by Jane Brittan
‘Um … your accent?’ I say. ‘You’re not Serbian? Do you speak English?’ He smiles. I say, ‘I’m from England. That’s my mother I’m with, or at least …’ I stop and swallow, ‘I mean I speak Serbian but my English is better …’
‘Me too,’ he says, in English now, ‘I am English. I’m Peter. This is my place.’
‘I’m Sanda. How come you’re here?’
‘I was here with the United Nations after the war and I liked it. I married a Serbian girl and I settled here. Beats Nottingham any day. And you?’
I have a second to make up my mind, and I decide I’m going to trust him. I’m going to ask for his help.
‘I – what I tell you, you probably won’t believe but it’s true. I swear on my life it’s all true.’
I tell him everything. There in the dark, rough little passageway with its stone floor and smell of spilled beer. He nods and murmurs as I hurry and stumble over events and times. When I’m finished, he says: ‘Nothing would surprise me after that war. Nothing. So, you think this Branko might be your father?’
‘I think so. I hope so. I want …’
‘And her? Who’s she then?’ He jerks his chin in the direction of the bar. And it dawns on me that I have absolutely no idea. I’m about to speak but he says, ‘It’s just that she –’
‘The Škorpioni …’ I break in. ‘Have you heard of them?’ I tell him about my father, at least the man I thought was my father. He scratches his beard thoughtfully.
‘God, yes. The Škorpioni are a really powerful organisation. A lot of police are in their pockets. They started up in the War as a paramilitary group fighting the Bosnians but they’re much bigger than that now. They’ve got politicians, police, businesses, international contacts, fingers in lots of pies. They’re a kind of … a kind of Mafia I suppose. You fall foul of them and you’re really in trouble.’
‘I wonder if she’s involved in some way …’
‘Yes,’ he says, looking down the passage. ‘Yes. I think she might be. Where’s she taking you?’
‘I have no idea.’
He nods. He seems distant. He’s looking over at my mother who’s still deep in conversation on the phone.
‘You better get back. You’ll be missed. Let me have a think.’
I return to my place by the fire, and Mum steps away from the bar and carries on her phone call out of earshot. Beardie stares vacantly into the flames as they drive cinder and sparks upwards into the black.
I think about my sister.
She’s in my head now. I can feel her moving, breathing, lacing her fingers, her tongue against her teeth, her eyes opening and closing, and the thread and the web between us, strong as rope.
My mother pays the bill with coins counted one by one onto the bar counter. I catch Peter’s eye as he collects them. She ushers us out and into the car, gets in and turns the ignition. It doesn’t start. She tries again, and the engine coughs and belches and dies with a whirring sound. Peter’s watching from the door, and he winks at me as he comes over.
‘What’s the trouble?’ he asks, folding his arms across his chest.
‘I don’t know,’ she snaps. ‘It was fine before. Do you know anything about cars?’
‘A bit,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you go and have a sit down inside while I take a look?’
The car shifts as she gets out, and he reaches inside to open the bonnet.
‘Could the young one give me a hand?’ he calls.
She looks at me and says, ‘I’ll be watching.’
‘Get under here,’ he says from beneath the bonnet. I join him as he pinches cables and taps the battery.
‘I don’t know anything about cars I’m afraid,’ I say.
‘I do. That’s how I broke it.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Wanted to buy you a bit of time.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ve called someone.’
‘Who?’
‘For her,’ he says. I straighten up and look at him. He says, ‘You don’t know do you?’
‘Know what?’
‘Your mum is Kristina Perška.’
And yet again, the map in my head is torn up and thrown into the air.
‘Who?’
‘You don’t know the name?’
I shake my head. My breath is coming in shallow rasps. I’m hot and cold waiting for what’s coming.
‘I thought I recognised her – I Googled her picture just to be sure. She’s wanted for war crimes. She helped run an asylum, well, that’s what they called it. It was basically a concentration camp. Thousands of non-Serbs were put there in the early nineties – people were beaten, raped, starved, left to rot.’
