We finally find Sejo and Edita and their two kids, Elvira and Dino, in a tiny curtained-off space on the third floor. It seems like they’re all sharing one twin bed. Mom hugs and kisses Edita, overjoyed to see someone from Brčko. Dad offers the juice and cookies we’ve brought, our meager housewarming gift.
“Did you see Kenan’s story in the paper?” Mom asks, pulling it from her purse.
“Yes! Look, we bought it too.” Edita pulls out her copy. “He was always a good artist. I remember.”
“You’re lucky Ahmet found those people to help you,” Sejo tells us. “We’re stuck here indefinitely.”
“We can hear everyone breathe,” adds Edita.
I realize how privileged we are to be living in a nice private home, even a temporary tiny one.
* * *
The next Saturday, Mom wants us out so she can scrub the floors. Eldin, Dad, and I go back to visit Sejo, Edita, Elvira, and Dino. When we return early that evening, we find Mom outside the apartment, screaming at a police officer.
“You can’t do this to us!” she yells in Bosnian, which he doesn’t understand. “I can’t handle this anymore! They threw us out of Brčko, and now they’re kicking us out of here too?” I’ve never seen Mom so freaked out.
Two workers in overalls gesture at each other in confusion. The couch, beds, dressers, and our bags have been thrown out onto the sidewalk. We rush over to Mom, not understanding what’s happened. Are we being driven from Vienna?
Dad’s trying to speak with the officer in German, and Eldin goes to call the Raths from a pay phone. I stand by Mom, trying to comfort her. After a few tense moments my brother comes back. “Nobody’s throwing us out,” he tells us. “It was a mistake.”
After speaking to the officer and workers in German, Eldin translates what’s going on into Bosnian for us. The workmen accidentally came to the wrong apartment. They were supposed to evict the tenants right above us, on the third floor, who didn’t pay their rent. The policeman radios back to his precinct and confirms this, then apologizes to us and leaves.
Eldin and Dad carry our belongings back inside, but Mom still sits on the sidewalk, sobbing.
“I was all alone when the men stormed in,” she says. “One had a gun in his holster.”
My mother has kept her calm all this time, even after losing Dad and Eldin, while we were forced to flee. She has always made sure we were fed and clean. But I can see the weight of it all is breaking her. She grew up a popular, pretty girl in a nice family, the youngest of three kids, protected by her older brother, Ahmet, her sweet sister, Bisera, her mom and dad. She lived in the same house for eighteen years, until she married Dad and moved ten minutes away. Before the war, they’d never had an enemy or been treated badly.
I sit down next to her on the concrete. “Mom, it was just a dumb slip-up. There’s no war here,” I tell her, patting her back. “Nobody’s going to hurt us or throw us out.”
“I’m just so tired of being degraded,” she says, weeping.
I am too. It sucks having no money, no jobs, no home of our own. Dad and Eldin return to haul the couch back up the two flights of steep stairs. I stay with Mom, on the sidewalk.
“I can’t handle being a nomad, moving from one place to the other,” she goes on. “I hate not knowing how long we can stay anywhere. I’m afraid to unpack.”
Even after we’ve resettled in the apartment, she cries all night. She turns the lights off and we use a candle, like we did in Brčko. I don’t understand why she wants to be in the dark now that we have electricity. I wish I could take away her sadness, but I don’t know how.
“We should go stay in the refugee camp with the rest of our people, where we belong,” Mom keeps repeating.
I don’t know if we belong anywhere anymore.
Seventeen
July–October 1993
“Are we going to stay in Vienna until we can go home?” I ask my brother.
“We don’t have a home anymore, kid,” he says.
“Then where will we go?” I’m frustrated that after six months in Vienna, we’re still in limbo. School is finished for the year, and our time in this apartment is about to run out—it’s been rented for July, so we have two weeks to find a new place to live.
Eldin just shrugs.
