by James Bruno
Ferret looked up and, in a weary voice, said, “So that we can keep a better eye on you.”
“Am I a child—?”
“And to keep you away from other ex-Yugoslavs.”
Mlavic leapt to his feet. He slammed the table with one hand. “I demand to be treated properly, as a military officer!”
“You’re nothing but a killer!” Ferret scowled. “How many did you murder at the Omarska camp alone? Five-hundred? A thousand? Two-thousand? It was your men who dug the mass graves and filled them with slain Muslims. And somebody gave the orders. Now, sit down!”
Mlavic retook his seat. He snickered. His fingers toyed with a paperclip. “You Americans just don’t know.” He shook his head. “You are all so naive.”
Ferret put the folder down. “We sent 20,000 troops to your country to do what? To save you from yourselves. I thought we did it out of idealism, but, come to think about it, we must be naive.”
“My country is sorely misunderstood, Mr. Ferret.” Mlavic jabbed his chest with his right thumb. “We, we Serbs have saved Europe from being overrun by Muslims, from becoming enslaved. Now we fight a blood war — against the Muslims — and a political war: against the international conspiracy to undermine Serbia, led by the United States. We Serbians love freedom and we will survive. Can you grasp that? Freedom and survival. We will do anything — anything — to achieve these. And so would you.”
Ferret’s eyes widened. He listened intently to his ward.
“A man is not a man unless he has complete freedom and the means to survive. It is a primal urge. It is in our nature, Mr. Ferret. You and I, we are the same. You carry out the instructions of your government, and I mine. In the name of idealism. Am I therefore so bad? If I were, then your precious America would not allow me to come here, to make my livelihood here, to raise a family. Just like you, Mr. Ferret. Just like you.”
Ferret kept his eyes fixed on Mlavic, but his brain was far away. “Freedom. Survival,” he muttered. “Family.”
“I believe you do understand,” Mlavic said.
CHAPTER THREE
Mike Gallatin’s path never crossed that of Win Ferret. His liaison for resettling refugees was the smiling do-gooders of Catholic World Services, the non-profit organization under contract with the U.S. government’s legitimate, overt refugee program to resettle Bosnians in American communities.
“Dad, I’ll be gone Saturday night.”
“I beg your pardon, young lady?” Gallatin dropped his newspaper and half rose from his easy chair.
“I’m staying over at Nura’s.”
“You ask first, sweetheart. Maybe you’re getting confused. Your age is one-three as in 13, not three-one as in 31.”
“Oh Dad!” she harumphed. Lauren was the picture of her mother’s beauty and verve.
Active in her church, Mike’s wife heeded the call to sponsor and assist refugees. Following her death from ovarian cancer two years previous, Mike continued to heed the call, as much to honor her memory as to help fellow human beings. Besides, keeping busy was a partial antidote to grief and loneliness. And working as a senior investigator for a big insurance company and raising a thirteen-year old daughter on his own guaranteed that he indeed would be busy.
“I’m teaching Nura cool English.”
“Cool English?”
“Yeah, how to talk like the rest of the kids at school.”
“God help her.” He resumed perusing the headlines. “You two have really hit it off, haven’t you?”
“She’s a great kid. And she’s lived through really awful things over there. Some things she talks about. Other things she just, like, falls silent.”
Gallatin knew some of them. After her village was captured by the Bosnian Serbs, Nura Suleijmanovic, was taken with all the other women to a holding camp called Trnopolje in northwestern Bosnia where most were repeatedly raped by Serb soldiers over a month’s period. Eventually reunited with her parents, the family was brought to the U.S. to put their lives back together.
“She misses her two brothers a lot. One is in the army. The other one was captured by the Serbians. She doesn’t know if he’s even alive. He was only 16.”
Gallatin also knew that Kemal Suleijmanovic was one of 12,000 Bosnian Muslim troops who were intercepted by Serb forces near Srebenica in July 1995. Virtually all were massacred and dumped into mass graves. It would be a miracle if Nura’s brother had survived.
