Carla picked up the diary.
She ran her fingers over the cover.
The leather felt scuffed in places. Something about the diary had a familiar feel to it. She opened the cover.
Taped inside the front cover was a clear plastic sleeve. Inside the sleeve was a tarnished silver dollar. She examined the coin. It was dated 1986.
On the front was Lady Liberty, and on the back the eagle and thirteen five-pointed stars. Carla replaced the coin in the flap.
She estimated that the diary contents consisted of about a hundred pages, written by hand, in English, in neat and flowing handwriting. Written in blue ink mostly, but sometimes in black. Other entries were written with different shades of pencil.
My mother’s handwriting.
It felt strange to be holding the diary, and yet in another way it was comforting, like sitting in a familiar armchair. When she flicked to the back pages she saw pictures drawn inside the cover in crayon, as if by a child.
One was of a large building, guarded by stick-figure men with guns. It was all surrounded by a fuzzy-looking scrawl. Carla imagined the fuzz was meant to represent barbed wire.
Another drawing showed the side-by-side figures of a man and woman and two children, a boy and a girl. All had tears falling from their eyes.
Underneath each figure was written a name: Mama, Papa, Carla, Luka, in childish handwriting. Beside each was a small red heart drawn in crayon.
The drawing was signed: Luka.
She felt a shiver, as if someone had walked over her grave.
All of the pages seemed to have been written years before, for they bore the faintly yellow tint of age. She flicked through them.
The binding felt loose in places. Some of the entries were only a few lines; others several pages. The language appeared a touch stilted here and there, as if English wasn’t the writer’s mother tongue. But the entries were clearly written. Each entry bore a date. All of the dates were more than twenty years ago.
On the inside flap of the diary was inscribed in big block letters: THE DIARY OF LANA JORAN.
The first two pages were written in different-colored blue ink, and appeared to be a foreword of some kind, like it was added at a later stage. The two pages were stitched into place in the diary with coarse thread, instead of being stapled.
She looked over at Dr. Leon. He offered her a reassuring smile. “Okay so far?”
“I . . . I guess.”
Carla took a deep breath, felt a catch in her chest. She settled herself into the leather couch, turned to the foreword, and began to read.
THE DIARY OF LANA JORAN
My name is Lana Joran, and this is my story.
I and my husband and our two beloved children are going to die.
I feel certain of our deaths, just as I am certain that the world will be indifferent to our suffering.
And so I write these words not in the hope that they will save us, but that this record of our torment will survive. For if the world is made witness to the brutal slaughter of so many innocents, and if my story helps prevent the murder of even one human being, then my effort will be worthwhile.
First, let me say I have come to learn that history repeats itself.
Many years ago when the Nazi concentration camps were discovered and their ovens were still warm from the bones of millions of innocent dead, the world promised genocide would never happen again.
But that promise is forgotten.
For hundreds of thousands of families like mine are forced from our homes, herded into transports or on death marches, raped and tortured, shot and beaten to death in death camps. Men, women, children, infants, exterminated on the brutal whim of yet another tyrant who lusts after power.
Make no mistake: a holocaust is happening again. I have witnessed its terrible brutality—sights that no mother or father or their children should ever see. And all the while the world stands by and does nothing.
I am afraid of death. Even when death is all around you, when it is a constant companion, you still fear dying.
I am especially afraid for my children.
That the beautiful faces I put to bed at night, that I wake to in the morning, and whom I love and cherish more than anything, will be killed by evil tormentors and executioners who place no value on human life.
There have been times when I blamed God for our misfortune. When I begged his help, cried out for him in despair. And when no help came I cursed his name. But I have come to realize that God is not to blame.
I am reminded of the query made about man’s inhumanity to man in the concentration camps. The question was asked: “At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?”
And the answer came: “Where was man?”
For it was men alone who did this evil. Not God or religion or men acting in the name of God or religion. But simply men. Men whose evil makes everyone suffer, regardless of their beliefs or race: Serb or Bosniak or Croat. Christian or Orthodox, Muslim or atheist.
