Braco

by Lesleyanne Ryan

  “I can’t take any more,” the peacekeeper shouted to Atif’s mother in English. “Tell them to move her.”

  Atif studied the peacekeeper’s shaded features.

  Is that Jac? No. Can’t be.

  His peacekeeper friend was at the observation post near Jaglici, a village north of Potocari.

  But is he still there?

  Atif’s mother darted into the crowd in search of the men. She returned alone and shook her head at the driver. Another blue helmet appeared from the passenger window and shouted directions. The wheels of the truck cut to the right until they squealed and it edged its way around the stretcher. People shuffled aside as the tires crushed gravel along the shoulder. The truck veered back onto the pavement and kept going. The woman remained on the door in the middle of the road.

  “Keep moving, Atif,” his mother said. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  She placed her hands on his shoulders and steered him forward. He glanced back, watching the crowd swallow up the woman.

  “Why isn’t anyone helping her?”

  His mother said nothing. Tihana pulled Atif forward. People ran after the truck and tried to climb on board. They were pushed back down. Someone loosened the straps on the vinyl tarp and part of it collapsed. People on top scrambled forward or clung to the side, fighting others for space. Some fell among those inside the truck. One was pushed off the truck. Women on the road begged the occupants to take their children. One woman threw her infant into the back of the truck and it was thrown back. An old man collapsed on the road. A peacekeeper pushed a woman in a wheelbarrow. A cow trotted free. Gunfire echoed in the hills.

  It’s happening too fast. Too fast.

  Atif squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to wake up warm in his own bed back on the farm. Instead, Dani looked at him with wide blue eyes. Ramo waved. Jovan laughed. His father kissed him on the forehead and walked off into the fog. Atif shook the images from his mind.

  Don’t think about it.

  He opened his eyes and looked at his sister. She licked her lips.

  He had to take care of his family now. That’s what his father would have wanted.

  Atif tugged on his mother’s arm.

  “Maybe we should stop for a few minutes. I think Tihana wants some water.”

  Ina looked back at them and then pointed to the side of the road. They moved out of the sweltering throng and took refuge next to a vandalized VW that hadn’t moved in three years.

  Atif pulled one of the bottles from his pack and passed it around. He used his shirt to wipe his face and then surveyed the area. They were close to Potocari where roadside homes outnumbered farms. People ransacked the line of houses across the street, throwing mattresses and furniture from the second-story balconies. At the white house directly across from Atif, a man pushed a table over the edge of the balcony, flattening a row of tended yellow roses lining the front wall. Men entered the houses empty handed and left carrying sacks.

  Atif looked to his left and spotted the turnoff to Susnjari and Jaglici, villages seven kilometres to the north. The road was jammed with people.

  Why are they walking away from the Dutch camp?

  Potocari and the Dutch camp lay less than a kilometer away on the main road to the east. Atif stood up and studied the scene. Men were hugging their wives and children and then turning north. Teenage boys were joining their fathers and brothers. No women followed.

  “Where are they going, Mama?” he asked, pointing towards the road.

  His mother turned to look.

  “They’re going through the woods,” Ina said. Her eyes flicked towards his mother. “They’re probably walking to Zepa or Tuzla.”

  If you were smart, you’d follow the men.

  The soldier’s warning flashed across Atif’s mind.

  “Should I be going with them?” he asked his mother.

  “No. You’re too young.”

  Atif clenched his teeth and looked away.

  I’m always too young.

  “We should get going,” Ina said.

  Atif stuffed the bottle into his pack, took Tihana’s hand, and followed Ina into the crowd. They approached the turnoff and weaved around people stopped in the middle of the road. A man had his arms around his wife; both were crying. A woman passed a baby to her husband to hold. An old man was arguing with his wife. Bosnian soldiers made the turn without stopping. A teenage boy kissed his mother and then walked away with his father.

  “Why are the boys going?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Atif.”

  “But they don’t look more than sixteen.”

  “Enough, Atif,” his mother said. “You can’t go with them. You’ll be safe with us.”

  Atif ushered Tihana forward. He looked back, watching the men and boys walk away. His documents said he was only fourteen, but people always said he looked older. Tihana wrapped an arm around his thigh and squeezed.

  “It’ll be okay, Tihana,” he said. “Those boys probably don’t have any identification to prove they’re too young to fight.”

  He only hoped that mattered.

  The crowd closed in and Atif draped an arm over Tihana’s shoulder, pulling her close. He felt his mother’s hand on his arm. The pace slowed.

  “What’s going on?”

  Ina glanced back. “The Dutch have two trucks on the road. They’re funneling us between them.”

  Atif strained to look over Ina’s shoulder. A peacekeeper stood on one of the vehicles, coaxing the crowd forward.

  “Stay together,” he shouted. “Follow directions to the base.”

