by Carrie Arcos
“But you really should eat something.”
“Seriously? You’re worse than my gramma,” I joke. “Fine.” I scan the menu. “I’ll take the parfait.”
“Good choice.”
Joseph orders for us. I take out my money, but he tells me he’s got it. And then suddenly I’m nervous. Like I’m on a date. But we’re in a hospital, so this is definitely not a date. We get our food and sit down at one of the empty tables.
“How’s your question writing going?” I nod to the journal he has on him.
He opens it up to a page and reads. “Why do some people live a life of little tragedy and others great suffering?”
“Wow. You get right to it.”
“Only the best questions go in here.”
“But isn’t all life suffering, according to your Buddhists?”
“Yes, but the degree of difference can be huge.”
“What do you mean? Like some people suffer more than others?”
“Look at a nation like Haiti. There is great poverty there, nothing like here in the States. Something like eighty thousand people still live in tents in the dirt with no plumbing or water since Hurricane Katrina, years ago, not to mention the other hurricanes they’ve had to endure since then. But that isn’t even as bad as when my grann grew up under Papa Doc and then his son Baby Doc.”
He says the names like I should recognize them, like they are notorious gangsters. I suddenly feel like I’m ignorant about most things that have happened in other countries. The only time I’ve even remotely heard of Haiti is when bad things happen with the weather.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know much about Haiti,” I say.
“Yeah, you and most people. Papa Doc and Baby Doc were terrible dictators. Murdered people for nothing. Stole husbands and sons away in the middle of the night. Kept the people in poverty and suffering. Did you know Haiti is the only state ever founded through a successful slave revolution? They rose up against the French.”
I shake my head. I didn’t.
“That’s pretty significant, don’t you think? The American history books give it two sentences. It was close to the same time of the US revolution, but the US went here.” He raises his hand upward. “And Haiti went here.” He lowers his hand. “I’m not going to give you a history lesson, don’t worry. But it is a country that’s struggling. Many people don’t have jobs, and without jobs, they don’t see a future.”
“Have you been to Haiti?”
He nods. “Two years ago. And now Grann wants to go back.”
“Does she still have family there?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the reason. She wants to die in her country. I try to tell her that she is an American now, but she says she will always be Haitian first.”
It’s a sad thought, but I get it. “That makes sense.”
Joseph frowns, staring at his cup. I hope I haven’t offended him.
“So I think about this,” he says, and looks up at me, his eyes full of intensity. “I have known very little suffering in my life, even though I’ve certainly caused it for others.”
He’s caused people to suffer? I make a mental note to ask him about that later.
“But Grann, she knew suffering firsthand. She lost children. She went hungry. She and my grandfather came here to better their lives. And yeah, my father worked really hard to become the man he is, but he didn’t know the suffering that Grann did. He never went to bed hungry. Same thing for my mom. She’s got a whole other history, being Irish and growing up in Ireland. I have a nice home, a mother and father, clothes, sports, everything . . . But if Grann had stayed in Haiti, I could be living in one of those tents right now. Sometimes I think, why me? I’m no different than them. Why was I spared?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I wonder that too—about myself. If I had been standing a little closer to where the bomb went off, it could have been me trapped under a vendor stall, or my severed limbs on the pavement, not someone else’s. I could have died. What sense does that make?”
Joseph just shakes his head. There is no answer.
“So, is that what you’re doing now?” I ask him. “Trying to figure it out?”
“Maybe. In a way.”
“Well, when you find the answer, let me know,” I say dryly. But I also feel for him. He seems a little tortured, like there’s something he’s wrestling with beyond faith.
I’m about to ask him when he says, “Buddha says that the purpose in life is to find your purpose and to give your whole heart and soul to it.”
“So what happens if you can’t find your purpose?”
“Well, I don’t know if it means, like, you’re supposed to do just one particular thing, like you’re supposed to be a mechanic or a dietitian.”
“Or a photographer,” I say.
“Or a photographer,” he echoes. “Though you’ve got a gift. Your pictures could really help people if you wanted them to. Have you thought about what you’ll do with it?”
“I used to, but . . .” I shrug and stir my yogurt.
“But . . . ? What was the ‘used to’?”
“I used to look at pictures and remember the smells and the feel. Like I was transported. I could remember the emotion, the energy, the way I felt when I took the photo, all of it. Like I was traveling through time. It was the only thing I could picture doing with my life.”
“That’s awesome,” Joseph says. “So what changed?”
“What changed?” I pause. “Everything changed. Ever since the bombing . . . I just feel different. Off. Scared and nervous when I used to just go for it. I mean, I used to take photos constantly. I had this 365 project where I took one photo a day—of anything, really—and I’d share it online with this group of other young photographers and we’d critique each other’s work. Now I’ve hardly taken any photos since the attack. I’ve tried, a little, but it’s like I don’t have the vision I used to. Like I’ve lost my edge or something. I’m not even sure who I am anymore.” I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. Everything just feels so hard.”
