The Last Witness

by Glenn Meade

  Alma reflected. “We heard the sound of trucks starting up outside and moving off. The children started to get even more upset, realizing their mothers were on board.”

  “And Luka?”

  “He was inconsolable. He just wanted his mother and you. That’s when we all heard the noise.”

  “What noise?

  “Someone approaching. I heard boots march down the corridor. My heart was in my mouth with fear.”

  Carla shivered. She could hear that sound, too.

  Alma said, “That’s when Luka really started to cry. He was distraught, trying to get out of the dark closet.”

  Carla stiffened, felt her stomach heave.

  Alma went on, “I heard the footsteps getting closer. I had to restrain Luka to keep him quiet. To put my hand over the poor child’s mouth, and tell the other children to be silent.”

  Alma nervously brushed away a strand of hair. “There were bullet holes in the closet wall. Some of them looked out onto the corridor. I peered out and saw Shavik. He had a pistol in his hand. He was opening doors along the corridor, checking inside. He looked livid. As if he was searching for us.”

  “What . . . what did he do?”

  “The shelling started up again. Shavik was getting more agitated, and fired his pistol in the air. He was opening doors faster, as if he was anxious to find us. He fired his pistol into the ceiling a few times, as if he was enraged. That only made the children worse.”

  Alma paused. “Then the shelling suddenly collapsed part of the hallway roof.”

  “And?”

  “I heard more shooting, lots of it, off in the distance. I thought Shavik would find us and finish us off, but he ran out of the building, like a coward. Then I heard a vehicle drive off.”

  Alma looked at her.

  “I told the children to wait while I went to see if Shavik and his men were gone. Luka was still crying. He was terribly distressed, trying to force his way out of the closet.

  “I told the eldest boy to hold on to him while I squeezed out to take a look. I’d gone about twenty yards down the hall when I thought I heard Luka behind me, as if he’d escaped.”

  “Did he?”

  “I couldn’t tell. As I turned back to check another shell hit farther along the hall. There was a huge explosion, dust and rubble everywhere. I woke up two days later with internal bleeding in a temporary hospital somewhere in the mountains. I was lucky to be alive.”

  “What . . . what about Luka?”

  “I asked a nun who was tending to me in the hospital. She told me they had a number of child patients who’d been brought from different camps. All were being treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit. I begged her to take me to see them.”

  Alma paused. “One of the children I saw was a badly injured little boy. He was heavily bandaged.”

  Carla waited, silent, for Alma to fill the void.

  “I think it was Luka.”

  “Why do you think the boy was Luka?”

  “He looked the same age, the same build.”

  “Is that all?”

  “He had the same color hair. And when I called out his name, he definitely reacted. Though he seemed half comatose, not fully conscious. The nurse said he’d suffered shrapnel injuries but was expected to live.”

  “Did you tell anyone about the children hiding in the storeroom?”

  “I told one of the senior nurses.”

  “Did they send someone to search the building?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Surely they must have checked?”

  “I’m sure they did once the camp was overrun.”

  “Didn’t you see the boy again to make sure it was Luka?”

  “No, I never got the chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was so overcrowded they moved me to a proper hospital.”

  Out in the driveway she heard Larry’s van return, and the engine switched off.

  Moments later the key was turned in the hall door. Footsteps sounded, the door into the front room was open a few inches.

  Alma reached out and squeezed her hand. “Your mama was such a good woman. I’m so sorry you never saw her again. It was a terrible time. Even those who survived the torture and rapes in other camps were never right afterward.”

  Alma tapped a finger to her temple. “Never right up here. Do you know what I mean?”

  Carla looked into Alma’s face.

  The old woman’s eyes misted, as if she was still grappling with terrifying images from her memory.

  “Alma, I need you to be very sure that the boy you saw in the hospital was Luka.”

  Carla waited, let her words sink in. “Can you be sure, Alma? Can you be sure that it was definitely him?”

  Alma looked in a trance, as if she was staring into the past again. The pause seemed endless. Finally, she met her stare.

  “Yes, I’m positive it was Luka. I’m certain I saw him alive.”

  26

  * * *

  “Did you and my mom have a good talk?”

  Larry walked her to the end of the driveway, hands stuck in his work jeans.

  He said something, but Carla barely listened. Alma’s words still rang in her ears: Yes, I’m positive it was Luka. I’m certain I saw him alive.

  It was a blinding ray of hope. Her heart soared.

  Luka, where are you now?

  Would you remember me?

  “I . . . I’m sorry?”

  “You and my mom, did you have a good talk?”

  “Yes, yes, thank you.”

  “The door was open a crack when I got back. I heard my mom talking about someone named Luka.”

  “My younger brother.”

  “Yeah?”

  She told Larry.

  “So you lost your family, too. That’s really tough.”

  “When I learned your mom was alive, I hoped she might be able to help me.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That she saw my brother. That he was alive. It’s given me such hope.”

  Carla could hardly contain her excitement.