There are some crimes that pass comprehension, that are beyond forgiveness or redemption. Crimes that go unpunished, and no lesson is learned from them.
All too often the men who commit these crimes are allowed to still walk among us, and to smear humankind with their evil. So I write this diary also in the hope that the men who persecuted my family will be apprehended.
That their sins will be shouted out to the world. For if they are not caught, if they are not punished, then there is no hope for any of us.
This, then, is my family’s story. The story of my husband David and me, and our daughter Carla and our son Luka.
And though it will be ended by hate, it began with love.
Please God, let my words be remembered when the names of towns and cities like Sarajevo, Vukovar, and Srebrenica are mentioned. When the death camps of Omarska and Manjača, and anywhere evil was done to innocents regardless of their creed or race, are recalled among the darkest pages of humanity.
If I can achieve that, if my words live on in others, and if justice is done, then perhaps I will not fear death.
For to live in the hearts of those we leave behind is not to die.
Carla paused as she finished reading the foreword. She felt something cold and foreboding seep through her, as if she were standing outside a door beyond which something terrible had happened.
Dr. Leon asked, “Still okay?”
“I . . . I think so. I . . . I did have a brother, Luka.”
“Yes. It’s all in the diary, Carla. Please read on.”
She began to read. The diary started with her mother describing her simple upbringing near Konjic, in the Bosnian region of Yugoslavia, midway between Mostar and Sarajevo. Then, her name was Lana Tanovic. An only child, her small-town lawyer father was a local civil prosecutor—they lived on a modest farm inherited from his parents—and her mother taught English at a nearby school. In their township, Orthodox Christian and Muslim lived side by side.
Her parents came from different backgrounds; her mother was a Christian Serb, her father a “Bosniak,” of Muslim origin. They were not overly religious, although they believed in God. But they did not bring their daughter up in a traditional religious fashion.
From an early age Lana’s mother taught her daughter English. By the time she was eighteen, Lana already spoke the language fluently and was accepted for college in Dubrovnik to study English.
Her dream was to be a writer, and to one day write a book that would change the world.
It was the same year Lana’s mother died of breast cancer. From then on, Lana would return home from college two weekends a month, and during holidays, to visit her prosecutor father.
To help supplement the small college allowance her father gave, she found part-time work as a waitress in a restaurant owned by a man named Mr. Banda.
And it was here she met Carla’s father, a young American artist.
She described in loving detail a trip they made to Mostar together, where David jumped from the bridge and carved their names on an olive tree. And how their love and affection for each other grew and was cemented by their wedding in the small church of St. Nicolas in Dubrovnik, and with the birth of her two children.
First came Marianna Carla—Marianna after her maternal grandmother, but everyone called her Carla. Her mother was overjoyed that her husband took easily to fatherhood, and they adored their daughter.
They lived in an apartment above Mr. Banda’s restaurant, where her parents worked, her father painting in his spare time. When Carla’s mother graduated, she found extra work giving English lessons.
Six years later came Luka. Wonderful, playful little Luka arrived eleven weeks premature. It was a difficult Caesarean birth, for the umbilical cord had caught around Luka’s neck and almost starved him of oxygen. But frail Luka came crying into the word. His prematurity caused him to suffer badly from retinopathy, which left him blind in one eye.
The doctors didn’t think he would live, because he was so frail, but somehow he survived and thrived.
Carla’s mother described how as he grew older, Luka could never sleep without his “blankie” from his baby cot—a piece of blue cotton blanket, which he felt comforted by.
It was a happy time but their happiness would eventually be overshadowed by the siege of Dubrovnik by Serb forces in the first stages of the Balkan war. Her mother explained what happened, as Carla read on . . .
Carla is overjoyed to have a brother.