He nods. “It can be good to do the things that scare us sometimes. That’s what my grandmother says. Maybe the point is to push through and do it anyway.”
I think about that for a moment, and wonder what my mother would say. My mother, who hates having her picture taken, who hates that I’m a photographer. Who was never interested in, and hardly ever asked me about, my pictures.
Thinking about it all makes my headache return.
“So what about you?” I ask.
“Me?”
“Yeah, what’s your purpose? And what was that part about causing people suffering? You kind of threw that in there.”
His eyes darken, but he smiles.
“My dad tells me that I have a purpose and it’s big. That God wouldn’t have spared me from a life of poverty if I didn’t. But his family made the choice to move to America so they could have a better, non-poverty-stricken future. My dad’s view seems to be a privileged one. It implies my purpose is more important than others’. Or at least that people in severe poverty and those leading what we might consider small lives don’t matter as much. I don’t think he believes that, but it’s a question of value. Why should one life have value over another? Aren’t all lives of value? Of the same worth?”
He stops. “That’s a good question.” He writes in his journal.
“It is a good question,” I say. I notice he didn’t really answer either of mine, but I let it go for now. “A follow-up might be something like, how is it so easy for some to judge the value of another’s life and decide whether or not it matters? How do some people just decide that only some lives deserve to be lived?”
He nods. “Two very good questions.” He writes them down.
I think about the bomber. Did he know he could do it? Destroy so many lives
?
“I wonder whether I could do it.”
“Do what?” Joseph asks.
“I wonder if there could be a scenario where I felt like I didn’t have a choice and like I had to kill someone. I wonder if I could do it, if I had to.”
He stares at me a long time before answering. Audrey is right about his eyes. They’re big and brown, and it feels like he’s looking all the way through me.
Finally Joseph says, “I’m going through all these scenarios in my head. Like, what if my mom and sister are being tortured? Yeah, I could kill someone for doing that, I think. I don’t really know, though.”
I nod. “I don’t know either. But I keep having this dream. I’m walking in the farmers market, and I’m looking at all the faces. People just pass me by like they’re on a slow-moving walkway, like at the airport. And I notice everything. How people are buying fruit. How moms are holding their kids’ hands. How dads are pushing strollers. How kids are running to find the candy vendor. And then I see him. He’s up ahead. He’s wearing a backpack. He keeps walking, and I speed up. When I catch him, I turn him around. His face and head are covered in black. He looks just like those ISIS fighters on TV. I’ve got a knife, just a small one. And I raise my hand to do it, but he shows me he’s wearing a bomb. I look around and start screaming at everyone to run. But there’s nothing I can do. The explosion always happens. Even if I kill him. I still see . . . I still see the bodies. I still smell the burning. Even now I can smell it.”
I stare at a small ant that crawls across the table. Joseph is quiet.
“My dad thinks I should get some counseling,” I say.
“Counseling can be good.”
“I told him I’m already speaking to a hospital chaplain.”
“Which one? I think I’ve met two of them.”
I smile. “His name’s Joseph.”
He nods and smiles back in realization. “Right. Well, I’ve never been called that before. Many other things, but not a chaplain.” He laughs. “Talking does help, though.”
“I get that, in theory. But I don’t know. It’s just . . . I’ve never . . .” My hand touches the side of my face. “It’s like I’m damaged now. I don’t know how to move forward with anyone or anything. And I feel like . . . I feel like I’m drowning because . . . or maybe it’s just that I’m lost . . . it’s like a part of me is gone and I don’t know how to get back to myself. And I just keep thinking that if my mom never recovers, for the rest of my life, I’ll always be missing something, no matter how much time goes by.” The words flop around in my brain and don’t even make sense anymore. Like there are spaces now, gaps that are too large—too terrible—to cross.
Joseph reaches over and takes my hand. I stare at it. Part of me wants to take it back, but it feels good to be touched in such a caring, unexpected way. Even when the tears come and fall on his hands, he stays there, steady, like he’s sat and grieved with me a thousand times.
1994
Spring
Sarajevo
BiH
NADJA SEARCHED FOR the word. She should have known it, but her memory had gaps and holes in it now, as if someone had gone inside her head with a large rake.
“Quick, he’s going to leave,” Dalila said.
There. She found it and cursed herself for being so slow. It was actually so similar to the one in Bosnian.
“Chocolate?”
The UN man shook his head. “No chocolate.”
“Just candy, then,” Dalila said. “What’s the word for candy?”
Nadja said the word, but the man had already disappeared inside the cavity of the white truck. Kids were beginning to gather around, calling out to him, asking for treats, cigarettes, some Coca-Cola. Some spoke in Bosnian, most in broken English. Nadja held the Bosnian-English dictionary close to her chest, worried some kid might try to steal it. It was the most valuable book the family owned. Most of the UN officers spoke English, so that was the language of currency. Nadja had studied it in school for years, but speaking it was tiring. Her tongue flopped around like a beached whale when she tried to make the sounds.
