by Glenn Meade
Sitting on the sand with Luka and her parents, having a picnic of fresh baked bread and cheese. Luka, giggling and tugging on her sleeve as he tried to nibble the top of her bread roll.
The memories comforted and stung.
She forced herself to shut them off before she felt completely overwhelmed.
Turning back, she wiped her eyes and pushed her way through the swarming backstreets.
• • •
She found Marco Polo in a small square facing a bubbling fountain.
Tables and chairs spilled out onto the pavement, the tables lit with flickering white candles set in small glasses. In one corner, artificial vines threaded through a wooden trellis to form a canopy.
Harried waiters passed her, until one eventually guided her to her table near the entrance. He handed her the wine list. “Zdravo!”
“Zdravo!” Hi. She understood that much.
She ordered a plate of spaghetti with pesto. When the waiter went away with her order she studied the restaurant.
She noticed a lean, balding man with bushy eyebrows, his shirt open to reveal too much chest hair. He was operating the cash register and seemed to be in charge, snapping his fingers at the waiters.
Carla waited until he passed her table.
“Excuse me, do you speak English?”
“Of course. I’m the manager, is everything all right?”
“I’m looking for Mr. Banda.”
“Mr. Banda isn’t here. May I help you?”
“Can you tell me where he is?”
“I’m afraid he doesn’t come down to the restaurant very often. Mr. Banda’s been ill for years.” He jerked his head toward some windows above the awning. “He’s upstairs in his room.”
“Will you do something for me?”
“Madam?”
Carla took a notebook from her purse. She wrote on a page, folded the paper.
“Could you give him this note and tell him I’d very much like to meet him?”
38
* * *
Ten minutes passed.
Carla’s gaze lingered on the rooms above the restaurant. She felt vague memories, as delicate as smoke, forming in her mind. Her father letting her make a colorful mess as she spread paints upon his canvas.
She and Luka helping her mother bake a cake, the air rich with the smell of dried fruit and spices.
The wispy memories vanished as her eyes shifted to an old man descending the restaurant stairs, the manager guiding him.
She remembered Mr. Banda the moment she set eyes on him.
When she was a child he looked old and craggy. Now he looked even older, his hair snow white, his back almost bent double.
He used a wooden cane to walk, his left arm stiff, as if he’d had a stroke, one leg dragging. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he nodded to a few patrons and stopped once, to kiss a woman’s hand. Then he shuffled over to Carla, escorted by the manager.
“This is the young lady, Mr. Banda.”
Hooded eyes under bushy eyebrows studied her. Carla thought Mr. Banda looked like one of the grumpy old men in the Muppets, his big lips turned down in a disapproving frown. He clutched her note.
“So you’re Lana and David’s daughter, Carla?” He spoke in Serbo-Croat.
Carla was certain she could understand, but said, “Could we speak in English, Mr. Banda? I’m afraid my memory of my mother’s language isn’t good. But I hope you remember me?”
Mr. Banda’s lips parted in a huge smile that lit up his face, and this time he answered in English.
“Remember you? This body may look old, but up here . . .” He tapped his temple with his finger as if he were knocking in a nail. “Up here, I’m still in fantastic shape, with the mind of a twenty-five-year-old. Of course I remember you. It’s good to meet you again, Carla, and after so long.”
He shook her hand warmly, patted it, and accepted her hug.
“It must be twenty years. You always looked so much like your mother. She was a beautiful person.”
He turned to the manager. “Wine, Philip. A good bottle, from the cellars.”
“Of course.”
The manager left.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here?”
“Whatever the reason, it’s wonderful to see you again. I loved your parents; they were always such good people.”
“Can you tell me a little about the time we lived here? About my mother and father back then?”
Resting one hand on the top of his cane, Mr. Banda nodded up toward the restaurant windows, a TV flickering behind one of them.
“They lived up there for over ten years. See that window? Do you remember that time?”
“Vaguely.”
“To me it only seems like yesterday. Your father used to sit over there and paint.” He pointed to the bubbling stone fountain across the square.
“Sometimes you’d sit on his knee and distract him. He pretended to be annoyed, but of course he loved it. He adored you. And Luka, too.”
He leaned closer on his cane. “Artists are supposed to be . . . how do you say? Raspet. Tormented, isn’t that so?”
“So they say.”
“But your father was always a happy man, who felt his life was complete. And why wouldn’t he? He had a wonderful wife, two beautiful children.”
Mr. Banda stared up at the windows, as if he were looking back into the past.
“Your mother came here to work and study. And sometimes she would help me improve my English in her spare time. She was barely a month here when she met your father. Your parents, they were blessed. They were so good for each other.”
“You think so?”
“Of that I’m certain. I often wondered what became of you all. Your parents promised to write after they left but as the weeks and months passed I heard nothing from them. I’m not complaining, of course; people have their lives to lead. You have an American accent, I think. You’re American now?”
“Yes.”