I have to make an effort to stop her from spoiling him. Luka is growing into a cheerful, playful little boy. His blind eye is milky white but it doesn’t deter him from doing anything and he follows his sister everywhere, clutching her sweater or the hem of her skirt.
Once he learns to speak, he constantly begs her, “No, no leave Luka! Stay with Luka, Carla.”
Luka has a giddy sense of humor, and knows he is the center of attention. When Carla asks him for a kiss, he gives a dimpled smile and runs away, giggling, puckering his angel lips, teasing her to chase him, and joking: “No, no kisses. No kisses for you today, Carla.”
And then, when Carla catches him, he relents: “Well . . . well maybe just one kiss if you are good,” and his giggling explodes as she scoops him up and plants kisses on his cheeks and neck.
Carla adores him. I have found everything I wished for: two beautiful children and a kind and understanding and loving husband.
What more could I ask for?
David’s parents write and telephone. They talk of us all meeting in Vienna, where his father is attending a military conference. Three months later it comes true. They are anxious to meet us and the children.
We take the train and meet in Vienna and have three glorious days together in a nice hotel with wonderful food. His parents adore the children, and bring them presents.
A Barbie doll and clothes for Carla, and a Thomas the Train backpack and more clothes for Luka. And a real silver dollar each, to commemorate their births. The children are fascinated by the shiny coins.
The silver dollars minted in 1986 have a lady—Liberty—on the front and the eagle and stars on the back—thirteen five-pointed stars, Carla tells me.
Luka tells me his coin is pirate treasure, and guards it proudly in its plastic cover.
David’s father warns us that there are rumors of war. That it may be wise to leave our country, and come to America.
David tells them if it gets too bad we will leave but for now we will get on with our lives. David’s parents can’t hide their sadness, and when we leave, David hugs his father and mother—and we promise to keep in touch. We all cry. I’m happy at least they have buried their differences and found peace.
The only shadow on our lives is this rumor of war.
Dubrovnik is besieged by Serb forces and no one can leave. We suffer food and water shortages and the electricity constantly fails. The old town is shelled, buildings destroyed, and snipers terrify us.
We are beginning to live in constant fear of death. Daily, we hear stories of ethnic cleansing, murder, and pillage.
Today a rumor goes around that there is fresh bread being sold at one of the few bakeries still working. David volunteers to go.
He’s gone two hours when I hear a loud explosion. I pace the room, my nerves shattered. Another ten minutes and David has not come back. I can bear it no longer. I warn Carla to stay inside with Luka and not venture out.
“I’ll be back, my darlings. Stay here.”
I zigzag through the streets trying to avoid snipers. My heart’s pounding when I reach the bakery. In front of me is a scene of carnage.
Medical staff attend to bodies lying around, some wounded, others dead. Legs, arms, bits of bodies are strewn in the street, awash with blood. A man is hanging over a railing, half his torso blown away.
Horrified, I freeze.
I spot David—covered in blood, bits of bone and flesh clinging to his clothes. He’s upright, walking, helping others. He’s not wounded, thank heavens. He tells me as people lined up for bread, a mortar shell landed, killing men, women, children. He was so far back in the line that he was only concussed. I kiss him, hug him, relieved he’s alive.
The shelling ends after Christmas, when the Serbs abandon their siege.
David wants us to leave the country at once and go to America.
“I insist on it, Lana.” I hear the alarm in his voice.
He calls his parents, who are anxious to send us money for air tickets.
But that day I learn my father is ill.
Too ill for him to move.
I tell David we must drive to my father’s farm and try to take him back with us if he is well enough to travel.
I can’t leave my father alone. I have to save him.
David’s unhappy about our journey, it could be dangerous, but he will bring his American passport, which may offer us some protection.
“And then we get out of this country, okay?”
“I promise, David.”
And so we say goodbye to Mr. Banda, telling him we do not know when we will return, but hopefully soon.
We set out one gray Saturday morning with some belongings.
That same morning, unknown to us, Serb tanks and paramilitaries roll north of Sarajevo to begin a murderous campaign . . .