The man turned around and looked surprised at the group that had formed. He smiled and gave Dalila the small package.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s all I have.”
His accent was different from the Americans’, but Nadja could still make out the English words. He was probably French.
Dalila and Nadja stepped away from the others and Dalila revealed what was in the package: two MRE bars, a can of sardines, a can of meat and the jackpot—two lollipops and a pack of cinnamon gum. Careful that none of the other kids were watching them, Nadja and Dalila opened the lollipops and popped them in their mouths.
“Wow,” Dalila said, and closed her eyes. She leaned against a building and savored the treat. “Strawberry. What’s yours?”
“Lime.”
“Switch?”
The girls exchanged lollipops. They smiled and traded back again.
“The best,” Dalila said. “The Smurf really came through today.” They called the UN guys Smurfs because of their blue helmets. “Want to see what we can get for the gum and the sardines?”
Nadja nodded; it was the more responsible thing to do for the family, even though she really didn’t want to part with the gum.
They made their way cautiously down toward Baščaršija, where there was a market. They hardly ever went to the market because, first of all, it was too dangerous, and secondly, they didn’t usually have money or things to trade. But today was a beautiful day, sunny and warm but not hot. And they had something to trade.
Nadja and Dalila walked up and down the crowded aisles, amazed at what was being sold. There were tomatoes and greens and fruit. They didn’t look as good as the vegetables Nadja’s mom had sometimes grown in their small garden, but they looked edible. And that’s all that mattered.
After thirty minutes, it was clear: everything was too expensive, and no one wanted the typical UN sardines. In the end, they traded the gum for five potatoes and three tomatoes.
“We didn’t even get one piece,” Nadja said about the gum, feeling the weight of the potatoes in her bag.
“No, but Mom will be happy with the food. Imagine her face when she sees how big the tomatoes are.”
Nadja ducked her head, ashamed at her greed.
They walked quickly through the cobblestoned streets, heads down until they turned right and headed back up to their neighborhood. At any minute, the shelling might begin.
When they entered the house, they heard the TV and rushed into the living room. Ramiza had the news on, but gave in to their pleading for a channel change when she saw the potatoes.
“I’m not even going to ask how you got these. I’ll make kljukuša,” she said. “We still have some powdered milk left. That’ll have to do.” She handed the remote to Dalila and went into the kitchen to start grating the potatoes.
The girls sat on the floor and watched the movie Pretty Woman. They didn’t care what movie it was, just that they were watching one and it was American.
An hour later, Ramiza gave them the potato cakes hot out of the oven and joined them. After that, they watched The Simpsons. The power lasted for a glorious three hours and fifteen minutes.
When it was over, the girls climbed to the roof and hung out the window. They had the best view of Sarajevo from the attic and the roof. They played the game that Dalila invented because tonight the sky was on fire all throughout the hills that surrounded the valley their city lay in. It was like the enemy was making up for being so quiet and peaceful during the day.
Tonight, the fighting looked the worst toward Dobrinja, an area of Sarajevo caught in the middle of the crossfire. First came the flash and then the rumble. They counted the seconds in between. The game was to decide what type of weapon was being employed based on the
timing, the type of light and the sound. Nadja was better at the game, able to tell the difference between a shoulder-launched missile and one from the tanks.
“I’m going to California when this is over,” Dalila said about halfway through. Her voice pouty, full of the fact that Nadja was winning. Nadja always won.
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. I’m going to Beverly Hills and getting Levi’s and boots.”
“You’re going to be a prostitute?” Nadja knew she was referring to one of the scenes from the movie they’d just watched. The one where the snobby boutique women wouldn’t sell to Julia Roberts’s character because she was a hooker.
Dalila pushed her. “No, but I will go into a store like that. They will all wait on me. Give me champagne, cigarettes, chocolate. I will buy whatever I want.”
“With what money?” Nadja asked.
“I’ll marry a rich American. One of the reporters.” Dalila referred to the reporters who stayed at the Holiday Inn. The ones who flocked to the war to document, who asked the same questions over and over as if repeating would give understanding to this senseless fighting.
“They don’t seem so rich.”
“Only one has to be my ticket out. What do you think of the guy who talked to us last week? He was cute.”
“He was old. At least thirty-five.”
Dalila shrugged. “Thirty-five isn’t so old.”
“He was also married.” Nadja held up her hand and pointed to her finger. “The ring.”
“Again, just a passage to America. I can leave him when we get there.”
“Okay, you can have your fantasy life,” said Nadja.
“Oh, and you don’t want to go to America? You want to live here?”
There was nothing in Sarajevo for Nadja. “No.” America would get them both.
“You will see.” Dalila stared off in the distance. “This can’t last forever.”
Nadja spied the glow just past the cemetery. She pointed.
The girls counted in unison.
“One. Two. Three. Four . . .”