Including friends from school, there were over twenty guests in attendance. As the party continued on past sunset into the cloudless late-spring evening, brother and sister conspired to keep their mother occupied in conversation with the guests while seamlessly taking over all the responsibilities of hosting. Glass of wine in hand, Margaret sat chatting outside by the bonfire Amir had started on the patio’s open barbeque pit and kept ablaze throughout the evening. At one point during a lull in conversation, Margaret looked out across the group to gaze at her two children. Amir and Jadranka stood next to each other, conversing with Alice and Paul, her two granddaughters dancing between them in play. Seeing them like that, she felt a sudden stab of completeness both wonderful and frightening in the depth of its emotion. On the one hand, there was a sensation of perfect harmony, as if there were nothing lacking in her life. And on the other was the feeling of a thing brought to the end of its use—time having both fulfilled her and made her obsolete.
Turning her gaze upward, Margaret glanced into the night sky, past the flickering of the fire’s flames, to see the light of the stars arcing in slow, perfect paths. Her eyes suddenly caught the swift stroke of a burning meteor marking the black night with a thin line of blazing light. The meteor was like a human life, she thought, no more than a tick of the heavens’ clock. She flinched at the idea, the image of a trailing flame streaking across her mind like a frightening portent of a thing to come. Was it her end she saw? Shaking her head, she lowered her gaze back to earth and saw her son looking in her direction. For a brief moment she saw the child he’d once been, the young, deaf-mute boy watching her in silence. Yet the once-timid smile had disappeared to be replaced by one that now suffered no fear in declaring its existence. She marveled at how he had grown and matured—how much his presence in her life had meant to her. He would be gone for only a few short weeks, but Margaret felt that his departure marked some greater milestone than even this return to his homeland. There was the sense of a cycle reaching its conclusion, of a door closing. Smiling back at her son, she pushed the feeling to the side. In two days’ time he would be gone, and she wanted to take in as much of him now, in the moment, as she could.
Chapter 30
It wasn’t until he arrived at the airport, received his boarding pass, and checked his bags that Amir began to feel the full weight of the emotional journey he was about to undertake. As the plane taxied for takeoff, he felt a brief moment of panic that his mind blamed on a fear of flying. Yet it was a phobia he had never suffered. Sitting across the aisle from them was a young boy. An image of himself at that age, alone on a plane on his way to a strange and far-off destination, suddenly arose from its place of memory. His body tensed. He felt a comforting hand reach over and take his, Jadranka’s touch calming his anxiety.
Later, as the plane carried him thousands of feet above the ground, Amir felt the tension leave his body, and he began to relax. Looking out from their small bubble of isolation, he stared out at the clouds and the ocean below.
When they reached continental Europe, he felt almost as though he was sitting high up in a tree, gazing down at the forest floor. From his window seat he could see towns and cities, small villages, and empty, desolate places, each with its own story to be told. A thousand tales of happiness, a thousand tales of sorrow. His own was, he knew, just one of many.
He and Jadranka changed planes in Munich and soon found themselves on the approach to Sarajevo, flying in and out of cloud cover that partially obscured the broad swipe of valley cradled by mountains.
“Look,” Jadranka pointed out excitedly, “Mount Igman.”
She’d spoken in Bosnian, something she’d done more of recently to help Amir prepare for his return, his ability to speak his native language having atrophied in the many years of his absence.
“Yes, I remember its name from school. And the river running through the city is Miljacka, right?” Amir answered in the same language.
“Ah, you were a very good student to remember it,” Jadranka teased.
“Not so good really. I’m cheating. I just finished reading about it in the airline magazine,” he said. “In the English-language section,” he added, smiling.
During the landing Amir stared out the window, wondering silently what it would be like to be home. When they disembarked from the plane he let out a deep breath and took Jadranka’s hand as they walked to the terminal. She continued to talk to him in their native language while he replied in English, the task of concentrating on his once-native tongue at the moment too trying for his mind. At Customs and Immigration they got in line together, the airport small and basic, with no separate division for national or foreign travelers. Jadranka passed through immigration first, Amir proceeding to the counter immediately after her.
Though Jadranka and Amir were separated by no great distance, the two young lovers threw glances in each other’s direction, smiling and making eye contact as Amir handed over his US passport to be stamped. The immigration officer, though, seemed in no hurry to complete the process, thumbing through all of the document’s pages and slowly typing into the antiquated computer in front of him. Jadranka became alarmed when the agent signaled Amir to step aside and wait, to let the next person in line move forward. A minute later a uniformed immigration official arrived, followed by a man dressed in suit and tie. Together they examined Amir’s passport, the man dressed in civilian clothes rubbing its pages as one might a paper currency to check the authenticity of its material.
As Jadranka saw the two men begin to lead Amir away, her concern grew. Hurrying in their direction, she addressed Amir, asking him what was going on. Amir answered in English that he wasn’t sure. The plainclothes agent spoke up then, saying that there was no need to worry, that they just needed to check Amir’s passport. It would likely be only a few minutes’ delay, he assured her. But his assurances soon proved false, as Jadranka, after having met up with her mother and sister in the lobby, waited anxiously for Amir to appear.