Looking back now, I realize that our journey to save my father was a tragic mistake.
That I put the lives of my husband and children in mortal danger.
But how was I to know?
How was I to know that this was the first step of our journey into hell?
There are those who say that there has always been a war going on in these lands. That for centuries the Orthodox Christian Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Bosnian Muslim ethnic groups that mostly make up this country have always been at each other’s throats.
I cannot lie—history and wars has often made us enemies, even when we share the same town or village—simply because of our ancestors’ blood.
But in truth, nobody hates anybody. Only stupid people hate. We have all lived together in peace for far longer than we have fought one another.
But now the drums of war are sounding again. Tito once held the country together with an iron fist but he is long dead. Yugoslavia is splitting apart. But the evil, mad dictator Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade is in love with power and fears losing it. So he inflames old ethnic hatreds, blaming Croats and Bosnians for ripping apart the country.
Not all Serbs support him. Many are good and decent people who oppose his rule. But it only takes a handful of rotten apples like Milosevic and his followers to ruin the entire barrel.
When all out war finally comes, it comes with a ferocious bloodletting . . .
That Saturday in our old Volkswagen, three kilometers from my town, we see broken lines of terrified civilians fleeing on the road, walking, or on tractors and trailers. I recognize neighbors. They tell us the Serb paramilitaries attacked that morning, killing dozens of townspeople and destroying homes before they withdrew. They urge us to turn back.
David and I are agonized—he says we’re putting our family in jeopardy and need to leave at once—but I’m desperate to reach my father before another attack. He’s sixty-five, ill and alone.
We drive past deserted homes. In the empty town I see maimed, headless bodies in the streets. David and I cringe, horrified, as we try to distract Carla and Luka from the carnage. They know something terrible is wrong.
We speed to my father’s farm. The barn is smoldering, half demolished by a shell or mortar. Cattle lie dead in a field. And there, propped against the barn wall, dressed in his black prosecutor’s gown, eyes wide open in death, is my father.
His throat is cut, blood stains his chest.
I can’t believe the horror I am seeing. I rush to him while David remains with the children. My father was a shy man and in many ways a mystery to me, but at that moment I realize how much I loved him.
I break down, clutching his body. David is ashen-faced. He tells the children to remain in the car but Carla sees her grandpa and screams. We hear gunfire, and our blood curdles.
A terrified neighbor roars into the farmyard in his ancient tractor.
“Lana, you must get away from here. I came back to warn you.”
“Who did this to my father?”
“Mila Shavik’s paramilitaries.”
Everyone in the town knew Mila Shavik. The son of a Bosnian Serb lawyer, there was bad blood between his father’s family and mine.
“Shavik leads a unit called the Red Dragons. Some are local Serbs that you’ll probably know. Butchers, every one. They’re hell-bent on killing anyone who isn’t a Serb, or on their side.”
More ragged bursts of gunfire sound closer.
“Leave now, Lana, they’re coming back,” my neighbor urges, and roars off in his tractor, leaving a cloud of diesel fumes.
Overcome, I close my father’s eyes with my thumb and forefinger, and kiss his cold cheek. I want to bury him, but David drags me to the Volkswagen. “Look, Lana!”
A convoy of army trucks is heading toward the farm. David urges, “We have to get to the main road, it’s our only chance.”
The children are crying. David starts the car. The first truck spots us, and picks up speed. The uniformed men standing in the back take aim with their guns. My heart hammers.
A bullet explodes through our windshield, just missing Luka’s head. Two more thud into the roof’s metal. Carla and I scream.
Luka, terrified, pleads, “Mama, Papa . . . !”
David slams his foot to the floor.
Our engine roars like a scalded animal as we speed away from Shavik’s men.
Carla paused. She noticed several pages were missing in the diary.
She looked up at Dr. Leon. “Some pages were torn out or worked loose. What happened to them?”