We can’t go back to living with Uncle Ahmet. I fear we’ll be forced into the crowded refugee camp. Worse, I’m afraid we’ll be sent back to Bosnia while the war is still raging. Dad says we could be deported if we don’t keep applying for updated short-term visas every three months. And from Eldin’s radio, we hear the war is getting worse. Even if it ends, he says, we could be sent back to a hostile land with no home to return to.
We’ve gone from being a well-liked, successful family to beggars praying for somebody to take us in. It feels beyond humiliating to be poor and homeless, dependent on people we barely know for a roof over our heads. Whenever someone looks like they feel sorry for us, I want to shout, My mother’s really an office manager at a fancy clothing company, and Dad’s the owner of the best gym in town!
Mom still thinks we should go to the refugee camp, to be with Sejo and Edita and their kids. But a week before we have to move out, Mrs. Rath asks us to meet with her son-in-law, a guy named Siegfried. He’s a businessman in his thirties, with pale blue eyes, red hair, and red eyelashes. He takes us to a pastry shop, where I get an apple turnover and juice.
“My wife, Theres, is a nurse. We have two little kids, and we work all day,” Siegfried says as we all sit together at a little table. “Would you consider moving into our spare room in exchange for babysitting? For as long as you can? You’d be doing us a favor.”
My parents agree. He seems nice, and he pays for my pastry, so I’m in.
* * *
We move to our fourth Vienna home in seven months. Our secondhand beds, sofa, and dressers are left behind. Siegfried’s family lives in the heart of the city, next to a big cathedral, in a second-floor apartment with high ceilings and chandeliers. In their extra bedroom, we share two twin beds, me and Mom in one, Dad and Eldin in the other.
Once again, I don’t drink water before bedtime because I’m afraid I’ll wake everyone up if I have to go to the bathroom down the hall. My mother tosses around in our bed, mumbling in her sleep. Dad’s snoring gets worse. It’s hard to get rest here, in yet another place not big enough for two families.
Siegfried and Theres both leave for work at eight a.m. I stay out of their way in the morning, surfacing only after they’re gone. I’m getting used to making myself scarce.
Mom babysits their two little redheaded boys all day and on weekend nights if they go out to dinner. Jacob is two, and Moritz is three. They have elaborate toys and a lot of miniature cars. I play cops with Moritz and give Jacob piggyback rides, pretending I’m an ambulance driver soaring across the Bosnian war fields to save our soldiers. They’re sweet, well-behaved kids, and I love playing with them. Their smiles and giggles bring joy to Mom as they keep hugging and kissing her.
But I can never really relax or act natural here. Mom doesn’t want to get their kitchen dirty, so we mostly eat soup and sandwiches, while she nervously cleans up every crumb. Soon I’m sick of not being able to touch anything, make a mess, or sit on any of their nice furniture. It’s like I’m a guest visiting my own life.
* * *
Dad and Eldin get jobs working as gardeners at the Raths’ neighbor’s estate, cutting the hedges and trimming the roses.
“Hey, it turns out the guy we work for is an ambassador,” Dad tells me one day.
“Really?” I’m amazed.
“I think all the rich Viennese people must know each other,” Eldin says.
Since my parents can’t get Austrian work visas, they apply for permanent residence in several different countries. The ambassador helps them get an appointment with an immigration official.
Two weeks later we’re called to the United States Embassy for an interview. That morning, I comb my hair unti
l my scalp stings and pull my cleanest jeans and denim jacket from my duffle bag.
“Make sure to call the diplomat ‘sir.’ Give him a firm handshake, and let us do the talking,” Dad instructs us on the subway ride there. Nobody in my family is fluent in English, but Eldin did ace his high school English classes and Dad studied it in college. I try to remember my lessons with Huso’s dad.
“We’ll tell you everything he’s saying,” Dad promises Mom and me.
The diplomat leads us into his office, where a picture of U.S. president Bill Clinton hangs next to the American flag. He’s tall and slim, with dirty blond hair and a blue suit. He speaks slowly, wanting to know exactly what happened to us. Dad answers in English, and Eldin translates for me and Mom.
“Do you know who put you in the concentration camp in June?” he asks. He names prisoners and guards who were at Luka with Dad and Eldin. I’m stunned by how much this guy already knows.
