle it. Go back to sleep."

  Meli followed him back across the hillocks of bodies, both taking care not to let their feet touch any of them. She stood for a moment in her place by the door, listening. Tap tap tap— pause—tap tap tap tap.

  "Lie down," her uncle commanded. "Go back to sleep."

  She lay down obediently, but how could she help but hear Uncle Fadil whisper through a crack in the door, "What is it? Why are you here? It's too dangerous—"
/>   "I had to tell you—you must leave. At once."

  Uncle Fadil slipped out the door and closed it silently behind him. Meli knew she was disobeying, but she couldn't help herself. She crept to the door and put her ear against it.

  "How can I leave?" Uncle Fadil was saying. "This is the land of my father's fathers..."

  "For God's sake," the voice was pleading, "they have no mercy. They've already destroyed the farms just north of here. I beg you. For the lives of my wife and children..."

  So it was Hamza out there.

  "Where would we go? How could we—with the bombing?"

  "Go to Albania. Right away. There's not much time, I tell you."

  "I must talk to Hashim. And there's Granny. How could she bear—"

  "Please, please. Just go. Just leave here. At once ... I have to go now. Leave at once, I beg you."

  "I ll tell Nexima you were here."

  "No, no, you can't. No one must know I came."

  "God go with you, my son. May your life be lengthened."

  There was a whispered response. "May your life be lengthened."

  By the time Uncle Fadil slipped back into the house, Meli was wrapped in her blanket, pretending sleep, but her heart was pounding and her head reeling. There were too many of them—fourteen people, not counting clothing, bedding, and food. How could they all crowd into Uncle Fadil's Lada? Even if they took nothing with them for the journey ... and how long a journey would it be and to where?

  ***

  The next day she went through the motions of living. She fetched the water and helped peel potatoes. She tried to eat the good food the women prepared, but she strained always to see if Uncle Fadil and Baba had talked and, if they had, what they had decided. Hamza had said they must leave at once, but she couldn't detect any signs of packing, any indication that this was anything more than an ordinary day.

  It was midafternoon when Baba came out to where Mehmet and Meli were holding school. Mehmet was in the midst of his daily lecture on Kosovo's history—explaining once again why the Serbs had no right to "our land"—when Baba appeared. "Mehmet," he said, "come to the men's chamber, please." Meli's mouth went dry. Now it would happen—whatever it was. The men, with Mehmet, would go into the men's chamber and decide their fate. "Care for the children, Meli," Baba added. She nodded, too numb even to resent Mehmet's inclusion in a decision that might change their lives forever.

  Not long afterward they were all called into the parlor. Baba cleared his throat. "We have decided that we must leave the farm as soon as possible."

  There was a murmur among the women.

  "Why do we have to leave?" Adil asked. "I like it here."

  "We all love the farm, Adil," Baba said. "But, you know, with all the bombing and ... and other things, it may not be safe for us to stay."

  "Where are we going?" Isuf asked the question they were all longing to ask.

  "We're going to Macedonia ... for now,"Uncle Fadil said. "Until it's safe to come home," he added.

  "Yes," said Baba, "until then."

  Macedonia! But Macedonia is a whole other country. I've never even been to Prishtina. Meli kept these thoughts to herself.

  "How do we get to Macedonia?" Adil asked. For him the neighboring country must have seemed a world away. It almost did to Meli.

  "We'll go in Uncle Fadil's car, of course," Baba said. "You remember how it took us to the mountains? Well, now it's going to take us all the way to Macedonia. It will be a new adventure for us all."

  "Hmmph." It was hardly more than a grunt, but Meli gave Mehmet a jab with her elbow. As hard as it was to imagine all of them jamming into the Lada, he mustn't scare the little ones. Later she told him so.

  "I won't say anything," he said. "But they re making a big mistake."

  "What do you mean?" She hadn't told anyone, even Mehmet, that she'd heard Hamza's warning. "Don't we have to leave?"

  "Oh, we have to leave all right. It's this crazy plan to go to Macedonia. Just because we have some cousin there. We should go to Albania."

  That's what Hamza said. And yet... "Doesn't Baba know what's best for us?" she asked.

  "Not always," he said, and walked away.

  Since the car had to carry them all, there wasn't much they could take along. Each child and each adult would carry a blanket and wear two sets of clothing. The twins had to have more—babies needed diapers, after all. The women would take enough bread, cheese, and water to last a couple of days. And maybe a coil of sausage or two to share with the relatives. That should be more than enough, since they would reach Macedonia in a few hours. The extra day of provisions was in case ... well, just in case. The children watched sadly as Uncle Fadil opened the gates to the paddocks so the animals could go free. But the animals didn't leave. They just seemed confused, especially the cow, with her great brown eyes. Why must I suffer because of human evil? she seemed to be saying.