His eyes sparkled. “So, you all went to America after all. Good. Tell me all the news. How are your parents? Alive and well, I hope? Did they have more children? Where are they living in America?”
She paused, the words almost too difficult to speak. “They’re dead, Mr. Banda. My parents were killed during the war.”
The old man slumped back in his chair as if someone stabbed him, his shock instant. His mouth hung open, his face ashen. “No . . . not Lana and David. Please . . . no, it can’t be true?”
“We were trying to flee Sarajevo when we were rounded up. My father may have died in Omarska camp, but I can’t know for certain. My mother, Luka, and I were in a camp nearby.”
Spittle frothed at the corners of the old man’s mouth.
“May God forgive whoever harmed them. May God forgive their killers.” His eyes were wet and he took a paper tissue from his pocket, wiped them, then dabbed his mouth.
“My poor child, I’m so sorry. I loved them both. They were like a son and daughter to me. I often wondered why they never wrote, what became of them.”
His bony hand reached out and gripped Carla’s wrist. “You must tell me. Tell me what happened to David, and to my beautiful Lana. Tell me everything . . .”
• • •
Diners came and went. Glasses clinked, waiters scurried past, carrying steaming plates and dishes. Mr. Banda listened, in a daze, unaware of what has going on around him.
In the middle of it all the manager came with a bottle of wine and two glasses, and set them down. The wine remained untouched.
Carla told him as much as she needed to. Not everything, for that would have only complicated things, and what would be the point?
Mr. Banda’s mouth trembled.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say. I feel so distressed.” He wiped his eyes again. “It must have been dreadful for you. The camp, your parents’ deaths, and now this, returning to witness your mother’s remains.”
He placed both hands on his
cane.
“The evil people who kill and maim, they never think of families who have to deal with a lifetime of sorrow. They never think of anything, except hate. But what did hate ever achieve?”
He reached across, touched her hand. “You say you’ve learned that Luka may have survived?”
“Yes.”
“Dear God, I hope so.”
“I’ll do all I can to find him. Whatever it takes.”
“You poor child. And dear, innocent Luka. So many children lost parents, so many orphans. It’s many years since the war, yet still I see young men and women who lost entire families and they wander these streets like lost souls.”
His wrinkled hand kneaded hers. “If there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, you only have to ask.”
“Thank you.”
Streetlamps were coming on, glowing amber as the evening sun was dying.
“Please, come with me upstairs.” Mr. Banda went to rise, and Carla moved to help him.
“There’s something I want to show you. Something I think you ought to see.”
• • •
Mr. Banda shuffled into the apartment and switched on the light.
Carla looked around her, wandering into the rooms.
It all felt so familiar.
The double bed tucked into a corner. The blackened woodstove fringed by pale blue tiles. A varnished pine kitchen table that shone like polished glass.
Simple, clean, cozy. Comforting smells drifted up from the restaurant kitchen: garlic, olive oil, oregano and other spices.
Mr. Banda sat on one of the pine chairs. “You remember?”
“I . . . I’m not sure.”
“That same bed is where you were born. And remember Luka’s birth at the hospital? We thought he wouldn’t live. The young doctor who delivered him wasn’t long out of medical school.”
Mr. Banda smiled. “I think that night he wished he had settled for being a car mechanic, like his brother.”
Carla touched the stove’s blue tiles, ran her fingers over the glassy smoothness.
She closed her eyes tightly, and fought to remember.
Fragments seeped in.
Images of achingly wonderful memories.
Supper on Saturday evenings, of roast chicken and herb stuffing, her parents sharing a bottle of wine and talking and laughing across the shiny pine table.
Carla sitting on her father’s knee, listening rapt as he told her about America.
Other fragments came back to life, like ship’s flotsam bobbing to the surface. She recalled her mother, her sleeves rolled up, bent over a pile of ironing, steam rising as she pressed the clothes.
A winter’s night before Christmas, snow falling, the sound of church bells echoing through the old town, and she and her mother bathing a giggling Luka in a big old zinc bath by the stove.
And afterward, rocking Luka asleep in her arms, as he said sleepily, “Volim te, Carla.” I love you, Carla.
Twenty years were peeled away, as if they had never existed.
Overcome, she wanted to cry into her hands with such a terrible despair.
“I left everything as it was when we renovated the restaurant, just gave the walls a fresh coat of paint. But that’s not why I asked you here, Carla.”
Mr. Banda led her down a hallway to his own living room. It had the same blue-tiled stove, the same straw-color walls, decked with old family photos. A big TV was on, its sound muted.
He shuffled over to one of the walls, where a painting hung.
“See.”
Carla saw it was a portrait of her father’s, about the size of a briefcase.
A wonderful, colorful image, of all of them together on the beach, the old town walls in the background. Luka playing in the sand, his curly mop of hair the color of ink; Carla in a bathing costume, chubby with puppy fat; her mother wearing a pale blue summer frock, her hands on her hips in mock dismay as she looked at Carla’s father, who was scratching his head with frustration as he tried to unfold a wood-and-cloth deck chair.