“I’ve no idea. The diary is just as I received it from Baize. Are you okay? Do you want to stop or take a break?”
Carla turned the page, and carried on reading . . .
We decide that our fastest escape route back to Dubrovnik is via Sarajevo.
From there, David intends for us to leave the country.
Once, Sarajevo was called the Jerusalem of the Balkans.
With its Catholic and Orthodox churches, synagogues and mosques, it’s a city of over four hundred thousand, known for its tolerance, art and culture, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims have coexisted for centuries.
But in April 1992, on the same day we enter Sarajevo, all that is about to change.
We drive there without stopping and barely make it when we hear on the radio that Serb General Stanislav Galic is sealing up the city.
Everyone inside Sarajevo is trapped in a siege.
I am still grieving for my father. I’m horrified thinking about his body lying unburied for the rats to pick at.
We find my cousin Raisa, whose small house is on Logavina Street.
She is blonde, petite—so petite she always wears high boots—and is a bundle of nerves, but happy to see us and offers to take us in.
Raisa is divorced, with an eight-year-old son, Peter. He calls David and I his aunt and uncle. They have a twitchy little spaniel, Pablo. At least Carla and Luka will have friends to play with.
Raisa has always suffered with her nerves, and chain-smokes constantly. She is worried for her son, worried about surviving.
“The shells and the snipers are driving me crazy.”
When cigarettes become scarce, and she’s smokeless, Raisa’s nerves are as tight as violin strings. She paces the house like a restless dog.
“God forgive me, but I’d give my left leg for a smoke.”
Over three hundreds shells and mortars smash into the city each day, starting at 5 a.m. It is impossible to get a full night’s sleep. Everyone is red-eyed.
Yesterday two young lovers—he a Christian, she a Muslim—tried to flee the city by crossing the Vrbanja Bridge. They were mowed down by snipers. Their bodies were left to rot. People are calling them Sarajevo’s Romeo and Juliet. Today, when it was dark and the snipers couldn’t see, I left flowers near the bridge for them. Checkpoints and barricades are everywhere.
On a wall opposite the house someone has painted: “Welcome to the Capital of Hell.”
I shiver. Something tells me it’s going to get even worse.
In the streets, we all hear the rumor—Sarajevo’s siege will be like another Stalingrad.
As if we needed an omen, tonight there is a violent storm. Loud and frightening, the darkness crackles with lighting and thunder.
Storms worry Luka. He clutches his piece of blue blankie, and cries, “Mama, Luka scared . . .”
I move to snuggle him but Carla says, “No, Mama, let me.”
She hugs him close. “It’s okay, Luka. It’s nothing to worry about. Carla will keep you safe.”
Luka cuddles into Carla, and clutches his blankie. He will not close his eyes without it. On restless nights, or when we’re troubled by the shelling, it’s a godsend. The only way Luka will sleep is holding that piece of old blanket in his hands.
Looking down at my two cherubs, I smile at how much Carla loves Luka, and how protective she is toward him. They are so close. I worry if anything were to happen to one of them, the other would be lost.
A parent is a hostage to a child. Not until they have a child of their own do children understand how a parent would sacrifice their life to protect them.
I worry desperately that we all remain safe through this siege.
They say Sarajevo has become the world’s biggest concentration camp.
There is no gas, no electricity. Water is cut off for days at a time. Food is becoming scarce. Trees are being cut down for firewood.
As always, people try to fight the bleakness with grim humor.
On a wall someone has scrawled a sick joke: “What is the main difference between Sarajevo and Auschwitz? Unlike Sarajevo, at least Auschwitz had a regular gas supply.”
The trams and buses have stopped.
Trains no longer leave the city, for the lines are blocked.
The only way in and out is by air. But the airport is held by Serb troops.
Rumor has it that you can buy a plane ride out if you have enough money.
But we have none, not enough anyhow. And what little we have we must keep for rations. Food is running short. Everything is running short.
