The Thing I'm Most Afraid Of

by Kristin Levine

  “I ran to the window; I could see Mama lying on the ground. Right where the dog had fallen. And her white sweater was slowly turning red. I screamed and ran from the building, forgetting all about Eldin. I got to the bridge, and I found the green purse and the groceries, the bags of flour and sugar smeared with blood. But she was not there. I not find her anywhere. I screamed again and again and . . . and then you woke me up.”

  We sat there on the couch for a long time. The music played on in the background; the rain fell hard on the roof. I took a sip of my tea, but the minty water tasted wrong in my mouth. That was a terrible nightmare, and the worst part was, Sara couldn’t walk to the next room and see her mother peacefully sleeping. She couldn’t give her a call in the morning and laugh about her overactive imagination. She couldn’t reassure herself it was just a dream. Because she didn’t know where her mother was.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled finally.

  “Maybe I heard the thunder in my sleep,” Sara mused. “Maybe that is why I dreamed about hearing shots.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Eldin had no cake on his real birthday,” Sara said. “He was so sad.”

  “Tell me another story about your mom,” I said. “A happy one. Maybe that will get the . . . bad taste of the dream out of your head.”

  Sara took a sip of her tea and thought for a moment. She ran her fingers through her messy hair.

  “Before I left Sarajevo, a friend came over one day. Her aunt was hairdresser, but she had left for Holland the week before. My friend brought over all her hair dyes. We looked through the colors.

  “I wanted to dye my hair green. The color of grass. Leaves. My favorite color. But Mama got so upset! She screamed. She yelled. She said a good girl never has green hair. I said I was eighteen. No one saw me anyway, so why did my hair color matter? I ran to my room and slammed the door.

  “I forget about the argument. But a few weeks later, I was on the bus, alone, on my way to Croatia, and I looked in my bag for dry socks. At the very bottom, I found a small box with a note: For Sara. I love you. It was the green hair dye.”

  “She changed her mind!” I exclaimed.

  “No.” Sara said. “She still hate green hair. But she loves me more. When I got to Austria, first thing I did was dye my hair. It will stay green until I see Mama again.”

  We smiled at each other. I’d assumed Sara’s green hair was some sort of teenage-rebellion thing. I’d never expected it to be a reminder of her mother. I had more questions—lots, in fact—but the front door opened then, and we both jumped.

  “Oh!” my father said, walking in the door and shaking off his umbrella. “You’re still up.”

  “The thunder woke me,” I said. “Sara and I were just chatting.”

  “Nice,” Dad said.

  “Did your evening go well?” I asked.

  “Great!” Dad said. “Such wonderful colleagues. I’m exhausted, though. You heading back to bed?”

  I glanced at Sara. She had gone back to staring into her mug. “No, I think I’ll sleep here tonight. Have a girls’ sleepover.”

  “Okay,” Dad said. “Don’t stay up too late!”

  He gave Sara a wave, blew me a kiss, and turned off the table lamp. I heard him carefully make his way up the stairs, and once his door closed, Sara whispered in the dark, “Thank you for staying, Becca.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I know what it’s like to feel afraid.”

  We didn’t talk anymore after that. The music ended, but the rain pattered on. My toes were warm under the blanket; the pillow was cool under my cheek. I listened to Sara’s breathing turn slow and even. And as I drifted off myself, I thought, It feels really nice to have a new friend.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Police Station

  A couple of days after her nightmare, Sara, Felix, and I stopped at the Julius Meinl grocery store on the corner by the bus stop to buy a picnic lunch. We picked out salami and fresh bread, a hunk of cheese, a bunch of peaches, and a big bottle of sparkling mineral water.

  “We have picnic at the zoo,” Sara announced once we were settled on the streetcar. “But I need to make a stop first.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Polizei,” Sara replied.

  “Police,” Felix translated without looking up from his book. He had finished The Federalist Papers and was now reading a book about the Revolutionary War.

  “Why do we need to go there?”

  “I need a new stamp in my passport,” Sara said.

  Sara balanced the basket of food on her lap. It rattled as she bounced her knees up and down. I noticed that she had pinned her hair back with a barrette that morning so that the streak of green was barely visible. She had on about half as much makeup as normal, and although I could see the chain, her crescent necklace was tucked away, hidden in her shirt. For once, she wasn’t even wearing all black; instead, she wore a jean skirt, a white T-shirt, and sandals.

  Sara stood up suddenly, ushering us off the streetcar at an unfamiliar stop. We were on a busy street, more run-down than where Dad and Katarina lived and not as grand as the downtown. A gray stone building lurked in front of us.

  Sara paused on the steps. She glanced at the door, then away, then back at the door. Suddenly, she sat down on the front step. “I rest a minute,” Sara said. She put the basket down beside her, then put her elbows on her knees and cradled her head in her hands. Her breathing sounded loud—as if she were exhausted from running a race. But we’d been on the streetcar.

  Felix looked confused, but I knew what was going on. She was having an anxiety attack! It was odd to see it happen to someone else. Every time it had happened to me, I’d felt so conspicuous. And yet, unless you actually knew her, it looked like Sara was just resting after a strenuous walk.

