by Carrie Arcos
My head is a deadweight, but I still try to lift it. My eyes are burning. Everything is filmy, so I reach out and search the ground for my brother. I stretch my fingers as far as they can go. I find my camera. But no Benny.
I try to say his name, but my jaw is so tight, like it’s been wired shut. My whole skeleton feels like metal. Each time I move, there’s a jolt through my body. Then the ringing starts—high-pitched—along with a throbbing in my head.
I keep searching for what feels like forever, until finally, my hands find a small body.
“Benny,” I manage through clenched teeth. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” he whimpers. “Zara?”
“I’m here.”
His hands grab for me.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
My back is on fire, like a murder of crows is ripping into it with tiny sharp beaks. I reach around to touch it, and there is something hard jutting out of my skin. I pull out a small piece of glass from underneath my shoulder blade and stare at it, wondering how that got there. Did I somehow fall on broken glass?
I start to register the noises and the images. All around us, people are crying and dazed. Smashed vegetables and fruit litter the ground between the aisles. It looks like some kind of war zone, like some scene you’d see in a foreign country on the news.
I grab my camera. It seems to be working, so I start taking pictures, using the lens like a telescope. It’s hard to see through the smoky haze.
“Mom?” Benny calls. “Mom?”
I lower the lens and stumble across to where we last saw her. My feet trip over a man lying facedown.
He doesn’t move.
I don’t even apologize as I crawl over him. I accidentally step on his leg, but I get no reaction because it’s no longer attached to his body. I keep going.
“Mom?” I shout.
My mother is not here.
My shoe leaves a bloody print on the asphalt like a stamp. I move slowly through the thick smoke, sweetened by all the splattered fruit. To the right, a man pushes the insides of another’s stomach back into the cavern of his body. I can’t keep the contents of mine in either.
I lean over and throw up all over a pile of unrecognizable debris.
This is some type of horror movie. I force myself to keep walking.
I reach where I remember the vegetable stand to be, but it’s now just a pile of battered trash.
My mother is not here.
I look down and see a severed clenched fist and feel the bile rise again. But then I recognize a yellow shoe on the ground. Her yellow ballet slipper that I hate, but which she wears all the time. I pick it up, cradle it to my chest. It’s smudged with dirt.
And then I see the matching one. It’s underneath a wooden plank, and next to it is a bare foot. The foot is bare because I hold the shoe the foot is supposed to be wearing.
Benny is suddenly by my side, and I’m about to tell him to stop crying, that it’ll be okay, when something deep within me claws its way out and I’m screaming.
I’m screaming and screaming, and holding my mother’s shoe.
1992
Spring
Višegrad
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)
NADJA STOOD WHERE Marko told her and tried not to move in the cold. She watched her breath become a ghost and float away to haunt someone else. Behind her, the bridge rose, solid and ancient and empty. The bridge that was so famous, people from all over came to see it and take pictures, much like Marko was making her do now. It was still so early that most sane people were warm in their beds or maybe just now waking. But Marko had wanted to capture her with the sunrise.
“Okay. Okay. This is perfect. Yeah, so, just look at the water.”
Nadja stared at the Drina flowing swiftly to the left of her. The river was normally an emerald green, but now it looked blackish. The early dawn masked its beautiful jade color. If she believed in old tales, she might think that creatures lurked in its depths.
The shutter of Marko’s camera, a quick click, click, click, stamped the air like a seagull’s prints on sand—all thin and singular in the morning quiet—while a breath of a breeze stirred through a willow’s leaves, sounding like rain.
He posed her several times as the sun rose steadily. For the last one he had her look straight into the camera.
“Got it!” he said. He walked up and held her and kissed her nose. “You’re so cold.”
“What do you expect?” Nadja said. “It’s freezing.”
“I’m sorry, but I really wanted to do this.”
She reached up and brushed aside some of the long dark hair that stuck out of his gray beanie and fell into his eyes.
“It’s all right. I can suffer for your art.”
Marko kissed her again. His lips traveled along her jawline, and he whispered, “Thank you,” in her ear, tickling her.
She laughed. “Just make me look good.”
“Impossible not to.”
They walked over to a café to get coffee and some breakfast. They talked about her piano studies, his photography, how he wanted to document specific moments in time. They argued about Nirvana. He was a fan. She not so much. She said she preferred New Kids on the Block, but only to get an eye roll from him. U2 was a safe choice. They both liked the band. Marko had bought her a tape of Achtung Baby for Christmas. She’d already played it so much, the ribbon had gotten tangled. He’d had to show her how to use a pencil to rewind it.
They didn’t talk about what had happened when her family fled to Goražde, another city only about forty minutes away, in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago. They didn’t mention the Četnik soldiers that had showed up and still walked the streets even after Nadja’s family returned a few days later. They didn’t talk about him being Serb and her being Bosniak and how that somehow mattered now. Before, they had always simply been Bosnian. They no longer spoke of Croatia, the Dubrovnik being in ruins, the fact that Marko would turn eighteen in two months and would be drafted into the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) like all other boys his age. They didn’t talk about the things his father said about her.