When the immigration officers had taken him with them and sat him down at a table in the middle of their office, Amir had been told it was to validate the authenticity of his passport. But the nature of the questions pertaining to the document’s origins and his acquisition of it quickly took a different direction, the tone of the interrogation changing from cordial to hostile. The issue of the passport possibly being a forged document soon showed itself to have been a pretext: the true reason for Amir’s detention was that his name had appeared in the databanks of an international terrorist watch list.
It had happened during the investigation of Zakariyya Ashrawi, subsequent to his arrest, at the time the FBI had interviewed everyone connected to him. The names of all of those linked to what were deemed the professor’s activities in support of terrorism were passed along to the CIA’s antiterrorism unit. Acting merely on a hunch, the unit’s leader decided to put Amir’s name on the watch list. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations were using the Internet to disseminate their communications between themselves and the public with ever-increasing frequency. Those communications often included video files. They had to be getting technical help from somewhere, the director reasoned.
The uniformed official who escorted Amir to the immigration office had him sit to the side of his desk and then went about other business. His suited colleague, meanwhile, went into an adjacent room where he picked up a phone and placed a call to the CIA station chief in Sarajevo. He was told the American official was on vacation and was put through to the deputy chief, a junior officer who grew excited at the prospect of finding himself at the center of a possible counterterrorism coup.
“What do you want us to do with him?” the Bosnian asked.
“Just hold him until I get back to you,” the American answered.
“How long?” the suited immigration official asked, not anxious to sit around all afternoon waiting for the Americans to decide what they wanted to do.
“I don’t know,” the deputy chief
hedged. “I have to check some things out.”
“Look, we can find out where he’s staying and you can pick it up from there later.”
“No, don’t let him go under any circumstances,” the American said. “I’m going to arrange for your people to pick him up for us. It won’t take long. Just keep asking him questions. You know the drill. I’ll get back to you soon.”
After he placed the phone back on its cradle, the immigration agent returned to the room where his compatriot held Amir. Before sitting down to join them at the desk, he took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. It was then that Amir realized something was amiss, that there wasn’t going to be any five-minute solution to the question of his passport’s authenticity. The suited official began to ask him questions, at first simple ones: How long did he plan to stay in the country? Where was he staying? What were his travel plans inside of Bosnia? After a time, however, the questions changed to ones about his political and religious ties, and what groups and organizations he belonged to…the tone of the interrogation going from formal but courteous to brusque and combative.
The questions the man asked were confusing to Amir and he grew frightened by the accusatory tone with which they were being spoken. Amir asked to speak to someone from the US embassy. His questioner just laughed, saying he had already placed the call.
The questioning left off when the agent was called into another room to take a phone call. A half hour later, the plainclothes agent returned and handed Amir his passport along with a release form, telling him that as soon as he signed the paper he was free to leave. Relieved, and anxious to be reunited with Jadranka, Amir quickly signed the document. The agent told him to follow him and after walking through what seemed a maze of corridors they came to a door with a wired window looking to the outside. Amir breathed a final sigh of relief as the agent opened it, stepped aside, and indicated his exit with a sweep of his arm.
Amir had come out onto what seemed to be some sort of cargo-loading area and was confused not to see any sign of a pathway leading to the passenger terminal. It took him a moment to realize that two men, who had been leaning up against a car some twenty yards away, were now walking his way, their eyes fixed directly on him. Both were wearing jeans; one wore a leather jacket over his t-shirt, and the other wore a light zip-up coat over a collared shirt that hung untucked outside of his pants.
“You’re to come with us,” the one with the leather jacket announced.
“Are you from the embassy?” Amir asked defensively, though he knew by their accent and clothing they weren’t American.
The two smiled at him in a way that was ominous and frightening.
“Come on,” the man wearing the nylon coat stated curtly, his hand reaching out and taking Amir’s arm in a painful grip.
“Wait,” Amir said, trying to think of a way to buy time. “My suitcase. I have to get my suitcase.”
By that time they had reached the car. Both men ignored the boy’s plea to retrieve his luggage, as if they hadn’t heard him speak it.
“Get in,” the man with the leather jacket said, opening the back door. He forced Amir in while the other man went around to the other side to slide in next to him.
“Who are you?” Amir asked, now seriously frightened. “Are you the police?”
“Keep your mouth closed,” the driver growled. “Don’t ask questions.”
Amir was about to protest, but the face of the man sitting to his side halted his words. There was a look in his eyes that he’d seen before. It made his head feel light, his face and hands begin to sweat, and his stomach go queasy. Amir turned and stared out the window, remaining silent and wondering where they were taking him. He soon saw that they were driving away from the city center and he became both confused and frightened. After about fifteen minutes the car pulled up to a motel that sat on the edge of an industrial area on the outskirts of the city. Any momentary hope that he might have felt by their arrival at a place of lodging rather than a prison or police station was quickly lost to the fact that the place seemed to be almost deserted.