  Felix stood frozen, but I sat down next to her. “Sara,” I murmured.

  She didn’t answer.

  I put a hand on her shoulder, like Mom always did when I was upset. “I have a Benadryl in my purse,” I offered. “Sometimes that helps me when . . .”

  Sara shook her head. She was singing to herself, so softly it was almost a hum.

  “What are you singing?” Felix asked.

  “La Traviata,” she whispered. “Italian opera by Verdi.”

  Oh! It was the opera we’d listened to the other night.

  Sara continued singing. “Di quell’amor ch’è palpito dell’universo intero.”

  “What does it mean?” Felix asked.

  “Love is the heartbeat of universe. Or maybe breath.” She spoke with her eyes closed. “Translated different ways. But to me it means, listen to the mystery and beauty in the universe.”

  Felix sat down on the other side of Sara, and we all stopped and listened. Honestly, I didn’t hear any mystery or beauty. I heard a car honk, a streetcar rattle by, a dog bark, a baby crying in a stroller. But Sara must have heard something, because she took two long, deep breaths—Dr. Teresa would have been proud—and opened her eyes.

  “Thank you for patience.” She reached out and squeezed Felix’s and my hands. “Police make me worry.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “In Sarajevo, ethnic background became more important than the law. The police came to ‘talk’ to our neighbor, and when they left, he had a broken arm.”

  Sara took another deep breath, stood up, and smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt. “You two say nothing,” Sara said. “Unless policeman ask you a question. Then say, ‘Sara family friend.’ Not nanny. Not au pair.”

  “But you are our au pair.” I was confused. My parents didn’t have too many rules, but “Don’t lie to the police” was definitely one of them.

  “No,” Sara said firmly, almost to herself. “I family friend. The money Katarina and Ben give me is not salary—only so you and Felix have fun.”

  “But . .
.”

  Felix nudged me in the ribs. He leaned close and whispered in my ear. “Sara doesn’t have a work permit. If they find out she has a job, they could send her back to Bosnia!”

  “There’s a war going on! They wouldn’t do that.”

  Sara stared at me, her big green eyes round and serious. “Yes, they would.”

  I thought about the little dog on the bridge. “Family friend,” I agreed.

  We all turned together to walk up the front steps. The wooden door was twice our height, making the building look like a fortress. A smaller door was cut out of the larger one. Sara grasped the metal handle and pulled it open.

  The temperature dropped what felt like twenty degrees as soon as we stepped inside. The big stone buildings in Austria might not have air-conditioning, but the solid rocks they were built from were so thick and dense, they kept the air inside cool and dry. Still, as we walked into the room, a cold sweat ran down my neck.

  There were hard wooden benches lining the perimeter of the vestibule—and they were all filled with people. Most looked tired and disheveled; many carried suitcases or bags, as if this were an airport or a train depot instead of a police station. There were families, old people, single men, even a woman holding a whimpering baby. Sara went up to the woman and said a few words to her in a language that didn’t sound like German. I looked at Felix.

  “Bosnian,” he whispered.

  I couldn’t understand what Sara was saying, of course, but I caught a few words. Petra Tahirović? Eldin Tahirović? The woman shook her head sadly. Sara thanked her and moved on. There was a girl a few feet on who looked about my age, staring at her old boots. Sara reached into our basket and handed her a peach. The girl bit into it immediately, the juice running down her chin.

  Up ahead, a police officer in uniform was sitting behind a counter. Sara walked up to him and asked a question in her clear, crisp German. The man pointed down a long corridor, and we turned to go.

  As I was following Sara, an old man grabbed onto the strap of my purse. “American? American?!” he called desperately.

  Sara exchanged a few words with him in her language, and he let go. We kept walking.

  Even though we were in a police station, it had been kind of scary. I clutched my purse closer to me. There wasn’t much inside, just my bus pass, some coins in case I needed to use the restroom or make a phone call, and my passport. I had a copy at home in case it was lost, but I often needed it as an ID. “Austrians like paperwork,” Dad had told me. I’d already shown it twice at museums for a student discount.

  “What did that man want?” I asked.

  “The old man was confused,” said Sara. “He thought you could help him. He has a cousin in New York.”

  “How did he know I was an American?” I whispered to Felix.

  “Your shoes,” he said.

  I glanced down at my sneakers.

  “Only Americans wear Turnschuhe when they aren’t playing sports,” Felix explained.

  The hall seemed to go on forever. Sara led us up a flight of stairs and into another waiting room, which was even more crowded than the first. An old woman was weeping silently in the corner.

  We got in line in front of another desk. Sara shifted the picnic basket in her arms, as if it were getting heavy. I took it from her without a word.

  The police officer handed the man in front of us a clipboard full of papers and rattled off a series of instructions in German. The man looked bewildered. The police officer repeated his words, only louder this time. The man shook his head.

  “Entschuldigung,” Sara said in a small but clear voice. “Darf ich übersetzen?”

  The police officer nodded.

  Sara pointed to the papers and explained what to do. The man clutched his hands together and thanked her (that was clear even if I didn’t understand the words). He went to squeeze in on the bench, next to the weeping woman in the corner.