“Oliver,” Marko said. His eyes narrowed over the lid of his small coffee cup, measuring her response.
“Oliver,” Nadja said in agreement.
Oliver was a Croatian singer very popular in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially Sarajevo. Sarajevo, the city they both wanted to escape to. The plan was she would attend the university next year and then he would join her the following year. To leave their tiny town that had few prospects. To chase down a life that they couldn’t have here. Nadja would need to go on scholarship and was getting ready to apply for one.
Everything would be different in Sarajevo.
Nadja took a bite of her lokumi and couldn’t help but frown. Her mom’s pastries were much better.
She felt someone watching her and glanced to her right. It was Mr. Radić. She was about to smile in greeting, but he glared at her. She quickly dropped her eyes. His look made her feel like she was some rotten thing he had just eaten and needed to spit out. Nadja thought that he probably had a rough night of drinking and was here sobering up. Her family knew he was a widower and a drunk because he was their neighbor. Four years ago they had helped him with the funeral arrangements for his wife because he didn’t have the money. Sometimes her mom brought him baked bread. They had always been good neighbors. Mom said that’s what you do in the hard times. You help each other.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Marko asked her.
He lit a cigarette, took a drag and passed it to her. She did the same. A thick plume of smoke now danced between them.
“I’m here,” she said, and passed the cigarette back to him. But her mind still lingered a bit on the old man.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“I knew you weren’t listening.”
“I’m sorry. I was distracted.”
Marko glanced at her neighbor.
“You don’t have to be afraid. I’m with you.”
She smiled faintly because he meant it.
“Let’s get out of here,” Marko said.
Marko paid their bill, and they left the café. They walked arm in arm all the way up the narrow one-lane road back to her house. Their boots crunched on the patches of old snow that hadn’t melted yet. It was the start of spring, but winter held on tight.
In front of her house, Marko kissed her quickly, just in case her parents were watching through a window.
“This is for you,” he said, and handed her a mixtape.
“Thanks,” she said, reading Songs for Nadja II scrawled across the yellow masking tape.
“This one is more Nadja centric,” he said. “Maybe you’ll like it better than the last.”
“I loved the last one.”
Marko smiled, kissed her on the mouth again and left.
Nadja watched him round the corner, then she opened her front door and deposited her boots, hung up her jacket by the door. She walked over to the fireplace, where there was a fire already going.
“How was Marko?” said Benjamin, Nadja’s ten-year-old brother, from the couch, followed by kissing noises.
“Shut up, Benjamin!”
“Ooh, Marko. I love you.”
Nadja stormed out of the living room. Not for the first time did she wish she were an only child. Her mom and dad were at the kitchen table smoking and drinking coffee. They watched the news on the small TV.
“Do you want some breakfast?” her mom asked, not looking away from the video clips of destroyed buildings and fires. The drama happening in what felt like another world to Nadja.
“I already ate.”
“And how is Marko?” her dad asked.
“Fine.”
He studied her face, searching for something more. He didn’t find it, so he turned back to the TV.
“Serbs are talking war, revolution,” her dad said.
“I don’t believe it,” said her mom. “Only papci listen to this talk.”
“Not anymore. I hear them whispering behind my back at work. Remember last week? I was sent home early.” Nadja’s father worked as a teacher at the high school she attended. Sometimes it was a drag for her to have her dad there, but other times, when she needed a pass, it worked in her favor.
He leaned forward, his left hand waving around as he spoke, revealing the exasperation behind his words. “What do they think? We are part of a secret plan? We are jihadists? We don’t even go to mosque! We eat pork. We are terrible Muslims.” He pointed his finger. “This will get worse before it gets better. Maybe we should have stayed in Goražde.” He looked at Nadja. “What does Marko say? Does his father tell him anything?”
Marko’s father worked in government. Ever since Nadja had overheard him telling Marko to “be careful with the Muslim girl,” she noticed that Marko only saw her whenever his family wasn’t around.
“We don’t talk about these things,” Nadja said.
Her father stared at her. “This is all people are talking about.” He turned his attention back to the screen. The image had begun to wobble. He reached for the left antenna and maneuvered it until the picture cleared.
Nadja didn’t want to talk about war or Croats or Serbs or Četniks or Bosniaks or anything else. It confused her, but mostly it worried her that she saw fear in her father’s eyes.
She went to her room, removed her red flannel and threw it on her bed. Then she popped the tape Marko had given her into the portable black radio on her dresser. As she pushed the big black Play button, a slow love song came on. She imagined dancing to this song with Marko at the school formal coming up.
Nadja grabbed some tweezers from the top of her dresser, where she kept a bunch of necklaces and bracelets. She plucked some stray hairs underneath her brow while she sang along to the song. Her English wasn’t the best, even after studying it for years in school. But she knew most of the words to the American pop songs.
“Rush, rush . . . Hurry, hurry, lover, come to me . . .”
