“Good golly, what is this?” he asks. He gives her Novocain and tries to take out her filling, but the needle breaks off his tool, forcing him to extract the entire tooth. Once it’s out of her mouth, he separates the filling, which looks like a small rock.
“Didn’t they have any better material?” he asks Mom. “This looks like cement.”
“Tell him I overheard the dentist say they saved the good stuff for their own people,” I whisper to Eldin.
After my brother explains, Dr. Silverman shakes his head, looking disgusted.
“As a Jew, I’ll never forget how Nazis slaughtered my relatives in the Holocaust,” he tells us through my brother. “I can’t believe they’re letting the monsters in your country get away with another mass murder.”
All our eyes are wet now. I feel like Dr. Silverman somehow knows the hell we’ve lived through. We didn’t know any people from his religion back home. All the Jewish people we’ve met in Connecticut are so nice, I wonder why Hitler hated them. Then again, I don’t know why my own people hate us, either.
Dr. Silverman spends a whole Saturday treating Eldin, Mom, and Dad. He cleans and X-rays their teeth and fills their cavities with a mix of copper and silver. Then we wait for him to close up the office.
“You like to sail?” Dad asks, looking at framed photos of Dr. Silverman on a boat.
“Yes. Stay in touch. I’ll take you on my sailboat in the spring,” he promises, handing Dad his business card.
I’m still hoping we’ll be back home by spring, but it feels good that someone wants us here.
* * *
That someone is not Barbara, though. When Dr. Silverman drops us off at her house, the door is locked. We ring the bell. Barbara comes down, her hair disheveled, looking annoyed. We’ve woken her from a nap.
We do our best to stay out of her way and be helpful. Mom pulls out place mats and silverware to set the table for dinner.
“Not those spoons!” Barbara snaps at her. “Get out of my way. I’ll do it. You just don’t understand.” She grabs a tray from my mother’s hand.
What’s happening? Barbara’s like a different person. It scares me a little bit.
“She gets testy when she drinks,” Mom says later in Bosnian. We’re in the living room now, and she looks tired and sad. “She doesn’t want us here anymore. We’ve overstayed our welcome. She probably thought it would just be for a week or two, but it’s already been almost a month. I wouldn’t like four strangers living at our house for a month either. It’s too long.”
I feel terrible, like we’re bad people. I think about how our old neighbors hated us and wished us dead. And how then Uncle Ahmet’s new country didn’t want us to stay. And now the first American putting us up is hoping we’ll leave too. I hate this feeling of being a worthless burden. It’s even worse now than when we were in Vienna. Here there’s no migrant camp to go to, no government programs that we know of, no fellow refugees to talk to who understand how hard it is. Without any connections or relatives to take us in, I’m scared we’ll wind up penniless on the streets of our new country.
I try hard to not get on Barbara’s nerves. I smile and act polite around her. I tiptoe around in the morning so I don’t wake her up. I don’t make a mess or sit in her chair or get in her way in the kitchen. I’m never noisy, and I don’t have friends over.
More church and synagogue people continue to come by to bring us presents and fruit baskets. Barbara puts out the food, then stashes the rest of the bags and boxes in her secret room. One afternoon, before she gets home from work, my curiosity gets the best of me and I sneak upstairs to try to open the door, but it’s double-locked.
I wish someone would help us get what we really need—jobs for Mom and Dad, our own apartment, a car. But I don’t know who to ask.
* * *
One night in November, after Barbara has gone to bed, Eldin says, “Reverend Don stopped by today.”
I’m surprised he came back. I thought his job was just to pick us up from the airport.
“We’re going to move in with him and his wife until they find us our own place and we can get jobs,” Dad says. “We can’t stay with Barbara anymore. It’s been thirty-five days.” He shakes his head. “That’s too much.”
Eldin says that along with the drinking, there have been “issues” with Barbara when I was at school that I didn’t know about. Mom explains how they annoyed her by interrupting when she had company, depleting her laundry detergent, and using up all the hot water in the shower. Five people sharing only one full bathroom isn’t working. Dad explains that we’re overcrowding her, like we did with Uncle Ahmet.