  Then it was our turn. “Sie sprechen aber gut Deutsch,” the officer said as Sara stepped up to his desk.

  “Danke,” she replied.

  “He complimented her German,” Felix whispered in my ear.

  The officer and Sara spoke for a minute longer. Sara pointed to Felix and said, “Österreicher.” Then to me and said, “Amerikanerin.”

  The officer broke into a grin then. “American, eh?” Then he added in heavily accented English, “I visit New York and Washington last year.”

  “I live outside Washington!” I said before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to speak. “In Alexandria, Virginia.”

  “George Washington home!” he exclaimed. “I visit.”

  We smiled at each other. Then he handed Sara a thick clipboard of papers. “You go that line,” he added in English, pointing to a door down the hall. “Is shorter.” And he winked.

  We waited in yet another room, with another line, while Sara filled out the papers. I wasn’t sure quite what to think. On the one hand, the police officer had been friendly and nice. On the other, it didn’t seem quite fair that we got to wait in the shorter line because he’d once visited Mount Vernon.

  The actual stamp only took a minute or two, and pretty soon, we were back outside, standing on the steps of the police station. I blinked in the bright sunlight.

  “Never been so quick before,” Sara said, even though we’d been there over an hour. It hadn’t seemed quick to me. “We had pig.”

  “What?” I asked. “Pig?”

  Felix laughed. “Sara, you can’t say that in English.” He turned to me. “In German, there is an expression: Ich habe Schwein gehabt. It means I was lucky. But literally, it’s I had pig.”

  “Why is having pig good luck?” I asked.

  “In the old days, if you had a pig, you were considered well-off,” explained Felix. “Around New Years, everyone gives out tiny plastic pigs for good luck. Or you can buy little marzipan piggies and eat them.”

  I smiled. “That’s weird.”

  “Maybe,” Sara said. “But today, I helped translate and I got my stamp. I say, we had pig!” She held up her passport and shook it in the air.

  “Don’t lose it!” I warned.

  “I make a copy,” Sara said.

  “You two worry too much,” said Felix.

  “It’s a sensible precaution,” I argued.

  “Like not eating eggs?” Felix asked.

  I glared at him.

  “Kinder, Kinder,” Sara said. “Time for zoo!”

  CHAPTER 16

  The List

  The zoo was part of Schloss Schönbrunn, a vast palace complete with formal gardens, a maze, and a fake Roman building on a hill. Felix said Schönbrunn had been the summer residence of the Hapsburgs, the royal family that had ruled over the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The palace was a bright, cheery yellow, longer than it was tall, with lots and lots of windows.

  “Can we go inside?” I asked.

  “Tour is boring,” Sara said. “Let us go to Tiergarten and eat first.”

  “Tiergarten,” Felix informed me, “literally means animal garden. But you can also just call it the Zoo.” He pronounced it as if zoo rhymed with toe. “Founded in 1752, it’s the oldest continuously operated zoo in the world.”

  We sat down on a bench and opened our picnic basket. The sun was shining, every building was the same cheery yellow, and the food was good, yet it felt like the chill of the police station had still not left me.

  I tried to listen as Felix prattled on about facts and dates, but the animals looked kind of depressed to me. They were in old-fashioned cages with bars and cement floors. No carefully sculpted habitats. Not even any plants. I watched a lion pace back and forth, back and forth, trapped like my thoughts in an endless loop. His eyes were sad, his mane scraggly, and somehow, he reminded me of the old man at the police station who had grabbed my purse.

 
“Sara,” I asked suddenly, before I could lose my nerve. “Why didn’t your mother and brother leave Sarajevo with you?”

  Sara froze. She had just popped a bit of cheese into her mouth, and she left it there, not even bothering to chew.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it. “I didn’t mean to remind you of painful—”

  “You cannot remind me,” she interrupted. “I always thinking of them.”

  I understood what she meant. It was like when well-meaning people said, “Don’t worry about getting nervous and it won’t happen.” But the worry was always there, like a hungry dog, lurking in the shadows.

  “We all planned to leave on a special bus last November, organized by La Benevolencija,” Sara said slowly. “That is Jewish humanitarian society.”

  “Wait,” Felix interrupted. “A Jewish society? I thought you were Muslim.”

  “I am.”

  “But you don’t wear a headscarf?” I asked.

  “Not all Muslims wear headscarves.”

  “But why were you on a Jewish bus?” Felix asked.

  “Sarajevo Muslims helped Jews hide from the Nazis in World War II. Now they help us. The head of Jewish community, Ivan Ceresnjes, organized evacuations. Jewish buses were the safest way to leave Sarajevo. The airport was closed. Many Serbian checkpoints on the roads. But Jewish organization negotiated safe passage, so their buses got out.

  “Mama was lucky. She got three seats. Then, the night before we left, my little brother became very ill. High fever. He cannot walk. Too big to carry. Mama told me I must go alone. They come on the next bus, as soon as he is better.” She paused for a long while. “We did not know that would be the last bus.”

  “Did your brother get better?” I asked.

  “Yes. I get one letter. Only Grippe.”