Black humor seems to keep us alive. “The bad news is, your house has been half demolished by a shell. The good news is, you’ll get to see it on CNN.”
Even the radio station we listen to each night begins its broadcast with the words “Good evening, to all three of you who still have batteries for the radio set . . .”
There is no end to the terror and madness.
Days are spent running the gauntlet of snipers. They call it the Sarajevo Shuffle. A hesitant back-and-forward motion people make before they risk dashing across a street exposed to sniper fire.
Every movement in the street seems to attract a sniper’s bullet. Elderly women trying to get some food to keep from starving, young mothers clutching children. The snipers don’t care who they target.
Last night, a rocket struck near to the house. It tore slates off the roof. Now it leaks when it rains.
Raisa puffs on a butt she found in the street, and stares at the leaking roof. “Look on the bright side. At least now we can all have a shower.”
Yesterday I saw some locals parade a Serb sniper they captured. He turned out to be an angel-faced fifteen-year-old boy with his uncle’s old hunting rifle. The boy hid in a bell tower and shot at everyone.
They say he shot ten people dead, one a five-year-old. The boy sniper looked so innocent. I heard him cry and beg for his life as he was dragged off.
I cringe and turn away when the crowd hangs him from a lamppost, the boy’s screams ringing in my ears for days.
Raisa is in one of her black moods.
She begs that if we ever go to America, we try to take her and Peter with us. David promises he will do his utmost. Raisa is jubilant.
She and Peter dance like two children, Peter excited, all giggles.
He tells David he loves to watch baseball. He shows us his rubber tennis ball he plays with, and pretends it’s a baseball. He opens a school geography book and wants us to show him where in New York David’s parents are from.
“Can we go to New York, Uncle David, and will you buy me a hot dog? Can I have a real baseball and will you take me to a game?”
David winks. “A hot dog and a baseball game—we’ve got a deal, Peter.”
That night Raisa cracks open a bottle of pear brandy.
We adults get drunk. To further celebrate, Raisa smokes one of her precious cigarettes. She has bought two packs that cost her a fortune. With the siege, they have become like gold.
Raisa tells us of rumors of mass killings, Muslim and Serb. Of villages where women, young children, and babies are brutally massacred. Of adults forced to watch soldiers kill their children. There is madness on every side. I can’t bear to listen to any more.
Raisa swears that if the Serbs ever completely take the city and have their revenge she would kill herself and Peter.
Another drink and she brightens. “With luck, this misery can’t last forever.”
She tells us a joke about a man who puts his precious cigarette behind his ear before he runs across a street that’s being fired on by snipers.
Halfway across a shot rings out, and the bullet shears off the man’s ear. He gets down on his knees, one hand covering his bloody wound, the other hand searching the ground.
His friend screams, “Get under cover, you idiot! You’re got two ears.”
Raisa slaps a hand on her boot and laughs as she gives the reply: “Hey, I don’t give a damn about my ear, I’m looking for my cigarette.”
The next day Raisa leaves to try to find us all some food.
Three shots ring out. Raisa comes running back, screaming. “My child . . . my child . . . for God’s sake do something!’
David run out, and I follow, forcing Carla to keep Luka inside.
We see Peter lying on the street in a growing pool of blood.
Raisa let him play his pretend game of baseball in a narrow side street, not troubled by snipers. Peter threw his ball and it bounced down the street. When he ran to fetch it he was shot through the head. His left leg is twitching, he’s still alive.
The dog runs to him, another shot ricochets off the pavement, and the dog scampers back.
Raisa is distraught as I and some neighbors try to hold her back. A volley of shots erupts as someone tries to pin down the sniper. Peter’s body is still twitching. David runs to him and cradles him in his arms. Then another shot cracks, barely missing David as he runs back, carrying Peter.
The poor boy is already dead.
We’re all inconsolable. Raisa is like a woman possessed; she screams and wails, and pleads with God. A doctor sedates her with some pills.
