Little Mouse awoke in the dark and jumped at the noise of a gunshot. It was followed by more, in staccato succession, and then by men’s voices, raised in anger and alarm. There was also an oily smoke-smell, the smell of chicken or pork left too long in the oven. He swung his legs out of bed, rubbing at his face. Had Marek the Cook put a joint of meat on to roast for supper, and forgotten about it? Or, more likely, got dead drunk on raki and passed out in the kitchen chair …
But it was still dark! And this noise –
He pulled aside the hessian curtain at the dormitory’s only window. He shivered and thumbed at his eyes, trying to smear away the fog of sleep.
Light, beyond the misted windowpane. Orange light. Firelight. More gunshots, shouting – and screaming, too, wild screaming. And the smell –
Something worse than a burned joint of meat, this. He wiped the glass with the heel of his hand and called over his shoulder: ‘Radi? Mirko? Come and look at this. Something’s going on.’
No answer. He turned. In the darkness he could see the three white oblongs of the other boys’ beds. Blankets thrown aside. Empty.
The brothers of St Quintus had given him his name, Mali Miš, Little Mouse, when he had first entered the monastery as a half-starved child. Timid, twitchy, scrawny and wide-eyed – that was Little Mouse. Even now, at fifteen, he stood out among the boys at the monastery for his small size, his wary manner, his quietness.
His gut squirmed like a trapped animal.
A scream of pure terror pierced the windows and walls of the building.
Here in the dorm, Little Mouse thought, there is no screaming and no smoke. There are no guns and no fire. Here in the dorm I am safe.
His throat hurt. The fear in his gut threatened to burst loose. He swallowed down a sob.
Here in the dorm, I am alone.
He turned from the window. He ran for the door.
The monastery courtyard flickered white and black. Someone had turned on the big floodlight, but the generator that ran it from the basement was old and temperamental and the light could never be relied on.
Through the shuddering darkness Little Mouse looked upon the killing.
Men in uniform were everywhere. Not smart like the soldiers Little Mouse had sometimes seen parading through the town. These were shabby, desperate.
At the monastery gate he saw a soldier on one knee, holding another man flat to the floor with his arm bent up his back. The man on the ground had a black beard and was shouting something over and over. The soldier had a gun in his free hand. He put it to the man’s head. Little Mouse looked away but he couldn’t close his ears to the noise of the shot. Neither could he shut his mind to the terror of the silence that followed it.
In the shadow of the west wall, where Brother Vidić cultivated his bean plants, three soldiers with rifles stood around a woman who lay on her back. She was screaming, too. A headscarf and some other garments lay beside her. When one of the soldiers turned away Little Mouse saw first that he was laughing and then that his trousers were unfastened. There were dark stains down his front.
Beyond the walls a fire was raging.
Little Mouse thought that soldiers were supposed to protect people, but these men had brought nothing but violence and fire and death.
Little Mouse took a few steps down into the courtyard. Through the gates he could see more flames, roaring from the houses and shops of the village’s main street. Gunshots rattled like hailstones on an iron roof.
Two men, running fast, hurtled round the corner of the street, headed for the monastery gates. There was a series of quick booms, like angry rapping at a door, then the men tumbled, one after the other. Both crashed face first to the concrete.
Little Mouse winced. Then he saw the blood pooling under their heads, more blood than you would ever get from a broken nose or a grazed elbow. A man in uniform, with no cap and his jacket open, jogged up behind them and fired his rifle three more times into their still bodies.
The soldiers were Serbs, Little Mouse understood. Vicious enemies from another country with another religion.
Heathens, some of the brothers said they were. But Abbot Cerbonius only called them ‘children of another god’. The abbot could sometimes be hard to understand. Subtle, Little Mouse had heard the others call him. He could tell they didn’t always mean this description as a compliment – but Little Mouse loved the abbot anyway.
Where was he now? Little Mouse wondered. The abbot was the wisest and bravest man Little Mouse knew. He would put a stop to this horror. He would tell Little Mouse what was happening and how they could put an end to it. Little Mouse looked around, craning for a glimpse of the familiar tall, cassocked figure.
At the eastern end of the yard, in the shadow of an arcade of brick arches, he glimpsed a hunched figure; the flickering light revealed the steel-blue of his cassock, and Little Mouse’s heart leapt –
But in another moment he realized that it was not the abbot but Brother Markus, the stony-faced schoolteacher. And Brother Markus wasn’t alone: with him, being shepherded cautiously through the dark arches towards the rear gate, were the monastery’s other boys – Mirko, Radi, Nema – his friends!