  Meli dressed in her two sets of clothes. It was all she had owned since the family had left home the year before. The clothes were beginning to get tight, but her only sweater was a baggy one, and, fortunately, her jacket still fit.

  The men spread most of the blankets in the back of the car and put in the food and water. Mama and Auntie Burbuqe took the cheese and bread, a soup pot, and some mugs and spoons for everyone. When Uncle Fadil hesitated, Auntie insisted. "They'll fit right in the pot, and I'll carry it on my lap. We can't expect the relatives to have enough for all of us." Meli saw Mama take out her beloved photograph, sigh, and then carefully put it back into Auntie Burbuqe's china cabinet.

  "There's room for that, Mama," Meli said. "I'll take care of it."

  Mama shook her head and smiled. "It's all right, Meli. We'll get it when we return."

  At last they were ready. "Go lie down, everyone. Try to rest," Uncle Fadil said. "As soon as it is dark, we'll be on our way."

  Meli was sure that she wouldn't be able to sleep. She lay down on the cushioned floor and tried to quiet her noisy mind, but old television images of the devastation in Bosnia crowded in. Was Kosovo just another Bosnia, then? Were they all helpless against Milosević and his armies? Would they just be fleeing the tyrant all their lives, never, ever going home?

  Somehow, despite all, she must have dozed off, because the next thing she heard was Mehmet shouting from outside the door.

  "It's gone! The car! Someone's stolen the car!"

  SEVEN Road to the Unknown

  FOR A LONG WHILE THEY ALL JUST GAPED AT THE EMPTY space where the Lada should have been. How could they believe that it was gone? It was like a sudden death in the family, totally incomprehensible.

  "I didn't hear it start," said Uncle Fadil. "There was no noise."

  "It was a very noisy car," said Isuf.

  "It was the noisiest old car in the whole world," said Adil.

  "They must have pushed it down the road before they tried to start it," Baba said.

  "A long way," said Isuf.

  Adil was nodding his head solemnly. "A really long way."

  Another time they would have all laughed, but not tonight. Meli could hear Mehmet cursing the Serbs under his breath, but of course there was no way of knowing who had stolen the Lada.

  "To come in the night and steal our car and everything in it!" Auntie Burbuqe wailed.

  "The wolf loves the fog," Mama said sadly.

  "I should never have bought a car. I should have gotten a bigger tractor," Uncle Fadil said, burying his face in his hands. "I should have listened to you, Hashim. They wouldn't have stolen a tractor."

  "Ah, they would have stolen anything." Baba put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Don't blame yourself." Then, wiping his face with his big white handkerchief, he said almost to himself, "Well, wishing won't bring it back." He put the handkerchief into his pocket, took another long look at the empty parking spot, and turned toward the house. "We'll hitch the tractor to the wagon and go in that. Sevdie, Burbuqe, surely there's plenty more food in the kitchen."

  "Nexima,"
Uncle Fadil said, "you'd better get Granny dressed. We need to be ready..."

  For anything, thought Meli. But how did you prepare for that?

  As the men set to work hitching up the wagon and loading more bread and cheese and sausage, the women began silently to clean an already spotless kitchen. They could hear the men talking as they worked. What were the men saying? What plan could save them now?

  "We should just stay here," Auntie Burbuqe declared, breaking the silence. "Take our chances here. That tractor Isn't very powerful, and the wagon is much too small for all of us."

  Mama shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I just don't know. Let's wait and hear what they think. They must have some ideas." She's remembering that woman, thought Meli, the one with the terrible story. Occasionally, they could hear Mehmet's voice, raised in argument. It's already past dawn. How much longer are they going to keep talking and arguing out there?

  At last they came in. "We should eat something before we start," Baba said. "It is a long way, and we'll have to take turns walking."

  Auntie Burbuqe and Mama dished out some leftover soup. They didn't want to take the time to make a fire, so they ate it cold, along with a bit of bread and sausage. No one had much appetite.

  "Fetch some more water for the trip, Meli," said Mama. "What you drew earlier..."

  Meli got a bucket from the kitchen and ran out to the well, grateful for something to do. Then, over the creak of the pump, she heard a sound—the sound of a motor. Her hand stopped in midair. She squeezed her eyes closed and willed it to be the well-known noisy clunking of Uncle Fadil's old Lada, coming home like a lost dog to its owner. But it was no use pretending. What she was listening to was the unfamiliar sound of a newer, smoother-running car. Grabbing the half-filled pail, Meli ran for the kitchen door.