“Nura’s parents think you’re the greatest. He loves his job.”
“You mean being heating and a/c mechanic at Erie Mutual Insurance, Inc. is the answer to his prayers?”
“I didn’t say that. He’s just grateful that you got him a good job. And Mrs. Suleijmanovic — I shouldn’t say this.” Lauren covered her mouth with one hand.
“Hey, kid. You’re on a roll. Why stop now?”
“Well, she thinks you’re very handsome and says you should get married.”
Gallatin didn’t respond. He had that thousand-yard stare that hit him every time Celeste’s memory returned to him.
“Dad? I’m sorry if I said something wrong. It’s just that…”
“I know honey.” He embraced her with one arm. “It’s not easy for either of us. And you need a mother. Let’s just take it one day at a time, huh?” He kissed her on the cheek.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Lauren.” Gallatin answered somewhat impatiently.
“So, is it okay if I stay over at Nura’s?”
“You bet. But don’t overstay your welcome, and call Sunday morning.”
Adnan and Leah Suleijmanovic rented a small, single-story house in Brookpark, near the airport. The neighborhood of faded brick buildings and plain clapboard houses, was home to an aging population of Slavs and other East Europeans. Gritty, dingy, gray, yet neat, it hearkened back to an earlier America — industrial, immigrant America. Small groceries, bakeries, shoe shops and dank, blue collar bars still lined its streets. On a good day, wafts of kielbasa, cabbage, freshly baked bread, and old folks speaking in their native tongues, resonated the past. With the downfall of communism, the area received a small infusion of fresh immigrant blood.
Adnan moonlighted as a plumber. After her eight-hour job as a cleaner-upper at a factory cafeteria, Leah worked as a night cashier at a local convenience store. They hoped to scrape together enough money in two years to purchase a tire dealership from a Croatian-American who was looking toward retirement in Tampa. Friday evenings, however, the family unfailingly attended services at the mosque.
Lauren and Nura spent hours talking about their classmates, their favorite rock band – The Ataris, as well as TV and movie hunks – Jamie Johnston and Chad Michael Murray, and flipped through gossip magazines that they sneaked by Nura’s parents.
They complained about teachers and giggled till they were red in the face. On one subject, however, Nura fell conspicuously silent: boys. Whenever Lauren and other girlfriends talked about cute so-and-so, or shared the titillating revelation that one had actually kissed a boy, Nura would shut down. An invisible veil would descend across her face and she would hug herself as if she had a chill. They knew that she was receiving counseling.
Nura talked freely of her nightmares, flashbacks to the times when she huddled with her family in cellars as Serb rockets and artillery rained down, of classmates and their parents being blown to bits by bombs in the marketplace, of grandmothers cut down in “sniper alley.” But at other times, she just shut down. Lauren became sensitive to these moments and would be quiet and hug her new best friend.
They watched iCarly and Phineas & Ferb, then were instructed to go to bed by Adnan and Leah, both of whom were off work that night. Under the covers they giggled and teased each other. Leah cracked the door open and released a torrent in Serbo-Croatian.
“Yes mama,” replied a now quiescent Nura.
“What’d she say?” Lauren whispered after the coast was clear.
“She said, we must go to sleep. Stop fooling round,�
� Nura whispered back.
“I can’t sleep yet. I’m having too much fun. What about you?”
“Yes. Me too. We are good friends, no?”
“You bet. The best. We’ll be best friends for ever and ever and ever.” Lauren sat up on her knees and told her pal to do the same. She donned a face of grave solemnity.
“Nura, in our country best friends for life make the Indian Oath.”
“Indian Oath? What is that?”
“Just follow me.” Lauren knelt ramrod erect on the bed and raised her right hand. “Come on, do like I do.”
Nura followed suit.
“Repeat after me. ‘I, Nura Suleijmanovic, do hereby sullenly swear.’”
“I, Nura Suleijmanovic, do hereby suddenly swear.”