  They passed through the funnel and found they had more room. People moved quickly towards the Dutch base. Atif hadn’t seen Potocari by daylight in three years; he looked for familiar landmarks. The Energoinvest building came into view on his left, windows smashed but otherwise intact. People sat along the edge of the parking lot. The long narrow zinc factory was next with the bus depot on the opposite side of the road. Wrecked buses grew out of the tall grass in front of the building. Peacekeepers blocked the main road, directing everyone towards the depot.

  “Can’t we go to Bratunac?” a woman asked. The Serb town lay only a few kilometres up the road on the Serbian border.

  “Too dangerous,” the peacekeeper said. “Just stay together.”

  The crowd slowed as they moved past a factory that used to produce brake shoes before the war. Pockmarks marred the concrete facade. Part of the roof hung over the edge of the building, threatening to fall.

  Ina looked back.

  “Do you hear it?”

  Women shouted. Children cried. Peacekeepers gave orders.

  “What is it?” his mother asked.

  “It sounds like they’re going through the fence.”

  Atif turned an ear forward and concentrated until he heard the familiar rattle of a chain-link fence.

  “So, we’re going inside.” The load on Atif’s shoulders lightened. He squeezed Tihana with one arm. “We’ll be safe in there.”

  She nodded, holding the toy soldier close to her chest.

  The crowd turned right and skirted along the fence towards the opening. Atif looked inside. The Dutch base was on the site of an old battery factory. A four-story building shaped like a cube dominated the centre of the camp; there was a large guard bunker on top of it. A wooden sign hung from the side of the building with the word Dutchbat painted in blue.

  As they moved closer to the opening, the pace slowed to a shuffle. With every step, people jockeyed for a position as far forward as they could manage.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” Atif whispered to himself.

  The column narrowed and the space around Atif shrank. He kept Tihana in front. Gulping in the superheated air, he considered picking her up.
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br />   Then the crowd stopped. People in front shouted.

  “What is it?” he asked Ina as she stood on her toes.

  The fence rattled. Atif picked up Tihana and pressed against the metal links. The Dutch manipulated the chain link section they had cut, rolling it back and securing the hole they had opened, using wire to tie the ends together.

  “Why have you stopped?” his mother shouted to one of the peacekeepers in English. “Why can’t we get inside?”

  Women collapsed on the ground crying. Children screamed. An old man shook his fist at the Dutch and spit. The peacekeeper turned, his eyes shadowed by his Kevlar helmet.

  “We can’t take any more inside.” He crushed a half-smoked cigarette under his boot. “The building is full.”

  Atif searched the faces of the peacekeepers inside the fence, but he recognized none of them.

  “We don’t need to go into the building,” his mother said.

  Other women echoed her words in several languages.

  “There’s more than enough room inside the fence,” she said. “We’ll sit on the ground. Please. You have to let us inside.”

  “I can’t,” the peacekeeper said, raising his hands, palms out. “The Serbs said they’d shell the compound if we took refugees inside. If we left you all outside in the open, they will see you and one shell would be disastrous. Do you understand that?”

  “We’ll take the chance.”

  “I’m sorry. I have my orders.”

  “Then go get whoever gave you those orders. Let me speak to him.”

  The crowd shouted the same message. A rock sailed over Atif’s head, rebounded against the fence, and struck the woman behind him. She grasped her head and staggered away.

  A man appeared from one of the buildings and approached the fence. He stopped to talk with the peacekeepers. He wore a blue helmet, but there were civilian clothes underneath his flak vest. Atif tapped his mother on the shoulder and pointed.

  “Translator. Maybe he can do something.”

  The translator turned towards the crowd. “We are opening up the factories down the street,” he told them in Bosnian. “You can go there.”

  “We won’t be safe there,” someone said from behind.

  “The base will be extended to include the factories,” the translator said, stepping forward. “The Dutch will be there. They will try to find some food and water for you. They will provide medical attention. A clinic will be set up at the bus depot.”

  “Why so far?” a man asked. He pointed to the factory behind them. “Why can’t we stay in that building?”

  The translator spoke to one of the peacekeepers.

  “The building is full of asbestos. It’s piled everywhere inside. It will make you sick. Go to the other factories. The Dutch will secure the area.”

  “We should go,” Atif whispered to his mother. “Now. Before the factories fill up.”

  “Go back the way you came,” the translator said. “Don’t go near the main gate. The Chetniks can see that side of the camp.”

  The refugees drifted away from the fence.

  “He’s right,” Ina said.

  She wrapped her arms around her daughters and turned. His mother’s features softened and she nodded. Atif dropped Tihana on her feet and they followed Ina into the crowd. Tihana stopped and sat down on the ground. People bumped into them and tripped.

  “She’s tired,” Ina told Atif.

  “We need to get to the factory,” he said. “Before it fills up.”

  “We’ll worry about that when we get there,” his mother said. She directed them to the brake factory wall and then bent down to untie the rope around Tihana’s waist. “I’ll carry her.”