Jadranka had grown frantic. Her attempts to talk with any senior customs officer had been brushed aside by their gatekeepers. Her mother and sister tried to console her and tell her everything would turn out OK. Yet their words were unconvincing and rang hollow. Tired of waiting, Jadranka camped out in front of the Immigration office door and began to accost whoever left with questions about Amir’s status. It wasn’t long before she was told to go home or she would be arrested for disturbing the peace.
“What?” she had responded incredulously. “You’ll what? Arrest me? For what?”
She had spoken loudly in reply to the agent who seemed taken aback by the force of her words. The timbre of her voice was filled with anger and drew the attention of several passersby, who stopped to watch.
“Who do you bastards think you are?” she shouted. “Milošević? Do you think you can do whatever you want without answering to anyone?”
The agent, who wanted to react in anger, held himself in check, not only because people were stopping to see what was going on, but even more because the girl’s words struck him like a knife, piercing the membrane of officiousness that clothed his identity.
“Look,” he said, “just show a little patience, that is all. I’ll ask inside, and I’m sure it will all be resolved in a while.”
“No, no more patience,” Jadranka continued in yet louder voice. “I’ve been waiting for almost three hours. Either you have your chief come talk to me now and tell me the reason for holding my friend or I’m going to call the police.”
The agent responded by laughing at the idea that she would call the police, but at the same time he sensed a clear danger in it. The crowd of people gathered about now numbered nearly a dozen. A few had asked Jadranka’s mother and sister what was going on and, having heard the story, began to talk with others, looking toward the agent with disapproving eyes.
“What seems to be the problem here?” a man dressed in suit and tie asked, stepping out from the office.
Jadranka recognized him as one of the men who had detained Amir at the immigration line.
“Where is my friend? What have you done with him?”
“Why, I don’t know where your friend is,” the man smiled, displaying an expression of mild confusion. “He was released some time ago. Look, I have the release form he signed before he left. Perhaps you missed him coming out while you were waiting here. He’s probably wandering around the terminal right now looking for you.”
Jadranka took the paper the man proffered and quickly scanned the signature, recognizing it as Amir’s. She didn’t trust the man, but there was nothing she could do other than hand back the paper and rush to the arrival gate, hoping to find Amir.
It was early afternoon when Margaret received Jadranka’s phone call, the first of what would turn out to be many. His mother had asked that Amir call when he arrived, to let her know his trip had gone well. But it was Jadranka’s, not Amir’s, voice on the line, and the tone of her greeting immediately boded ill and was quickly confirmed by what Jadranka had called to ask.
“Has Amir called?”
“What?” his mother asked, confused. “No. Why do—?”
“I can’t find him,” Jadranka interrupted, her voice breaking down. “I don’t know where he is. They had him in Immigration, and they said they let him go, and now I can’t find him.”
“Wait, please,” Margaret said, suddenly feeling a chill run up the back of her neck. “Slow down. I don’t understand.”
Jadranka began to sob. It had been her only hope….Amir, unable to find her, might have called his mother as the most logical link to leave a message through which he and Jadranka could connect. Yes, she was sure he would have called his mother. He wouldn’t just be wandering aimlessly about Sarajevo looking for her.
When Margaret had finally gotten all of the details straight, she tried to reassure Jadranka that everything
would soon resolve itself, something she herself was not in the least sure of. Her mind had spoken the words in attempt to overcome the numbing sensation that had swept over her. It took her some minutes afterward to gather her thoughts, and even then the only thing she could think to do was to call Alice.
Chapter 31
When Amir protested, saying he wouldn’t enter the motel room, they shoved him inside. He yelled that they had no right to hold him and demanded that they bring him to the police station, where he would have access to a lawyer or his embassy. Their answer was a strike to his midsection, doubling him over in pain. Then began the endless hours of interrogations.
Upon returning from vacation, the first order of business for the CIA station chief was getting up to date on the capture of the terrorist suspect. He said little while the deputy chief briefed him on the affair.
“And what have our local friends come up with? Anything of interest?” the chief asked, his tone neutral and noncommittal.
“Yes, here’s a copy of a statement the suspect signed implicating himself in a broad range of support of terrorist organizations, including Al-Qaeda. It seems Fellini Junior has been involved in more than just making antiwar movies for college liberals. That’s his code name, by the way, Fellini Junior.”
“Hmmm,” the station chief said, taking the paper handed him by his deputy. “Quite the clever tag. Did you come up with that one yourself?”
“No,” the junior officer replied, “someone at headquarters did.”
The station chief sat in silence, reading the detainee’s statement and looking over the file several more times, until his deputy began to fidget. The “confession” wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. It was broad, unspecific, and basically said nothing other than “I’m guilty.” The chief had no illusions as to how “their friends” in the Bosnian intelligence agency had obtained it. The older agent sat measuring his response. He already knew, of course, what it would be. But it eased his conscience to feel as though he had considered the alternatives. These days, if you even sneezed to your left, you’d be labeled unpatriotic. He closed the file in front of him, looked at his deputy, nodded his head, and then went on to other business.
The Solace of Trees Page 30