Little Mouse called out. But it would take a miracle to be heard over the uproar of guns, flames and terrified screams. The sounds of hell itself, it seemed to Little Mouse. But the abbot taught that God watches over us even in the darkest places – especially in the darkest places – so Little Mouse kept his faith. ‘Brother Markus,’ he called again. Again his words were whisked away by the shrieks of the tormented and the howling laughter of demons. Little Mouse whispered a prayer to Jesus, and called a third time, ‘Brother Markus!’
The monk turned his head. He looked directly towards Little Mouse. A miracle, Little Mouse thought fleetingly. Christ protects the meek and Little Mouse was the meekest of all his children. He felt sick with relief – he would escape with the others and Brother Markus would take him far from the vicious Serbs.
But then Brother Markus’s face hardened. The monk turned away and followed the boys into the shadows, and none of Little Mouse’s calls or prayers brought him back.
You saw me, Little Mouse thought, tears blearing his vision. You saw me, an idiot boy, a half-witted kitchen lad. Christ turned your head towards me, he thought, bitterly, angrily. Christ gave you the choice: save me, or desert me. And it was the man in you that made the choice. God forgive you, brother!
Little Mouse took a few hopeless steps towards the gates. He blinked in the smoke. Two soldiers hammered at the unmoving body of a man with their rifle butts. A woman knelt on the ground with her face buried in her hands while a soldier postured behind her with a hunting knife.
Across the wide concrete street he saw frantic cassocked figures silhouetted against the flames that played against the windows of the monks’ quarters. Soldiers drank and smoked cigarettes in the street outside while the building burned. When one of the figures smashed the window and began to climb through to escape the fire, one of the soldiers raised a gun and shot him dead. His body hung as limp as a doll’s, half in and half out of the broken window.
There was laughter from the soldiers, and a shout: ‘Goreti, goreti.’ Burn, burn.
Flames consumed the still body of the fallen monk.
Little Mouse thought of that smell, that inescapable smell, the smell of oily kitchen-smoke, of something left too long in the oven –
‘Little Mouse!’
He spun round, whimpering in dread, to see a huge figure bearing down on him, arms outstretched. He flinched, raising his hands to protect himself – but then, shadowed against the flickering floodlight, he made out a shock of untamed white hair, and heard the apparition again say his name, ‘Little Mouse,’ in a familiar deep-chested voice, and knew that the abbot had come back to save him.
Little Mouse sobbed out a noise as Abbot Cerbonius grabbed him and clutched him to his chest. The abbot’s crucifix dug into the boy’s cheek but he cherished the pain.
‘We must act quickly,’ the abbot said. He loosened his embrace and gripped the boy sternly by his shoulders. The old man’s grey gaze was steady and calm but his voice betrayed overpowering emotion. ‘Only we remain, do you understand? When the devils grow weary of murder they will plunder our treasures. The glories of our Church. They are coming now, Little Mouse, do you understand me?’ He straightened, looking around wildly. ‘The treasures are the sacred responsibility of our order, and we must protect them. We are the only ones left who can stop the devils, child. Praise be to Christ Jesus. We are the only –’
He broke off. Little Mouse watched him, puzzled. The abbot stared at something above Little Mouse, his jaw hanging open. Something in the sky. A vision! Little Mouse thought. He knew that only the most faithful of God’s servants were blessed with such a gift.
Then he saw the dark-red coin appear on the abbot’s high forehead, a circle the size of a dinar piece, then a five-dinar piece, then a heavy tear of dark blood rolled from the coin and down the abbot’s face, painting a red stripe across his open eyeball.
The abbot crumpled to the floor. Behind him stood a soldier, chewing gum and gripping the butt of a revolver with both hands. He began to lower the gun – but then he saw Little Mouse and the black eye of the revolver’s muzzle lifted again.
‘Fucking stinking Croat shits living in filth like rats in a sewer,’ the soldier said in a dull voice. ‘And you bastards here with your cellars stuffed with gold. Living like fucking kings, huh?’ He cocked the gun. ‘Don’t remember when I last got paid. And we should’ve got extra for all the overtime we put in at Hrasnica.’
Little Mouse’s throat was dry. He looked at his beloved abbot’s still body.
I have nothing, he wanted to say. No gold. No friends. No family. I have nothing in the world.
‘I’ll give you five seconds for one last prayer,’ the soldier said. He smiled with just his mouth. ‘Better make it a quick one.’
I have nothing, Little Mouse thought. You have taken from me the only father I ever had.
He looked into the eye of the gun and swore to God that he wouldn’t blink.
‘Crazy little bastard,’ the soldier said. His finger tightened on the trigger.