  Larry chewed on his lower lip a moment. “You did well to get my mom to talk. Usually she clams up if someone brings up the war.”

  “I can understand.”

  “Even if she does talk about it, she’s not right for days afterward. She probably won’t sleep tonight. She’ll have nightmares about the camp.”

  “Larry, I’m so sorry, forgive me. But I desperately needed her help.”

  “How were you to know? What will you do about your brother?”

  “Check with the refugee agencies, for a start. My grandparents went that route in the past, without success. Maybe I’ll have better luck.”

  “How old was your brother back then?”

  “Four.”

  Larry halted on the driveway, rested a palm on the back of his van, and jerked his chin back toward his house. “I was living here with my uncle when the ethnic cleansing started. Soon as I saw all the news reports I called my family and begged them all to get the heck out of there. But things turned sour pretty quickly. Only my mom survived.”

  “Yes, Alma told me. I’m so sorry.”

  “My young brother, Dario, was a week away from his fourteenth birthday. They executed him and my father soon after they were separated from my mom and sister. Dario was a tall boy for his age, so they put him with the men. Emila was only eighteen. God only knows what she went through before they killed her.”

  Anguish braided his voice. “Dozens more of our relatives died at Srebrenica.”

  He looked at Carla. “Before the war, you know, we lived peacefully with our neighbors. Nobody bothered anyone. Religious or ethnic differences really didn’t matter. Kids played together. Adults socialized. We sang together, danced together, went to weddings and funerals together.”

  He took a deep breath, let it out. “Then that evil slimeball, Milosevic, turns the clock back centuries by churning up hatred, and by s
caremongering. He pitted friends against friends, neighbors against neighbors. All because he was afraid of losing power.”

  He paused, touched Carla’s arm. “You, know, I saw Ratko Mladic on TV when he was on trial for killing those eight thousand men and boys at Srebrenica. He was smirking at the camera, denying he was responsible for a single civilian death. Then he mocks the living and the dead by making a throat-cutting gesture at the victims’ relatives who were in court.”

  Larry let out a deep sigh. “What kind of men can kill children like that, I ask you? May that beast rot in hell. Him and all the other butchers like him.”

  They reached the driveway’s end. Larry halted, his eyes filling with emotion.

  What kind of men could kill children like that? Carla had no answer. Except one. The kind of men she wanted to find—and destroy.

  She touched his arm. “Thanks for letting me meet your mom. I hope it doesn’t upset her too much.”

  Larry wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “That’s why I wanted to walk out with you.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My mom may seem rational at times but really she’s not.”

  “She—she seemed pretty clearheaded to me.”

  “It seems that way often enough but really her mind’s gone.”

  Larry blinked a couple of times, and looked kind of lost. “The war totally messed up her head. She imagines things, you see. Hears voices. There’s an old saying in our part of the world—when the wind blows, the dead whisper your name. You ever hear that saying?”

  “No.”

  “It’s like that way with my mom, only all the time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She has these imagined conversations with my father and sister and brother every night. Talks to them like they’re still alive, in the next room. She hears their voices, you see. Really believes they’re here, in the house. You can’t convince her otherwise.”

  Larry took a deep breath, let it out in a frustrated sigh. “The docs say it’s not unusual when you’ve suffered massive trauma the way she did, that your mind gets messed up. The pre-dementia doesn’t help either.”

  “She has pre-dementia?”

  “That’s what the doc says. She’s supposed to take her meds, because they can help stop the voices in her head, but most times she won’t take them. I’m guessing that she likes the voices. They comfort her, if that makes sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyway, my wife will tell you the same—Mom’s lost her marbles. She doesn’t know what the heck she’s saying half the time. She’ll tell you things she only imagines, but in her mind she believes they’re true.”

  “But . . . she seemed certain she saw Luka.”

  “She’s certain she sees lots of things. Last week she was certain she saw my father in the frozen food aisles in Walmart and insisted we go look for him.”

  Larry met Carla’s stare. “So whatever my mom tells you, really you need to take it with a grain of salt.”

  27

  * * *

  NEW YORK

  Driving home, in the silence of the car, Carla felt like weeping.

  Had Alma only imagined seeing Luka at the hospital all those years ago?

  Was Larry right? Was his mother’s mind no longer sound? Alma seemed sound of mind, but Larry’s words threw her. As much as her spirits soared just a short while ago, they sank now, down a deep well of despair.

  And a disturbing thought upset her—of her brother trapped in that tiny airless closet, with no food and water, his body wasting away until he perished. It was too much to bear.

  She felt so distracted that she had to pull over. Coasting onto a suburban street, she halted at the curb, her engine running.

  “No!”

  She screamed out her disappointment, slamming the steering wheel with her fists until her knuckles bleached. She buried her face in her arms, her optimism completely shattered.

  As she sat there, not moving, she felt overcome. It took her a few minutes to get a grip of herself.

  When she did, she wiped her eyes and turned back on her cell. Moments later it beeped twice.