I’m struggling to stay standing, to breathe, to be inside my body just now. I have to repeat what he’s said to me, in my head, over and over like a broken record.
He rubs my back. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I … I … don’t know. She … a concentration camp?’ The pictures from the news in the farmhouse come back to me. Piles of bodies, people displaced and starving. Barbed wire. Barbed wire fences. And my mother, her eyebrows knitted, gluing broken gnomes at a kitchen table in north London.
‘Sanda – I’m sorry.’
‘I … I …what did she do?’
‘She was one of the people running the thing – directing operations. She was notorious. They called her The Butcher.’
16
A blackness, chill and creeping, folds me into it, muffles me, and I close my eyes against it and try to breathe.
‘I know. I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘She’s wanted for war crimes. There’s a huge reward for her capture. I called some people I know. They’ll bring her in. The local police can’t always be trusted.’
‘Wanted?’
‘Maybe that’s why they came back here. Maybe the police in the UK are on to them. They had to get out. They’ll have lots of friends here, a place to hide, and, like I say, the local cops will turn a blind eye. Some people still either sympathise with the Škorpioni or are so scared of them, they won’t come forward.’
‘But why take me? Why not leave me at Zbrisć?’
He scratches his chin. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know why you’re here. Seems weird for someone like her to have taken a baby in the first place.’
My spine is cold water.
He goes on, ‘I hope your friends are OK but they’re going to be running for their lives. You all need to be very careful who you trust.’
‘She’s going to kill me, isn’t she? That’s why she’s taking me.’
He looks at me and then quickly away. ‘I don’t know, Sanda,’ he says. ‘I don’t know.’
Before I have time to say anything, we hear the sound of a car roaring up the track. I squat down with Peter and watch as a black Land Rover appears. A thick set man in a bullet proof jacket almost falls out of the car and crouches behind it, a gun in his hand.
‘That’s him,’ says Peter in a low voice. ‘I called him. He’ll bring her in. He’ll see justice done; can’t trust the police. They wouldn’t touch her. They’ve got too much to lose.’
I feel strangely distanced from the scene as though that’s what it really is – just a scene from a TV drama. The man runs towards the inn and backs against the wall. He twists on his heel, gun raised, and slides around the door frame. We hear a door slamming inside and seconds later, an engine being violently revved.
Suddenly, a battered Volvo wheels past us from the back of the inn.
‘Shit! She’s taken my car!’ says Peter.
The gunman bursts out of the inn and fires. The bullet screams into the back of the car, shattering the rear window.
She’s gone, Beardie with her. He barrels back into the Land Rover and gives chase. Balloons of dust obscure them. Another shot smacks in the distance and I hear a squeal of brakes.
‘Are you OK?’ Peter says, looking at me with concern.
‘Are you sure it’s her? That she’s this Perška person?
Are you sure?’
‘Sanda, come with me.’
In a daze, I follow him into the inn.
Inside, I sink into a chair. I’m dimly aware of him behind the bar talking on the phone.
‘Sanda? Sanda?’ He’s off the phone. ‘Sanda. That was my wife.’
‘Oh.’ I pull myself back down to earth.
‘She’s a doctor. I’ve asked her to make enquiries about your friends. About your sister. We’re going to have to be careful. Like I say, the Škorpioni have a great deal of power. In the most unexpected places.’
‘Yes … yes …’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Er …Yes. I’m just a bit dazed I suppose.’
‘Look. I think you should stay with us tonight. You can’t do anything right now. Why don’t you try and get some sleep? I’ll wake you if I hear anything.’
I sleep like a baby. I sleep for all the time I’ve spent dirty and cold and hungry and afraid; and in my dreams the hands around my waist shift and buckle, loosen their grip. I lift my eyes away from them and look out at what I’m leaving behind: a woman screaming. And then nothing: a hole in my head, in my memory. And then all around, mountains and pine forests pressing in on me, hemming me in. I feel my London life slipping further and further out of sight. Lauren. School. Everything.