“Yes. Miran,” my father says.
“He was the teacher who was in charge? When was this?” The diplomat is taking notes.
“Over a year ago. June sixteenth,” Eldin answers quickly. It’s a date he can never forget.
“Do you know anyone they hurt or killed?” the diplomat asks.
“Yes, my college friend Anto,” Dad says, adding quietly, “and they attacked his wife, Ruža.” Eldin doesn’t translate that last part, but I understand it anyway.
Mom shows the diplomat Dad’s and Eldin’s release papers from Luka, and the form signed by her and Good Miran, transferring all our property to the government. She keeps the documents in her purse, next to the silver key to the Bosnian home that’s no longer ours.
Inspecting the pages, the diplomat raises his pale eyebrows, nodding. He asks if he can keep our papers as evidence. I get the feeling he knows all about Mr. Miran and is trying to make a case against him.
Still, I’m scared to trust this guy, and my legs are fidgety. I stay quiet and try not to shake. If we flunk this meeting, maybe nobody will accept us. Then we’ll be stuck living here in Vienna, where we’re not wanted.
I watch as Mom hands over the documents. She looks pleased by the possibility that Mr. Miran and his circle of murdering Serbs could be convicted. Then it seems that the interview is over. With a thin smile the diplomat says, “Good luck,” and he stands up.
Dad shakes his hand. “Thank you very much.”
“Thank you, sir,” I repeat in English.
“Think he’s a CIA agent?” Eldin asks once we’re out on the street.
Dad nods. “Seems like it, the way he interrogated us. Or maybe FBI?”
I hope he’s a secret agent, though he doesn’t look anything like James Bond. I like thinking I’m part of an international conspiracy.
* * *
One day Eldin and I climb a steep, spiraling staircase to get to the top of the cathedral next door to Siegfried and Theres’s place. I’m out of breath and claustrophobic as we reach the top, but it’s worth the steps to be able to look out and see all of Vienna. I’ve never seen so many high wavy mountains before. It’s breathtaking.
We have fun with Siegfried on the weekends. He shows up with McDonald’s french fries and cheeseburgers for us. I love the fries, so salty and greasy. But I miss eating my favorite beef burek.
Siegfried kicks around a mini fudbal with me, Jacob, and Moritz. Watching their joyful young family reminds me how great we had it growing up. Like always, I try to be grateful that we’re out of danger. But I still feel a big hole inside me where happy times used to be. I miss boating with my uncle, Majka’s apple strudel, playing fudbal with my friends—even the smell of Dad’s gym.
People escaping the war are still pouring in and out of Vienna every day. We go to the bus and train stations with letters addressed to Majka Emina, Aunt Bisera, and my cousins, hoping someone going back might agree to hand-deliver our news to our relatives. We search the crowds for old friends and ask anyone speaking Bosnian to give us updates on the fighting back home. I keep waiting to hear that the Serb army has fallen and we can go home.
* * *
When school starts again in September, Mom says I don’t have to go. I think we all know we won’t be in Vienna much longer. Sure enough, one day in late October my father and Eldin come home from their gardening job with an official-looking letter.
“We have incredible news,” Dad says. My heart leaps, sure the war is over and everything can go back to normal at last. Then Dad shouts, “The United States is taking us. They said yes!”
“We’re crossing the pond!” Eldin sings.
I wish I could be excited too. But we don’t know any Americans. And the U.S. is so far away.
“Where will we live? What jobs will you be able to get there without any connections? We don’t even speak English well!” I burst out. I just want to go home to Brčko, sleep in my own bed, and play with my marbles and G.I. Joe. I secretly pray that before we have to leave, the U.S. will rush in with marines to bomb the bad guys out of my country, like in The Dirty Dozen, Dad’s favorite film.
“Kenji, it’s okay,” Dad says, putting his arm around me. “America has good schools. You’ll get the best education.”
“We’ll be nobodies in the USA,” Mom adds, “so you and Eldin can be somebodies one day.”
