“The refugees are in the mine,” said Alex darkly.
“In the tunnels?”
“No, in the factory.”
“But who are they, exactly, these refugees?”
Maud realized that up to now she had made do with the vaguest of notions. She was not the only one. As soon as she joined the association, she was struck by how abstract this humanitarian work seemed. There was talk of geopolitics, the situation of the armies in the field, or what was at stake strategically, but in the end the people they were supposed to be helping remained virtual. The people they called “victims,” or when they were talking about aid, “beneficiaries”: they were unreal, and nobody seemed to want to put a face on them. The worst of it was that up until now, this had suited her fine. She needed to help someone and it was enough to know that, somewhere, there were people who needed her help. But this feeling was more about her than about them. She told herself it was an almost childlike desire.
“There are roughly five hundred of them. Women, children, old people. The men are elsewhere, probably fighting.”
Alex’s tone, full of melancholy, showed her that for him, on the contrary, the refugees were made of flesh and blood, they were people he knew, whom he had observed as they went about their lives. Remembering them seemed to stir his emotions, or maybe even something more.
“How did they get there?”
“Most of them are people who lived in the surrounding area. When the war began, the Croats, who were in the majority in the region, burned the houses of anyone belonging to another religion. The Serbs left for the Serbian zone, the Muslims for the Muslim zone. But some of them, particularly those who were of mixed origins, couldn’t flee to a safe area. So they took refuge in the mine.”
“Hold on, I’m trying to grasp this. There’s this mine, and peacekeepers protecting the refugees, and all around there are Croatian paramilitaries—is that it?”
“Exactly. The mine consists of a hill and factories, all surrounded by barbed wire. On one side there are the refugees and on the other, sometimes only a few meters away, are the people who drove them out and who are just waiting for us to leave to finish them off.”
“Great atmosphere.”
“It’s hatred in its purest form. The worst of it is that these people were neighbors before the war. They’d been living together for centuries. And for us, they’re exactly the same people. They speak the same language, they look the same, they wear the same clothes—except the refugees have lost everything and they look more wretched.”
Maud looked at Alex and was surprised to see how emotional he had become. Up to then she had shared the other aid workers’ prejudice regarding soldiers, and she’d thought they were brutes without a conscience. Now at least this one was turning out to be more sensitive and more humane than many of those who made it their job to relieve the sorrows of the world.
“Were you in contact with them? Did you get to know them personally?”
Alex shot her a quick look and seemed to hesitate.
“Very well.”
Maud sensed he wanted to say a bit more.
“You made friends among them?”
The young man gave a faint smile. He kept a firm grip on the steering wheel, which vibrated as they drove uphill, and he compensated for the sudden jolts and swerves caused by the ruts in the road. Now he waited a long time before he answered.
“I met a girl there.”
“A refugee?”
“Yes.”
Maud felt glad and even a bit proud that she had brought this little secret to light. She knew she had touched on something vital, which explained better than anything why Alex had signed up. And at the same time she felt a slight inner twinge of disappointment.
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen.”
“What’s her name?”
“Bouba. She’s in the mine with her two little brothers and her parents. They had to flee after a fire destroyed their house.”
“How did it work: could she live with you? Were you able to be together?”
“No. The refugees aren’t allowed in the UN camps. I went to see her in her oven.”
“In her oven!”
“Yes, she was one of those who had settled in the big coal ovens. Since the plant isn’t working, the ovens are empty. They have big cast-iron doors. Inside it’s warmer than outside. It’s not very comfortable, obviously, but at night there’s no wind and they can build a fire for cooking.”
He spoke passionately, as if it was a sudden relief to have told his secret, and now he could speak about the woman he loved. But very quickly his face clouded over.
“It would be better if you don’t mention this to Marc.”
“Does he have a girlfriend there, too?”
“No.”
“Okay, I won’t say anything. But why would it matter if he knew?”
“He does know. But I would rather he didn’t find out we’ve been talking about it.”
He seemed absent once again. Maud remained silent. They didn’t talk any more in the hours that followed. But it was first time since leaving France that she’d had something of a personal conversation with a member of the team, and she felt less lonely.
4
It was just past noon when the lead truck suddenly broke down. The convoy was coming out of a long climb, and the engines had overheated. When they reached level ground, the radiator emptied out with a hissing sound. Thick white smoke billowed from under the hood. Vauthier’s hour of glory had come.
He was the only one who didn’t have a truck driver’s license, but he’d been hired for his skill as a mechanic. He was passionate about motorcycles. He boasted that he had won several races on a 250cc. After a bad fall he was no longer fit for competition. Even if he wasn’t a specialist in diesel engines, he knew enough to assume the role of mission mechanic.