With the neighbors’ help, we lay Peter out in his bedroom. It seems so bizarre—one day he’s talking about hot dogs and baseball, and the next he’s dead. All that night his spaniel, Pablo, whimpers outside Peter’s room.
I hardly sleep, taking turns with David to watch over Raisa, who seems in a coma from the pills. I drift in and out of a nightmarish sleep, weeping for Peter.
As dawn creeps, I wake and Raisa is gone. My heart stutters. I find her in the bedroom where Peter’s body is laid out.
She is lying across her beloved son’s chest, embracing him.
Her body is still.
And then I notice the kitchen bread knife, and the congealed crimson where she cut her wrists . . .
Carla and Luka are in shock.
We are all heartbroken.
It is too dangerous to transport Raisa and Peter to the graveyard. We must bury them in the back garden for now. Neighbors help David dig the grave. We recite prayers. When it is over, the poor dog curls up in the garden, miserable, as if it knows its life is changed forever.
I worry about Carla.
At times our love was hard-won. In the past there was sometimes a distance between us, which was often my fault. There were times when I didn’t want her to be so headstrong, so resolute, so independent. It often wore me down. But I overcame our distance by gradually accepting my daughter as her own person.
Always strong-willed, and quick to criticize an injustice. I remember the day I felt intensely proud of those traits.
She was nine and would ride to school on the bus, and sometimes I rode with her. Once day a young boy, Tomas, was being teased by the other children. Tomas was a little slow, mentally, and some of the children would tease him.
Carla said to me, “Why do they do that, M’ma? Why are they so cruel?”
Before I could even answer, Carla strode up the bus, sat beside Tomas, and glared at his persecutors. Every day afterward she sat next to him, befriending him. If anyone dared bother him, they had Carla to deal with.
But now I fear the brave little girl I love is becoming withdrawn by the terrible things she sees.
To shut out the hell around her, some days she sits in a corner and buries her head between her knees and cups her hands over her ears.
When Luka sees her rocking back and forth, he looks up at me and smiles his milky-eyed smile as if it is a game. Then he does the same, copying Carla, cupping his face in his hands, but peeking at her now and then through his fingers.
I tell them to think of happy things, of nice things, of good times they remember. When we played on the beach, or on my parents’ farm. Dear God, do they both know how much David and I love them? How much we fret? How our hearts bleed, worrying that they will be safe?
Living in a city under siege is beginning to take its toll.
David has become quieter, more solemn, and hardly eats from all the worry.
He has not painted since we got here.
We’re all getting thinner, and breaking out in sores. All we eat now are cans of tuna and vegetables and pickles in vinegar. A little oatmeal if we are lucky. Stories are spreading that people are beginning to live on grass and nettle soup. There is no meat to be had anywhere.
On balconies, instead of flowers, people grow tomatoes, herbs, or potatoes.
One day the dog, Pablo, goes missing.
A week passes and we cannot find him.
A neighbor tells me pets are being stolen for their meat.
I dare not tell the children.
It has become impossible even to go out and find food without having to risk being killed. Every day there are more ruined homes, craters, scared people hiding in basement cellars.
Today I traded Raisa’s last cigarettes for a bag of carrots, a can of tuna, and a jar of pickles.
Two days later, and the last of our food is running out. David finds a tin of dog food and a few dog biscuits Raisa kept. He reads the pack.
“It says here they freshen your breath and help prevent tartar.”
He smiles, nibbling at the dog biscuit. Then he uses the can opener, and scoops the soggy dog food onto a plate. It smells awful.
“You’re not really going to eat that, David, are you?”
“You think I’m barking up the wrong tree?”
Typical of David to lighten the mood. I cringe at his silly joke.
“It’s got protein. It’ll fill me up.”
He digs a spoon into the jellied mess, and swallows it down.
I know he’s thinking of me and the children.
That at mealtime he’ll insist he’s full and that we eat his share of the food.
But of course he never says that, just smiles and winks at me.
“Woof . . .”