One day she planned to go to America. Maybe study music there. She hoped Marko would go with her. They would travel to New York and walk all around the city. She imagined the photos he’d take of her there. How she would take the subway and live in an apartment and have an exciting life compared to the one in Višegrad.
Nadja wondered what Marko was doing now and if she’d see him later today.
Through her open window, she saw her neighbor Mr. Radić walking down the street. She hid behind the curtain so he wouldn’t see her. And she didn’t fail to notice as he stopped in front of her house, spat and continued walking past.
What have we ever done to him? she wondered.
But the more she thought about it, she realized he had never been a nice man.
July 3
THE TV HANGING in the corner of the room plays footage from somewhere in Idaho, then it switches to California, then Texas. The reporter explains how the attacks were strategic, hitting Americans where we wouldn’t expect it. On the third of July instead of the fourth. In shopping centers and strip malls, grocery stores—farmers markets. The targets were small, precise, exposing our vulnerabilities.
The hospital is packed with survivors, relatives of the victims, doctors and nurses. I stare at the footage of a farmers market in a small Rhode Island town. I watch like I am simply a spectator, like I didn’t just live through the bombing.
When I first arrived at the hospital, a thick swarm of reporters had buzzed and pestered me.
How do you feel? What was it like? Do you have a few words for people?
They shoved microphones in front of me, but my mouth was clamped shut, still sore from the blast. Even now, my jaw is heavy, with the constant taste of metal in my mouth.
Police officers, more than I’ve ever seen before, huddle together outside. I should tell them to spread out. They’re an easier target when they’re together like that. Besides, what protection can they offer me now? They’re only human flesh, which, after this morning, I know is the easiest thing to pummel and maim.
I feel bile rise as I think of the open stomach and the man holding the intestines in his hand. I wonder if it was the large or small one. How do you tell the difference?
“Zara?”
Dad says my name softly, like he used to when I was a little kid. I tear up and unhinge my jaw. “Hey, Dad.”
He places his hand on my shoulder. Even though his touch is light, it sends pain down my whole right side. He looks exhausted. The last time I saw him was hours ago.
When Benny and I arrived at the ER of the hospital where Dad works, I glimpsed a slight wince of concern before he masked his face with professionalism. There had already been a number of ambulances to arrive before ours, including the one that Mom rode in, unresponsive and with a weak pulse. But still breathing. Once we got there, everyone was yelling and running, but to me they looked like people on fast forward, sped up one minute and then somehow slowed down the next.
Benny had a big cut on his leg and a few surface-level scrapes on his arms, knees and forehead, but Dad was worried about him enduring any additional trauma just by being in the hospital, so Dad’s sister, my aunt Evelyn, came to get him pretty quickly. I, however, needed sixty-seven stitches in my back, thanks to the glass and nails that exploded from the pipe bomb. But there were so many people in much worse shape than me. I’d seen and overheard words like missing limb, critical condition, blood transfusion. It was enough to know that some shrapnel in the back was hardly anything in terms of life and death. I barely even felt the nurse pull out the glass, nails and pieces of metal. Dad said I was in sho
ck.
It’s been hours, and still, I barely feel anything.
He leads me in and out of clusters of people. Some are like me, freshly wounded. Others are family or friends. Even though it’s overcrowded, there’s a nervous quiet. Everyone watches the TV. Everyone waits as if the worst is yet to come.
Once we’re inside an exam room, Dad carefully examines the stitches and dressing on my back.
“Looks good. Really good. Shouldn’t even leave a big scar.” The last part he means as a comfort, but I know he’s not telling the truth. Of course I’ll have a big scar. How could I go through something like this and not?
He examines my face next, carefully removing the white bandage to look at the damage underneath. My arms are also scraped up, but nothing bad enough to require stitches.
“How’s Mom?” I ask when he’s done.
“She’s . . . Would you like to see her?”
I stand and wince. It’s like I’ve had the most intense workout. My whole body is sore. I’ve also got the worst headache, small needles piercing behind my eyes, even with the pain medication the nurse gave me earlier.
I carry what few belongings I have with me—my camera and Mom’s left shoe—and follow Dad to room 311 in the intensive care wing.
I enter behind him and stop.
Mom is in a white bed. Her eyes are closed. There are tubes coming out of her arms. She’s hooked up to one of those oxygen nose things. A machine pumps every twenty seconds. I know because I’ve already counted to forty, standing there, staring at her.
Someone has cleaned her face, wiped all of the dirt and blood from the wound on her head. But she would be upset to have us looking at her. That she is exposed this way, without her hair or makeup done. Her face is undefined, naked. I look away.
Dad checks her vitals and holds her hand and bends and kisses her and whispers something close to her ear.
I am still in the doorway. He motions me over.
“She had some internal bleeding, but we were able to stop that. Lacerations to the chest and legs.” Dad speaks to me in clinical language like she’s a patient and not Mom. But she’s not his patient. She’s his wife. She’s— “She suffered serious head trauma, so she had cranial surgery to relieve the pressure.”