The image made Carla smile.
It was a fun painting, lighthearted, in the style of a seaside postcard, an idyllic family moment frozen in time.
“Your father had me take a photograph of you all posing on the beach, then used it to paint this. I always thought he’d come back for it, because it’s such a personal portrait. I’ve treasured it, but of course it really belongs to you. I know your father would have wanted you to have it.”
“Mr. Banda, you don’t have to . . .”
“I insist. Where are you staying?”
“The Hotel Villa Dubrovnik.”
“Better still, give me your home address. I’ll have it properly wrapped and shipped to your home.”
“Thank you.”
She wrote out her address. He kissed his cheek. His bony hand gripped hers. “I wish you luck, Carla. I wish you all the luck finding Luka.”
39
* * *
“You’re the only credible witness to survive the Devil’s Hill camp. Are you aware of that, Mrs. Lane?”
The Renault strained up a mountain road, and Kelly added, “As far as we know all the other victims are dead, apart from Mrs. Dragovich.”
“And her mental state may not hold up in court.”
“Exactly. That’s why your testimony could be vital to any future prosecution.”
Kelly looked across. “I hate to say this, but your life could even be in danger. If any of the war criminals still at large who committed these terrible acts ever find out, they may want to kill you. You may have to become a protected witness. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I’m a lawyer.”
“A lawyer?”
“Try not to say it as if I’ve got leprosy, Mr. Kelly.”
“I . . . I wasn’t. I just wasn’t aware . . .”
“I’m kidding. Mocking my profession can be a habit of mine. I get what you’re saying. Mind if I open the window?”
“Not at all. Give the handle a good jerk.”
Carla jerked the handle and let in fresh air.
They left Dubrovnik far behind and drove up through rocky gorges and heavily wooded mountains, the air drenched with the smell of pine sap. She remembered that fragrance, as if it was ingrained in her.
They crossed the border from Croatia into Bosnia, and took several rest stops during the long drive. Kelly passed villages still gouged by bullet holes and artillery shells, and the remains of burned-out farms and houses.
“For all its exquisite scenery, this place has such a dark past, Mrs. Lane.”
“Do we drive near the Omarska camp?”
“Near enough. We pass it on the way to the site.”
“It’s where my father was imprisoned. I’d like to see it if you don’t mind.”
“You can’t get in.”
“Why not?”
“The camp was part of an iron ore mine that’s now owned by the Indian mining company, AcelorMittal, in partnership with the local government.”
“So?”
“There are memorials in most surrounding towns and villages but to this day none’s been erected to the victims who perished there. And they don’t exactly encourage visitors.”
“Why not?”
“The region is still predominantly Serb, and the local council would prefer to put that ugly part of their history behind them. As well as that, most of the old buildings where the prisoners were kept are torn down. But I can drive by, if that’s what you want.”
• • •
Carla felt her stomach tighten. The more miles the Renault ate up, the more apprehensive she grew.
When hours later they came around a bend she saw a large industrial mining complex—several large buildings, including an ore smelter.
Surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, security guards manned the gates.
“That’s Omarska. The mines are still being worked—despite the fact that it’s estimated thousands of bodies are still missing. We only fo
und several hundred.”
“Tell me.”
“Many had been starved or shot to death, or dead from ill health. They say it was as bad as Auschwitz.”
“What happened to all the others?”
“I’ve no doubt most of them are buried in the huge mounds of spoil heaps scattered around the mines.”
Carla saw hills of old mining debris sprinkled around the landscape. She thought about her father and how he must have suffered. Was he buried here, somewhere in the mounds of debris?
She felt a violent shiver. The prospect was too terrible to contemplate.
“Will you take me to see the Devil’s Hill?”
“Are you really sure you want to do that?”
“It’s the last thing I want to do, believe me.”
“Then why do what you’re dreading?”
“Because I feel compelled to.”
“Okay, but first we’ll see the site where the bodies were found. After that, if you still feel up to it I’ll take you there.”
40
* * *
Kelly slowed and turned the Renault onto a forest track.
“We found the bodies buried at the end of this track, in a field beside the woods. The team’s still working there.”
He stopped in a clearing. Several cars and four-wheel drives were parked there.
The terrain looked familiar to Carla.
Hilly woods on one side, a valley on the other. A couple of miles down the valley she could just make out a clump of gray concrete buildings. She felt a thudding sensation, as if someone were pounding her chest with a hammer.
“The Devil’s Hill?”
“Yes. It occurred to me that while you were there you must have known the dreaded Mila Shavik.”
“Yes, I met him.”
“They’ve never managed to find him, even after all these years. Of course, he could be dead by now. I’ve heard rumors to that effect.”
“He’s not dead, Mr. Kelly.”
“You sound very certain of that.”
“I’ve no doubt he’s still in hiding, like so many of the others who scurried away like cowardly rats.”
They stepped out of the Renault.