“That…that I and Lauren Anne Gallatin will forever be best friends, in thick and thin, in everlasting love and respect, with truth and justice for all…so help me God,”
“…with truth and just yeast for all…so held my God.”
Lauren spat in her right hand. “Go on. Do it.”
Nura spat in her hand. Lauren grabbed it in hers and proceeded to perform a conscientious approximation of the soul handshake.
“Indians cut their palms and mix the blood, but an old guy told me that spit will also work. Now do this.” She scrunched her eyes shut. With her thumb, Lauren drew an X on her chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“But I do not wish to die.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t. It’s part of the ritual stuff. Just do it!”
Nura did it.
They lasted till midnight. Their biological batteries having finally run out, the two conked out and fell into deep slumber.
Leah and Adnan checked on the girls before themselves retiring. Standing in the doorway with their arms around each other’s waist, they smiled.
“Leah, what do you see besides two beautiful angels in repose?”
“I see our only remaining child with her newfound sister.”
“Yes. But I see something more. I see a Muslim girl sleeping with a Christian girl, who is her best friend. Just imagine how unthinkable that was, before we came to this country.”
“And it is so natural. Why shouldn’t it be? In this country it is possible. Back home the devil had the people by the throats.”
“The devil is everywhere, Leah. Even here. The difference is that in America the devil is kept in check most of the time.”
“Oh, but I miss home, Adnan. I miss Srebenica as it used to be. I miss our family. I miss the village feasts and picnics by the Sava, and…” She buried her face in her husband’s neck and wept. Adnan closed the door.
The Suleijmanovics’ bedroom lay just a few feet opposite their daughter’s. Whether their dreams were of angels or devils or picnics on the Sava, will never be known. Just as their sons were torn from their midst, their humanity stripped, and their little girl pitilessly violated, their dreams that night were robbed from them, snatched and killed as a hawk preys on a young robin.
The explosion ripped through the outer wall so fast that the couple made the transition from deep sleep to death without having awakened. A fury of flames engulfed the room with the power of a tornado. Like forces of hell unleashed, they whipped through the old wooden structure with a satanic vengeance, devouring the sparse furniture, incinerating the few family photos to have survived the Bosnian holocaust, turning to smoke Nura’s homework on the kitchen table.
The roar of explosion and fire set Lauren instantly upright in the bed. Rooooooossh! The wind of flames soared through the hallway. Baaamm! Crash!! Windows were blown from their frames, the glass splintering and spraying into ten thousand lethal shards. Creeaak! Smash! House beams and ceilings collapsed.
She wanted to scream, but could not. A panic seized her, but was quelled, subdued in an instant by a counterforce present in all human beings. The instinct to survive is a powerful one, even in pre-adult, middle class girls from Cleveland. Smoke emitted from under the bedroom door. The intense heat bearing down on it radiated across the room and against Lauren’s face.
“Wake up! Nura!!” She shook her still slumbering friend. Nura instantly sensed the danger. She hopped out of the bed and went for the door.
“No!! Nura, no!!” Lauren lunged at Nura and tackled her to the floor. “We gotta escape. Now!” She dashed to the window facing the small yard. “Nura. Come! When I open this, the fire will come in. We’ve got to jump out fast.”
“I must get my parents first.”
“You can’t, Nura. The fire is everywhere.” She shook Nura with all her might. “Help me!” Lauren tried to pry the window open, but it stuck. “Nura. You said you don’t want to die. Please help me.” Tears rolled down Lauren’s flushed cheeks.
Nura broke from her hesitation and rushed to the window to help Lauren. It went up with a bang, leaving only a screen between the girls and the outside.
The bedroom door snapped lengthwise in half, the determined fire plunging into it like a battering ram. The dresser caught fire, then the curtains, and the bed.
“Eeeeeeeeeeh!!” they screamed in unison.
A lick of flame touched Nura’s pajamas and flashed upward to her curly brown hair.