Everyone seems relieved that Don is coming. But we need our own home so we won’t screw up anyone else’s routine.
We have little to pack, since we never really unpacked. When Don pulls up in his burgundy Ford Explorer that Saturday afternoon, we hurry out to load our bags into the back of his car.
Barbara hugs us each goodbye. “I’ll visit you guys soon,” she says.
I feel bad about how happy I am to go with Don. I climb into the back seat eagerly, but as we pull out into the street, it hits me that I might have to switch schools. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to Miguel, my only friend.
As Don drives, I scan the streets, hoping we’re going to a city like Brčko or Vienna, where people walk and kids ride bikes on the sidewalks. But this town looks even quieter than Barbara’s. It’s practically deserted.
When we arrive at Don’s house just twelve minutes later, their big dog comes right up to sniff me. I back away quickly.
“This is Cary, our golden retriever. He’s very friendly,” Don says. “I think he likes you.”
I don’t know this kind of dog and flash to Stevo’s dad’s Doberman. Then I think of Almir and his sweet dog instead, and I reach out cautiously to pet Cary. He wags his tail, and I can tell that he’s friendly and trustworthy, like his owner.
“And this is my wife, Katie.” Don points to a woman coming out of the house to greet us. She’s tall, wearing orange lipstick, and has short, curly reddish hair. “She’s a schoolteacher.”
“Welcome to our home,” she says, speaking slowly so we understand. “Let me give you a tour.” We follow her inside, taking our shoes off at the door. The Hodges’ house is bigger than Barbara’s, and there are three extra rooms upstairs, filled with antiques and old furniture.
“Our congregation gives us this place. We use these rooms when visiting church dignitaries stay over,” Don says, and Eldin translates. I smile when he adds, “You’ll be our dignitaries now.”
“I went shopping and bought you chicken and steak,” Katie goes on. “Don said you guys don’t eat pork, right?”
Mom nods. “Yes, thank you.”
“I got bacon for Don, but don’t worry, I won’t mix it with your eggs.” She seems to understand that Muslims never eat meat from pigs. “And there’s cookies, rice pudding, and Jell-O,” she adds, taking us into the kitchen. “Whatever you see, it’s yours. Sit anywhere. Eat anything.”
I try the red Jell-O, which melts in my mouth.
Later, when we sit down for dinner, Don says, “First, we pray.” We all hold hands, and he continues, “Thank you, Lord, for bringing Kenan, Eldin, Keka, and Adisa here and keeping them safe with us.”
I try to sneak a look at Eldin to see what he thinks of this, but he keeps his eyes on his plate. No Muslims we know pray at the table. They do prayers privately or at the mosque, like Majka. I hope Don’s not trying to convert us. Maybe he’s just trying to be welcoming.
Katie serves the salad first, like Barbara did, then meatballs and mashed potatoes. Dessert is vanilla ice cream on apple pie, which is very interesting mixed together. “It’s Don’s favorite, à la mode,” Katie says. With my belly full of the delicious food, I finally feel relaxed enough to ask about school. When Eldin translates, Don says I’m allowed to keep going to Bedford with Miguel. I’m so happy.
Don and Katie’s TV
isn’t as big as Barbara’s, but it has just as many channels. Before bed, I turn on CNN to watch Wolf and Christiane, who show footage of enemy tanks rolling into a town near Brčko.
That night, I have my own room for the first time ever. I’ve never slept alone. It’s eerie being in a new place, in the middle of nowhere, without Eldin, even though I know he’s asleep in the room next door. Cary must know I’m scared and lonely because he comes in to sleep on the floor by my bed. I dream I’m caught in a shootout in my old schoolyard, where I’m the hero, shielding Lena and her sister, who are hiding behind me as I fire a rifle, killing the soldiers in our path.