  Atif untied his end of the rope first and let it drop.

  “No, it’s okay, Mama. I’ll carry her.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I don’t mind. She can sit on my shoulders.”

  His mother hesitated then nodded.

  “Okay.”

  Ina passed around a cup of water from the green container. After they drank, his mother picked up Tihana and swung her up and over Atif’s head, positioning her half on his shoulders, half on his pack. Atif grunted from the extra weight and fought to keep his knees from giving out. Tihana wrapped her hands around Atif’s head, her nails digging into his skull. The toy soldier dug the tip of its machine gun into his temple.

  “Are you okay?” Ina asked.

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  They rejoined the crowd, trudging through the narrow gap between the brake factory and other buildings. Atif held his sister’s hand to keep the toy soldier from impaling his eyes. Her fingernails found his stitches. Sweat dribbled into his eyes. He could see nothing, plodding behind Ina and the twins. A Dutch voice called out, shepherding the crowd towards the zinc factory. People dropped out of the line, sitting on the road or the grass.

  “Almost there,” Ina said.

  They reached a door which kept opening and closing, making a high-pitched squeal. Next to it, a larger door hung open. They stepped through the open door and shuffled to the right. As his eyes adjusted, Atif made out a choppy sea of bobbing heads belonging to people who occupied the long, narrow factory floor. Some were moving upstairs into the offices. Dust filled the air; it was like standing in a hot oven.

  Could there be asbestos here too?

  “We might be better off outside,” Atif said.

  “By the buses,” Ina replied. “It’s shelter at least and won’t be as crowded.”

  They turned around and fought against the tide. When they got back outside, Ina led them across the street to the side of a wrecked bus partially tipped on one side. They settled down against it, out of the sun. Atif laid Tihana in the tall grass. She went to sleep, the toy soldier nestled under her chin.

  Atif leaned against the fender of the bus. People were claiming every open patch of ground, placing blankets, plastic, and cardboard on the grass or pavement.

  “What do we do now?”

  His mother rolled up a blanket and placed it under Tihana’s head.

  “We wait.”

  Atif didn’t want to wait. He wanted answers.

  Why only two planes? Why did the men go into the woods? What are they going to do with us?

  He stared at his backpack, remembering the young journalist who had ridden into Srebrenica with the first convoy three years earlier.

  “I want to show the world what’s happening here,” the Western journalist had said in flawless Bosnian. “They need to see that you don’t have a lot of food. If they see that, they won’t be happy about it and they’ll send food.”

  Atif stared up at the young man, whose eyes were hidden behind sunglasses.

  “How can I do anything about that?”

  “You’re pretty skinny. Let me take your picture. The rest of Europe will be angry to learn that you’re not getting enough to eat.”

  “But I’ve always been skinny.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ll have to ask my father.”

  “That’s fine. Perhaps I can take a picture of your family.”

  “My little sister, too?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Atif had stared at the journalist’s backpack, chewing on his lip. The pack had a gold embroidered emblem with three words underneath.

  “University of….”

  “Manitoba.” The journalist crouched down and let Atif take a closer look. “I went there for a few years.”

  “Where is Manitoba?”

  “In Canada. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Manitoba is a province in the middle of Canada. I was born there, but I live in Toronto now.”

 
“But how come you speak our language?”

  “My grandparents emigrated from Croatia to Great Britain before the Second World War and then they went to Manitoba during the war. My grandmother never learned English, so I had to learn her language.”

  Atif smiled, staring at the pack again. He liked the gold embroidery.

  “Do you want it?”

  “What?”

  “Consider it a gift, for letting me take your picture.”

  The journalist opened the pack and transferred most of the contents to his camera bag. Atif took the bag and looked inside.

  “I left some treats in there,” the journalist said. “You can share them with your sister.”

  “Any cigarettes?”

  “Aren’t you a little young to be smoking?”

  “I don’t smoke them. I trade them. For food and stuff.”

  “Oh. Right. Hold on a moment.”

  The journalist had gone to his truck and returned with a white plastic container the size of a cigarette pack. When he opened it, there were twelve cigarettes and a lighter inside.

  Atif stuffed the container into the bag. “Thanks.”

  Later, he had traded the lighter for a pound of salt. The cigarettes had bought meat and a winter jacket for Tihana. His father agreed to the pictures, standing silently to one side as the journalist snapped shots of his son wearing only a pair of shorts.

  The journalist asked him to suck in his stomach each time he took a photo. Atif didn’t like doing that.

  He stared at the road leading to the Dutch base and wondered if there were any journalists there now.

  Do they know what’s happening? Do they care?

  TUESDAY: MICHAEL SAKIC

  MIKE GROANED AND rolled his head into the pillow trying to silence the thumping between his ears. He wondered if he had any Aspirin left but didn’t have the energy to open his eyes to look.

  “Never again.”

  The pounding came from outside now and his name came with it. He tilted his head.