Eighteen
October 1993
We spend the next couple of weeks preparing to move yet again. We visit Sejo and Edita and their kids at the crowded refugee camp one last time, say goodbye to Fadil and his family and to my cousins and Aunt Maksida and Uncle Ahmet.
When Dad writes to Truly to tell him where we’re going, he wires us three hundred dollars in American bills. The U.S. consulate sends plane tickets to my parents, one for each of us. A few nights before our departure date, my mother cooks a big Bosnian feast of minced beef, rice, and potatoes for the Raths as a way to thank them for all their help.
Everyone’s thrilled we’re going to America. Not me. I feel lost. All I know about the United States is from TV. They play baseball and hockey and a dangerous fudbal I’ll never try. They have stores that are as big as sports arenas. The guys Eldin’s age drive fast convertibles, surf, and hang out with pretty blond girls in bikinis on the beach, like Jennie Garth on the show Beverly Hills, 90210. I have a huge crush on her.
But without good English, a car, or money, I know I won’t fit in.
Mom worries too. “Where will we be? In a village? The mountains?” she asks Dad. “Will they stick us in a dirty refugee camp? Will we have our own place or live in somebody else’s house? Can you find out?”
The diplomat at the consulate tells my father only “Connecticut.” We’ve never heard of any place called Connecticut.
“Can’t we at least go to New York or Beverly Hills?” I ask.
“Shut up. It’s not our choice.” Eldin swats my head. “It’s a miracle they’re taking us at all.”
He looks in Sigfried’s atlas and finds Connecticut, a tiny box bordering the Atlantic Ocean. “It’s from the Native American name Quinnehtukqut,” Eldin reads. “It means beside the long tidal river.”
Good, it’s on the water. I love the beach. “Is it warm—near California?” I ask.
“No, other side of the country,” he answers. “Rural, and colder.”
I imagine lonely cabins surrounded by sad-looking trees.
“How will we get around?” We’ve never had a car. In Brčko, you walk everywhere or take buses and trains. How will we afford a car without jobs or money? Who will teach us to drive?
* * *
On the cold morning of October 20, we wake up early and shower fast. Mom takes out my sweatpants and a loose sweatshirt, telling me to dress comfortably for the long flight. I’m feeling restless, hyper, not hungry at all.
“Have breakfast,” she says, handing me toast with jam. “We don’t know when we’ll eat again.”
Dad’s flown before, back in his single days, but the rest of us have never been on a plane. The Vienna a
irport is a chaotic maze of lanes and counters, with travelers lined up everywhere. Luckily, Siegfried has come in with us and points us to the right gate. I hug his waist and say goodbye, trying not to cry.
After he leaves, I look around nervously, eyeing the badges and serious faces of the security guards, who remind me of soldiers. My back is tense, and I have to pee.
In the bathroom mirror I look pale, my bangs uneven. My front teeth seem like they’ve gotten bigger and more crooked without my retainer. Americans on TV and in the movies all have perfect teeth. I decide to just keep my mouth closed from now on.
Back in the waiting area, a woman from the International Organization for Migration finds us and gives us each a sharp-looking blue-and-white tote bag with the same globe emblem that’s on her uniform. There’s paperwork inside.
Mom thanks her and then sits quietly, clutching her bag, nervous about flying for the first time.
At last we’re allowed to board. The inside of the plane is a long, steel tube filled with lounge chairs, like a huge spaceship. There must be hundreds of other refugees in our section, all speaking our language. They look as ragged and confused as we do, wearing layers of clothes, holding plastic bags filled with their belongings.
I grin and wave at everybody as we make our way to our seats, suddenly feeling less alone. If they’re all going to Connecticut too, we’ll be safe.
“Gruesome what’s happening in the war,” Dad says to the man behind us. “Where are you going?”
“Florida,” he replies.
Next to him, a woman shows a ticket for St. Louis.
Another says, “Chicago.”
Nobody else is going to Connecticut.
While we’re waiting to take off, the flight attendants point at aircraft safety cards and demonstrate how to inflate a raft in case of an emergency water landing. That’s when Mom loses it.
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