In the morning, Cary sticks his face on my pillow. I scratch behind his ears. He licks my fingers, then nudges his nose under my hand so I’ll pet him more. I like having a big, friendly boy dog in the house.
Later that day, walking Cary around the neighborhood on his leash, I feel protected. We play fetch and tag, with him chasing after me. It’s like I have a sidekick who understands me without words.
* * *
On Monday morning, Dad and Cary go with me to the bus stop. It’s a thirty-five minute walk from Don’s house. Aside from the driver, the bus is completely empty when I get on—I’m the first kid on and the last one off. But when the bus driver drops me off after school, I can’t remember how to get back to Don’s. His neighborhood has hardly any street signs, and it’s easy to get all turned around.
Lost at an unfamiliar intersection, I panic, shivering, not knowing which way to go. It’s freezing outside. During Bosnian winters I wore long johns, a coat, gloves, boots, a hat, and a scarf. Now my short pants leave me with bare ankles, and my too-small parka sleeves don’t reach my wrists. What if the cops pick me up and I don’t have the words to explain what I’m doing here and they put me in jail? Or worse, I’ll freeze to death out here alone. I keep walking, and at last I recognize a mansion with a silver gate on a corner. I turn left and find Don’s street at last: Bushy Ridge Road.
“Why are you late?” Mom asks when I walk in.
“Got a little turned around,” I say, acting like I wasn’t scared to death. My parents have enough stress.
* * *
The next afternoon, I’m the last kid on the bus again. I sit in the front, near the driver, worrying that I’ll get lost again and it’s already almost dark.
“What’s your name?” the driver asks in an accent I don’t recognize. It’s clear he’s not from the United States either.
“Kenan. I stay Bushy Ridge Road vif Reverend Don. Since the var,” I struggle to explain.
“Where you from?” When I tell him Bosnia, he says, “I am Offir, from Israel. I follow news. We root for your people. Where you stay?”
I give him Don’s address. He drives me miles farther, right to Don’s driveway, saying that from then on, he’ll take me all the way there every day.
After that, I always sit up front, near Offir. I’m the only student he speaks to. It makes me feel really special.
* * *
One night, as we sit around the dinner table. Don asks my parents about getting jobs and putting down two months’ rent and a security deposit for an apartment.
“We don’t have that kind of money,” Dad explains, looking depressed.
“What happened to all the donations everyone brought over for you?” Don asks.
“What donations?” Dad says. “We don’t have any.” He asks Mom if she knows what happened to everything that was donated, and she shrugs.
“Everyone who came over handed the bags, envelopes, and boxes to Barbara,” Eldin explains to Don.
Aha. That solves the mystery of why she kept locking the door of her secret room: she was hiding the gifts to keep for herself!
Eldin tells Don about the locked bedroom, and his eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head, looking alarmed. He tells us that in addition to the towels and toiletries we saw, there was money, a dining room set, a washing machine, and a dryer, all bought on behalf of our family for when we get our own place. Where would she have put the washer and dryer? In her garage? Was that why she wanted us gone? I’m surprised Don doesn’t say he’s going to call her or go get our stuff.
“It’s like Petra all over again,” Mom says in Bosnian, scratching her neck until it turns red.
I don’t understand. Americans are supposed to be helping us, not looting us. Then again, our own neighbor did this, so it doesn’t surprise me that some lady we just met did too. It just makes me more wary. Like with Petra, we feel we can’t really complain to the authorities about the theft. We’re still scared of the police. We have no power. We have to keep quiet to survive.
“Why would she be generous and take us in, but then steal stuff?” I ask.
“Sjedi s guzicom na dvije stolice.” Dad mumbles a Bosnian saying that means “She’s sitting on two chairs with one ass.”
“Maybe she felt she deserved to be paid for boarding us?” I wonder. “Or she was jealous that everyone came to see us with presents, but not to see her?”
“No wonder her best friends are her cats,” Eldin grumbles.
“You will find good and bad people everywhere. Let’s just be thankful for Don,” Mom says to us, suddenly calm and forgiving.