We burn our last few logs and lumps of coal. We are freezing.
On cold nights we all huddle under coats and blankets for warmth. We’ve burned everything in the stove to keep warm: kitchen chairs, bookshelves, even Raisa’s boots she loved so much, and a pair of Peter’s old sandals.
I feel sad, thinking of their bodies buried in the back garden.
To make it worse, the next night we hear growling. David goes out with an oil lamp. Two wild dogs are digging up the graves. One of the dogs has a hold of a rotting hand in its jaws. A horrified David gets a shovel and beats away the dogs, then reburies the hand.
I don’t want to know whose hand it is, I feel so sickened.
I see how thin David has become.
He lost a tooth yesterday—because our diet is so poor.
I know there’s something on his mind. “What is it, David?”
“We’ll talk later, after the children are asleep.”
I see the stress, the worry, his wet eyes. He sees mine.
I sob, and he puts his arms around me, and pulls me close.
And there we stand, clinging to each other, swaying in each other’s arms, not like two dancers, but as fragile as young branches shaking in the wind.
That night, we lie with Carla and Luka.
The electricity is out. We light a single candle.
We gave the children our supper. David and I pretended to eat, pushing the oatmeal around our plate. Luka was ravenous and licked the plate.
David strokes their hair until they fall asleep. As always, Luka clutches his piece of blue blanket and sleeps snuggled up to Carla.
David beckons me silently into the living room. He sits me down on the couch and blows out the candle to save it. Moonlight filters through a crack in the curtains. Like shadows, we sit there. David reaches out to hold both my hands.
“Lana, if we stay here we’re dead. This siege could go on for years.”
“What can we do?”
“Get out of Sarajevo. Otherwise we’re sitting ducks.”
I fell silent.
“You know what they’re saying, Lana? In Sarajevo, everyone who has a soul is leaving. Only the soulless are being left behind.”
David is right. I see people wandering the streets. They look like walking dead.
“But where can we go?”
I’ve heard about people trying to escape over the mountains being caught and slaughtered. We’re trapped.
“Lana, I met a man today. His cousin’s a Serb officer. He can get us special passes for the airport bus, and plane tickets to Belgrade.”
I feel my heart soar, and then it falls as quickly.
Everyone wants to escape on the aircraft that leave the city every evening. If you have money, you can buy a seat. The aircraft bring in Serb troops and supplies, and fly out anyone who can afford the outrageous prices. There’s even a rumor that a unit of Mila Shavik’s Red Dragons controls the airport, gangsters all of them.
“Don’t joke, David. We have no money.”
“He’ll take the Volkswagen. And the cash we have left.”
“You’re serious?”
“I have an American passport. You’re my wife. Our children are de facto U.S. citizens. The nearest U.S. consulate is where we’re headed.”
I look at David. I see how malnourished and worried he looks. His eyes are bloodshot, his lips are cracked and sore. Yet I see strength in him, a fierce determination to do whatever he must to rescue us from this madness. When I look in his eyes I still see love in them.
I touch his lips. “You know what I often think?”
“What?”
“That day on the bridge in Mostar.”
“What about it?”
“I should have jumped with you.”
He smiles. “Why?”
“To honor us. To show you how much I felt for you. Because I think I knew even then I loved you, just as I love you now.”
His smile widens, and he looks so handsome despite his missing tooth. “Next time we’re in Mostar, you can do it.”
“That’s a promise.”
We kiss, we hug, we cry. We hold each other until our embrace is almost painful. I draw back, and rest my hand on his cheek.
“It’ll be dangerous if we leave. Shavik and some of his men are from my hometown. They may recognize me. Things could take a bad turn.”
I have no wish to see Mila Shavik or be recognized by his cronies.
David shoots me a meaningful look. “If we stay our children will starve to death. Or die like Peter, or by shelling. We have to take the risk. Try to change your appearance. Cut your hair short, cover your face with a headscarf.”
“When do we leave.”
“Tomorrow night.”