  It was a missed call from Jan’s brother, with a voice mail.

  “Carla, it’s Paul. I’m in town and I need to meet up. It’s really urgent. Can you call me when you get this?”

  She didn’t feel like talking but Paul had said it was urgent. She sat upright, wiping her face with a tissue, and punched in his number. It rang out and Paul’s voice message kicked in.

  “Hi, I’m busy right now but please leave your name and number and I’ll get back.”

  “Paul, it’s Carla. Call me again when you get a chance.”

  She sat there for several minutes more, gripping the steering wheel with bitter disappointment. And yet it was strange, because she still felt a glimmer of hope.

  She told herself: there’s always a chance that Alma really did see Luka. That her memory of that day wasn’t fogged by a disturbed mind.

  She tried to perk up.

  Wasn’t a tiny glimmer of something better than the cold certainty of nothing?

  And with that thought she pulled out from the curb.

  • • •

  When she got home she made a fresh pot of coffee and sat at her study desk in front of her laptop.

  She still had no idea about how she would go about finding Mila Shavik.

  On the desk in front of her lay Baize’s envelope stuffed with photographs. Carla spread out the images on the desk: it still seared her heart to look at her parents’ and Luka’s faces.

  In several of the snapshots of Dan and Baize, her grandfather was in uniform.

  Carla thought: If he was alive he would have known how to go about hunting down a war criminal like Shavik.

  In some of the photographs her grandfather posed with his special forces comrades. One of them stood out—Ronnie Kilgore was a dark-haired young sergeant in his early twenties with an easy smile.

  She remembered him as an occasional visitor to her grandparents’ home when they lived near Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Carla recalled a vague kind of teenage crush on him, until one day she overheard Baize say that Ronnie Kilgore was getting married.

  And then a thought struck her and sent her pulse racing.

  • • •

  She found the cardboard storage box in the attic.

  After her grandfather’s death she had helped Baize go through his personal belongings. Baize insisted she take some of Dan’s things to remember him by.

  Carla kept a pair of his reading glasses, a few service medals, and one of the many photograph albums with snapshots taken of Dan in various battle zones around the world: Panama, Grenada, Desert Storm.

  But what she remembered most was the handful of letters she kept.

  There were so many Baize stacked them in several thick piles. A bunch were from Dan’s former army buddies, men he’d served with who wrote condolence letters.

  She found the one she was looking for among a wad of envelopes held together with a thick rubber band.

  The letter wasn’t written on plain paper like the others but had a logo in blue ink at the top of the page: an image of a motorboat plowing through waves.

  Dear Mrs. Joran,

  I just wanted to write and say how honored I was to serve with Dan.

  He was a wonderful, humane man—one of the finest officers I’ve ever known—and he’ll be sorely missed by his friends and comrades. As you know, I had the honor to serve under your husband for over ten years, and I was also proud to call him a close personal friend.

  There were many occasions in battle when I owed my life to Dan, as did so many of our comrades, and we’re forever grateful to him.

  Please know that your husband will always be in the hearts and prayers of those who knew, admired, and loved him. If there’s ever any way I can help, don’t hesitate to contact me.

  My deepest sympathies.

  It was signed Ronnie Kilgore, the writing firm and
bold.

  The headed paper had a phone number and the address was Kilgore’s Union County Marina, Union County, Tennessee.

  She dialed the number. A woman’s chirpy southern voice answered.

  “Kilgore’s Marina.”

  “I’d like to speak with Ronnie, please.”

  “Ronnie’s not here. He’ll be back tomorrow. Can I say who’s calling?”

  “No . . . no, it’s fine. I’ll call again. Thank you.”

  She ended the call. She didn’t really know what she was going to say to the man. All she knew was that a vague plan was forming in the back of her head, one that might help her find Mila Shavik.

  Her cell chirped. It was Paul.

  “Carla? Sorry I missed your call. But I’m in Manhattan on short notice to meet a corporate client. Any chance we could meet?”

  “What’s so important?”

  “I’d prefer not to talk about it over the phone.”

  “Why?”

  “What I have to say would be better face-to-face.”

  “Now you have me worried.”

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to. Are you by any chance free for an early dinner, or a drink?”

  “How early?”

  “Five p.m. Do you know Fitzer’s on Lexington Avenue?”

  “It is that important?”

  “You bet.”

  28

  * * *

  NEW YORK

  Carla arrived just before five.

  Fitzer’s was already busy, and she spotted Paul alone at a private booth. He stood when he saw her, and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Thanks for coming. What’ll you have to drink, Carla?”

  “A seltzer, please.”

  The waiter came and Paul ordered her seltzer and another Scotch on the rocks for himself. When the waiter left, Paul sipped his drink. He was a little flushed, as if he’d already had a couple, and he looked uncomfortable.

  “So, what’s this about, Paul?”

  “I guess I ought to start by saying I’m aware that you know Baize confided about your past to me.”