Lauren was horrified. The person to whom she felt closest, after her father, was on fire, waving and jumping frantically, like a mechanical doll with an overcharged battery. Nura fought vainly to extinguish the flames with her hands, only to intensify the death struggle.
A wave of intense warmth traveled from somewhere deep in Lauren’s core to her head. With wide eyes of fright, she checked herself to see if the fire had now gotten to her. It hadn’t. Another force consumed her, fed by a rush of adrenaline.
Lauren grabbed a blanket and threw it over Nura. She then leapt at Nura, knocking her to the floor. Kneeling over her friend, Lauren beat the flames out with the blanket. With tears streaming down her face, Lauren drew on a might she theretofore had never experienced. She hefted Nura, wrapped mummy-like in the blanket, and flung her feet first against the window screen. Nura went flying out of the house, landing softly on a snow drift six feet below. Lauren dashed to the window and dove through it headfirst like a champion swimmer. As her body exited, the unsatiated flames whooshed out as if in chase. They lapped the clapboards above, setting that exterior side of the old house afire.
The American Dream became a vision straight out of hell. The little suburban house burned to the ground, the hopes and expectations of its murdered occupants turned to ash.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ferret got news of the Suleijmanovic’s immediately. CHASM’s Cleveland senior coordinator, Chaim Glassman, called him late that night. Adhering to security protocol, Glassman simply stated, “A Bosnian refugee’s home was firebombed this evening, Mr. Ferret. I thought the State Department might want to know. My name’s Glassman,” and he gave his number.
Ferret sat up in bed and froze. He clenched his teeth, and shut his eyes as hard as he could. Elbows bent, he tightened his fists at chest level and shook.
Lynette turned on her bed lamp. “Win! Win! What’s wrong? Win!” Tentatively, she reached out to touch him.
Ferret raised his head, still with his eyes shut tight, and continued to tremble.
“I’m calling Dr. Berman,” Lynette muttered frantically. As she reached for the phone, Ferret broke from his trance.
“No. Don’t. I’m fine.”
Fear and consternation marked her face. “Win, you aren’t fine. You’re not well at all. The medicine’s not working. And you’ve been under a lot of stress. Let’s see Dr. Berman.”
“I said NO!” With lightning motion, he grabbed the radio alarm clock and sent it hurling across the room where it smashed against the bedroom wall. Ferret darted from the bed like a raged beast let loose from its cage, and began pacing the room frenetically, as if in a panic search for an exit. His breathing was as if he’d just run the marathon. Sweat poured from his forehead.
Lynette froze in fea
r, her eyes unblinkingly wide, her mouth half open. She’d never seen her husband in such a state.
“You’re against me. All of you. I’m trapped,” he hissed. Ferret then raced out the door, went into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.
Sleepy-eyed Jeremy shuffled into his parents’ bedroom. Seeing his mother in tears, the five-year old went to her and quietly embraced her. “Mommy, don’t cry. I love you. What’s wrong with Daddy?”
Through her sobbing, Lynette said, “Oh, baby. Daddy’s not feeling well lately. Everything will be all right. Don’t fret, sweetie.” She ran her fingers through her boy’s blond hair and kissed him on the forehead.
Brothers William Winthrop III and Brandon appeared. “Mom, what’s with Pop?” the older boy said. “You guys having an argument?”
“I’m scared Mommy,” ten-year old Brandon blurted.
“Boys, there’s nothing to be scared about. It’s just that Dad…Dad’s been under a lot of pressure in his job lately. He—”
The bathroom door opened. Ferret put out the light. Re-entering the bedroom, he stopped in his tracks and just stared at his family. His hair and face were soaked with water.
“Win?” Lynette said cautiously. “Are you okay, honey?”
Ferret’s eyes focused briefly on her, then flitted about nervously. He went to his dresser and commenced to remove socks from the top drawer. “I’ve got to go to Cleveland first thing in the morning. Something’s come up. Uh…everybody get back to bed. Get back to sleep. You boys need to catch the bus early too.” His voice was flat and deliberate, as if he were reading a text.