A knocking wakes me up. It’s dark. I’ve been asleep all day but the moment I open my eyes I think of Joe. And I know something’s wrong.
‘Sanda?’
A voice on the other side of the door.
‘Mmm?’
The door opens and Peter’s there. Behind him, a woman as tall as him, with dark hair and green eyes. She’s smiling.
She comes towards me, says in English, ‘Hi.’
She has a soft, husky voice and she smells of rosemary. I sit up and wriggle back against the bed head.
‘Hi. I’m Sanda.’
She laughs, and looks back at him. ‘I know. I’m Natalija,’ she says. ‘And you know Peter.’
She sits next to me on the bed, takes my head in her hands and moves it gently from side to side, looking at me intently. I’m suddenly horribly conscious of my hedgehog hair and blotchy skin under her touch. ‘Are you all right? You’ve had a lot to take in.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m worried about my friends,’ I say, and to Peter, ‘What about the guy with the gun, did he catch her?’
He shakes his head. ‘Not this time.’
Natalija looks over at Peter and then back at me.
‘We must hope your friends can get away.’
And Peter says, ‘No news is good news,’ but my chest tightens all the same.
Natalija says, ‘Tell me about your sister.’
OK. Weird to be asked that. Weird to think about having a sister – in the normal way of: where does your sister go to school? Or, I like your sister’s shoes.
‘Um … she … well it’s funny because I don’t know anything about her. I’ve never met her. But I think we’re identical. We have the same eyes …’
‘They’re beautiful,’ she says.
‘Er … thanks.’
‘Peter told me your story. I want to help. I think they might have taken her to a kind of hospital. Some of the older children go there from Zbrisć. Not good. It’s very important we try to get to her as soon as possible. But –’
‘A hospital?’
She looks at Peter. ‘A kind of hospital. For …’
Peter says, ‘An asylum.’
My sister. ‘Why?’
‘Somewhere to keep her quiet,’ says Peter. ‘They don’t pull their punches these people. Deaths are difficult. People ask questions, but in there, you can keep a person in these places forever.’
I draw my knees up tight and hook my fingers around them.
Under my breath I say, ‘It doesn’t make sense. None of this. Why they wanted me here, why they’ve taken her. Mum – Kristina – she said my real father wasn’t even looking for us. She said it was her he wanted.’
Natalija closes her hand over mine.
‘I don’t think that is true. I think he does want to find you. I think he’s been looking for a long time.’
‘He could be anywhere,’ I say. The words slip out of me: ‘He could be dead.’
Silence and then Peter speaks quickly. ‘No. I don’t think so. Listen, I’ll do some digging; see if we can’t stir something up. He may have left a forwarding address through the Red Cross. They’ve got a missing persons website. Just have a bit of faith, Sanda.’
I smile but I’m empty. ‘I think I lost it.’
I feel awkward all of a sudden. I twist the sleeve of my top around my thumb and swing my feet onto the floor. I bend to put on my boots, for something to do.
Peter says, ‘We’ll do all we can. Natalija can find out if your sister’s in this place, and I can make some enquiries about Branko.’
I’m an upturned boat, splintered and drifting.
I say, ‘Thank you.’ In my head, I hear the echo: ‘Thank you.’
Natalija gets up and goes to the door. ‘You’ll come down and eat with us?’
I smile, nod. Peter turns to follow her.
I call after him, ‘What if Kristina’s right? What if he doesn’t want me … us?’
‘Don’t listen to her.’
‘OK, but what if he has another family now? If that letter was written a long time ago? If he’s forgotten about …’
‘Don’t be daft. Yes, he may have another family but that doesn’t mean he won’t want you.’
At that moment, I feel more alone than ever. Actually alone isn’t right – I think I mean lonely. I nod miserably.