He lifted the hood and leaned over the engine. The others waited nearby, smoking. Only Marc kept to one side, sitting on the fender of the other truck. When they started out he’d made a few remarks about what poor condition the vehicles were in, and he predicted that the engines would not make it to the end.
Vauthier quickly located what was wrong.
“The radiator hose blew.”
He took some wrenches out of a toolbox and a few minutes later held up the defective part. It was a rubber sleeve that must have been black once upon a time, but over the years it had turned gray and was full of cracks. One of the cracks had widened, probably due to the overheating, and the water had leaked out.
“What do we do?” asked Lionel, who could not hide his concern.
They had stopped in the middle of the countryside. A glacial wind from the high plateau was driving a fine rain. Enormous crows had landed in the surrounding fields.
“We could wrap it up with some insulating tape, but it won’t hold for long.”
“Would it be enough to make it to the next village?”
“I don’t know. We can try.”
Vauthier fashioned a sleeve with adhesive tape all around the hose, then put it back. He filled the cooling system and the truck started up. They climbed into their cabs and slowly set off. The repair job got them two kilometers along the way, and when they saw the first houses of a village emerge out of the fog they began to regain hope. Unfortunately, there was another long hill to climb. They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when the hose blew again.
“This time we’ll have to change the part,” said Vauthier. Since the breakdown he’d been sitting in the front to listen for the engine’s reactions.
“Is it easy to find?”
“If they have tractors, they must have radiator hose. Even if it’s not quite the same diameter, we can try and finagle something.”
They stepped outside again and Vauthier scrambled under the truck.
“I’ll try and see if there’s another solution, but it would surprise me. In the meanwhile someone should go and check out the village. Maybe there’s a garage, or at least some sort of repair shop for farm machinery.”
Lionel said he would see to it.
“I’ll go with you,” said Maud.
She’d been wanting to stretch her legs for several days now. In France she went jogging every morning. She was finding it difficult to stay shut up inside a truck all the livelong day.
“If you want. The rest of you, wait here with Vauthier.”
There was nothing nearby other than the village in the distance. But they were still in a war zone. It would be better not to leave the trucks unattended.
Lionel didn’t like walking, she could tell. He always held himself slightly stooped, and in spite of his long legs he couldn’t keep up with Maud.
“Hey, slow down, there’s no rush.”
Reluctantly, she slowed her pace. If it were up to her, she would have run. Her Nike shoes were comfortable, the fresh air was a tonic. She liked the cottony silence of the countryside, and the earthy smell of ploughed fields.
“How’s it going with Alex?”
“He’s nice.”
“You think so?”
“All it takes is to speak kindly to him and not treat him like a soldier.”
Lionel shrugged. He’d made up his mind, and she wasn’t about to make him change it that easily.
“Can I ask you something?” said Maud.
She had become resigned to shuffling along at her companion’s pace.
“Go ahead.”
“Why are we going to Kakanj, when that’s the very place where Marc and Alex served as peacekeepers with the UN? Is it a coincidence?”
“No.”
“So what’s the connection?”
Lionel took out an old Kleenex and slowed to wipe his forehead. In spite of the cold temperature, walking had warmed him up.
“When your friend Alex came to La Tête d’Or, it was in response to an ad for truck drivers for Sarajevo.”
“Yes, that’s the one I saw in Le Dauphiné.”
“Exactly. Except that we were beginning to run into difficulties. You know the mission is funded with European money?”
“Vaguely.”
Lionel was always pleased when he could demonstrate he was not a volunteer like the others, but someone in charge, who knew how the system worked. When they had been together at headquarters, Maud had noticed he was always particularly delighted to give her this sort of lesson.
“In Brussels,” he continued, looking important, “they decided there was too much aid going to Sarajevo and not enough for the rest of Bosnia. They asked us to come up with another destination.”
They had reached the first houses but the actual village was much farther away. They saw it in the hollow of the valley below them. Lionel was disappointed but at least now the road went downhill.
“To make a long story short: it would mean sending a mission to scout for a new site. And that would also mean a waste of time and money.”
“I see. So that’s when Alex told you about Kakanj.”
“You’re a smart girl.”
Maud had despised others for less. Two or three years ago she would have slapped him. But she had decided not to let it annoy her anymore. She kept silent and clenched her teeth.
“He told us about some refugees who are in the coal mine, and we found out that they were in desperate need.”
“Did he tell you about the ovens, too?”
“The ovens? What ovens?”
She gathered he didn’t know about Bouba. She decided not to say anything. A little point for her.
“Apparently there are refugees living in the factory’s abandoned ovens.”
“Oh.”