* * *
On Saturday, Don and Katie take us to the home of someone from their church. In the basement are clothes that members of the congregation have donated for us. Most of the garments look ratty and kind of gross. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, Eldin and I take sweatpants. Dad finds a sweater that isn’t too worn out. I grab a Mickey Mouse shirt, and then I see a pair of cool camouflage pants in my size. I hold them up. Mom grabs them from my hand.
“No! You’re not taking army pants. What are you, a guerrilla soldier?” she asks.
I wish I were. I’d get rid of our enemies so we can go home, where our real clothes are.
Though we try to seem grateful, I think Katie picks up on our disappointment with the donations. On the way back, she stops at a huge store called Marshalls. Instead of food, there are racks and racks of clothes, shoes, kitchen supplies, and furniture. Everything in America is gigantic; I’ll miss these huge stores when we move back to my country. She buys Eldin and me each brand-new Levi’s jeans with wide legs that go over my sneakers, and I also get a leather belt and a cozy red and black flannel shirt.
“They look so nice on you,” Mom says, smiling. “I don’t know how to thank you, Katie.”
I’ve never been so excited to wear pants that fit, so I’ll be like all the other kids.
Twenty-Three
Don explains that there’s no school on Thursday and Friday because of a holiday called Thanksgiving. Eldin looks it up in the encyclopedia set on the bookshelves in Don and Katie’s parlor. “It commemorates the Plymouth feast between the Pilgrims and the Indians,” he says. “Turkey is the traditional dish . . . What an odd holiday.” He closes the big book and puts it back on the shelf. “On CNN, one of the commentators said that Americans celebrate their friendship with the Indians they killed and stole land from. And now, to make up for it, they let them run the casinos and not pay taxes.” This is very different from our holy days, which are about national pride or sacrifices.
“Why do they name so many sports teams after them?” I ask, thinking of the ones I’ve seen on television: Braves, Chiefs, Indians, Blackhawks, and Redskins. “Is that an apology too? We took your land, but we’ll name our teams after you?”
Eldin shrugs.
* * *
On Thanksgiving, Mom helps Katie cook a huge meal for ten. She chops vegetables, peels and mashes the potatoes. Don and Katie’s sons, Drew and Brad, arrive with their pretty girlfriends. They’re friendly and good-looking, all in their twenties. Drew tells us he works at MTV, the music channel, and Brad’s in computers. They’re both very tall and warm, like young versions of Don. They sit with us in the living room, where the TV is showing an American football game. Soon they’re asking questions about our homeland, eager to hear war stories
.
“We heard you guys were taken away at gunpoint?” Drew says.
Eldin nods. “Our neighbors turned on us. They’re butchering innocent civilians.”
“I don’t know much about your country’s history. Why is this happening?” Brad asks.
“Because every fifty years, some nationalistic politician comes to power and decides his group is better than everyone else, so we should all hate and kill each other,” my father says in Bosnian, frowning. Eldin does his best to translate, as Dad’s English isn’t as good as his.
“Milošcević, the Serb president, is modeling himself after Hitler,” Eldin adds. “I read that his favorite book is Mein Kampf.”
“But even before that, during World War II, our region was so divided that we had four relatives fighting on four different sides,” Dad adds.
Eldin nods. “It goes all the way back to the thirteen hundreds.”
I’m excited to hear Dad and Eldin being smart and honest, explaining what’s going on with the war. We want these educated Americans on our side.
Don comes in from his office and sits down on the couch next to Brad. He’s surprised that I don’t know the rules of the game we’re watching. He tells us that he played football on his high school team, that we’ll watch the New York Giants together on TV and he’ll teach me.
At last the meal is ready, and we all sit down together around the long table in the dining room. Before we eat, Don says, “Let’s all join in on a special blessing today.”
I put my head down and stay quiet, hoping he won’t call on me to say anything. I’m still mad at God for hurting my parents and my people and taking our home away. I have nothing to say to him. When the prayer is over, Dad and Eldin say “Amen” out of respect for Don, but I don’t.
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