Then, I don’t know why but I blurt out: ‘Do you have children?’
There’s a pause. ‘No. No we don’t. Natalija miscarried, and it was bad. We can’t have any more.’
‘Oh God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to …’
‘It’s OK. It’s OK. Let’s go down.’
I go downstairs and in spite of everything, I manage to have a good evening. They ask me all about my life at home, about my school, my friends, about Joe. It turns out Peter knows north London well, and talking about it kind of grounds me a bit, makes it feel real. Like something about me is true. And all the time I can’t help but think how it would feel to be their daughter.
I dream about Joe: we’re back at Zbrisć. Except it isn’t Zbrisć, it’s school, and in the classrooms are wild-eyed children with shaven heads and toothless mouths. And all around, as ever, the black pines crowd in, right up to the windows, through the windows, their feathery fingers reaching for me.
17
In the morning, I wake up feeling a bit better about stuff. I look at myself in the mirror and my skin and hair seem a little softer.
Later, when Natalija’s at work, Peter takes me into the nearest town in their pick-up truck, and stands around awkwardly in the only teen clothes shop, with Iron Maiden on the PA, while I pick out a few clothes. Natalija came to me last night and pressed some money into my hand.
‘After all you’ve been through, you should do something normal – go and buy some clothes – something for your hair.’
Obviously she’s told Peter to take me, and I can see how uncomfortable it makes him. In the end, I say would he like to do his own shopping and I’ll meet him by the truck. He’s so pleased to get away, he practically runs out of the shop, almost knocking a mannequin into a group of girls who give him a look.
The selection isn’t great but I choose a couple of pairs of shorts, some coloured tights, a stripy jumper, a hoodie, a large army-style jacket, some warm gloves and a cool beanie hat to cover my hair.
I leave my old clothes in the shop, and I’m wandering back to where the truck is parked when I see Peter hurrying towards me. He’s sweating and he looks anxious.
‘Hi Peter. What’s up?’
‘Get in! Get in the truck!’
‘What is it?’
He opens the door and bundles me in, then gets i
nto the driver’s side and guns the engine. ‘I just had a call from Natalija.’
‘And?’
‘Well, you know she’s been asking around in other hospitals?’
‘Senka! She’s found her?’
He shakes his head. ‘No trace of her. But that’s not it. Natalija has a friend, Yana, who works in a hospital in Belgrade. Yana just called to say a boy was brought in late last night.’
My heart somersaults in my chest.
‘Oh God. Joe?’
‘They’re not sure but Yana thinks it’s him. The description you gave –’
‘Joe.’
‘You mustn’t get your hopes up. It may not be him at all. Was there anything else about him?’
I think. ‘He had a bite, a bad dog bite on his leg.’
‘That fits. This boy had a bad laceration. We need to move. The Škorpioni will be looking for him now and if he tells anyone or says anything, then … there are always people watching.’
‘And Andjela?’
He shakes his head. ‘Nothing yet. Yana said Joe was hit by a truck. Maybe Andjela ran.’
We drive home in silence. My head is full.
Back at the inn, Peter disappears into another room. After a few minutes, he calls me.
‘Sanda! Come and look at this.’
He’s sitting on a chair far too small for him, hunched over a computer in a cupboard that’s trying to be a room. He points excitedly to the screen.
‘I did it. I hope it’s OK, I posted your name with the Red Cross.’
An email sent late last night.
I am Branko Hadžić. I lost two daughters in the war. Senka and Sanda. If you have any information about them, please contact me.
A point of light. A flare fizzing far away. My father.
Peter’s looking at me. ‘There’s an attachment.’
It’s a photograph of me, taken a couple of years ago. It’s been taken from a distance but it’s definitely me. I’m standing at the crossing on the main road near our house in London.
I hold my face in my hands and stare at Peter.
‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand.’
‘Who took that photo? How come this man has a recent picture of you?’
I’m dumb. I shake my head. I breathe into my palms.