The image, which had made such an impression on her, meant nothing to Lionel. He didn’t care how they lived, the people he was going to help. The only thing that mattered to him, and to the others behind their computers at headquarters, was to find “beneficiaries,” thanks to whom the association could get European Union money, and the humanitarian machine could go on turning.
They had reached the entrance to what was a fairly sizeable farming village, smelling of barns and manure. Fences tufted with hen’s feathers lined the gardens along the road. In the middle of the village there was a fork in the road, and Lionel didn’t seem to know which way to go.
“Have you been here before?”
“No, when I went to Sarajevo, we took another road. I’ve never set foot here.”
There was no one about. They didn’t know whether it was because of the war, because it was cold, or simply because people were having lunch. The emptiness created a paradoxical impression of both peace and menace. They turned right in the direction of a big barn. Inside it they saw farm machinery, ancient but apparently still functioning. Next to the barn was a squat house, and the lights were on. They knocked on the door. A tall peasant woman opened it, wearing a flowered apron. She had a handsome, angular face, with blue eyes and short hair. There was a strength to her femininity that Maud liked. And it amused her to see how Lionel seemed to shrink before her, almost pleading.
“Pomoć. Francuska. Francuski. Truck kaput!” he muttered, waving his bit of broken hose ridiculously.
Initially the woman gave him a stern look then turned around and called to someone in the house. An old man joined them at the door. He must have been taller and stronger than her once upon a time, but the years had shrunken him and his clothes were too big. He had an enormous gray moustache and bushy eyebrows hid his little eyes, which were gray, too.
Lionel started over with his explanations and the man took hold of the hose. He looked at it attentively then went into the house without closing the door. A moment later he came back out. He had changed his slippers for rubber boots. He walked gingerly across the courtyard, and motioned to the two strangers to follow him.
They went into the barn; it smelled of dry grain and motor oil. All the way at the back the man opened a storeroom and rummaged in an open chest that was filled to the brim with spare parts and bits of metal. He couldn’t find what he was looking for, came back, out and went over to a workbench splattered with grease spots, where an enormous tail vise was fixed. Under the bench there were some rusty drums that must have dated from the first world war. Lionel looked at Maud and raised his eyebrows. He had lost all hope the old man might find something useful in all that junk.
“In Africa, it’s the same thing,” he said, sure he would not be understood. “They lead you around the garden for an hour rather than admit they don’t have what you’re looking for.”
With his gnarled hands the man was taking sundry objects out of the drums, holding them up to the sunlight, for he must have had poor eyesight, then lining them up on the workbench. Before long the countertop looked like a display at a flea market, and Lionel sniggered to himself.
“You wonder why they keep all this crap.”
Maud motioned to him to be quiet.
“Maybe he understands . . . ”
“Ha! No danger of that.”
Suddenly the old peasant became excited. He had his back to them, and Maud could not see what he had found. When he turned around, she saw he was holding a piece of rubber hose, longer than their broken hose but roughly the same diameter.
“Voilà!” he shouted, in French, his face lit up by a broad smile.
Lionel took hold of the part with a stunned look on his face that delighted Maud. Another point for her!
“Do you speak French, Monsieur?” she asked.
The old man cupped his hand around his ear and she repeated her question, more loudly.
“A little, a little,” he replied, with a strong accent.
“You’ve been to France?”
He was as deaf as a post and she had to shout again.
“War,” he said, fumbling for words. “Against Nazis. France, friends. Me, soldier.”
Their exchange did not go much further. Indignantly, he refused the money Lionel offered him, and Maud thanked him with a big smile.
They headed back to the trucks, holding their precious trophy.
“Good thing he was deaf,” she said to Lionel, who was again puffing and laboring up the hill.
When they reached the convoy they found the three men sitting silently around a fire. Vauthier was grilling sausages and the flames turned yellow whenever they licked the fat. Lionel held out his lucky find, and Vauthier seemed pleased.
“A bit wide,” he said, “but if we tighten the clamps it should work.”
He wiped his hands on an old rag and went straight back to work on the engine.
Less than an hour later the truck was repaired. They had a quick lunch and the two former soldiers packed away the cooking utensils.
Lionel wanted to leave again right away, but Vauthier sat on the embankment by the side of the road and gestured to him to come over.
“Wait for a while,” he said firmly. “The hose is repaired but I’m the one who’s in need of repair just now. Let’s smoke a little joint.”
It was not at all like Vauthier to come out with something like that. He was a beer drinker, after all. There must be something wrong.
“We’re coming,” shouted Lionel to the others, who were already climbing into the cabs. “Warm up the engines.”
Maud was in the truck with Alex and she told him about their visit to the village.
Checkpoint Page 4