A Death in Sarajevo Read online

  “Not at all,” Esa said with some charm of his own. “The photograph is iconic. Did you often stroll through Sniper Alley with such élan?”

  Ivana laughed with delight.

  “Just once, I’m afraid. I was at the end of my strength—the constant shelling, the hunt for water, the desperation in everyone’s faces. It’s almost as though we forgot we were Europeans—coolly cosmopolitan and up for anything: drinks at 2 a.m., a concert on a mountaintop, a love story dying on a bridge—I mean, anything. I wanted to remind myself what it was like to be young and attractive in Sarajevo. I wanted others to remember as well.”

  Esa studied the photograph, feeling himself succumb to its appeal.

  “I don’t think they’ll ever forget.” It seemed strange to be talking of a war zone this way when he’d just walked through the fire of the Drayton inquiry. Even at the inquiry, the emphasis hadn’t been on Drayton’s crimes but rather on his own government’s incompetence. He asked about the Bluebirds again, and Ivana linked her hands together with a sigh.

  “You know we have a tripartite presidency now? That hasn’t been good for anyone, but especially not for the women who served in the Bosnian army. The old sexist attitudes resurfaced: women’s pensions were cut to almost nothing, and many senior officers were stripped of rank because of their gender. When Sarajevo was a crucible, they needed us. Since the end of the war, they haven’t looked at us twice.”

  Esa tried to pick through this to what she was really telling him.

  “So the brigade was dismantled after the war?”

  “Demobilized,” she corrected, “But I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “Would you have any records on Amira’s body? I can you give the date of her death.”

  She laughed again despite the grimness of the subject.

  “Details on the bodies of the war dead? Not unless she was recently exhumed by forensic experts. Anyone else was lucky to get a burial. We were sprinting through graveyards, as it was, trying to bury our dead.” It was her turn to examine Khattak. “Why does it matter? At least you know how and when she died. That’s more than many can say.”

  “She left a fiancé behind. And he didn’t know she’d joined the army. He thought she’d been killed during the shelling of the city.”

  Those bright, inquisitive eyes fixed on Esa. “Ah. I thought this was about young lovers torn apart by war, but in fact, it’s more complex. How long before this friend of yours found out what really happened to his beloved?”

  “He found out a few weeks ago.” Esa explained about the catalogue. “But she lived nearly ten months past the time he thought she’d been killed. Are you sure there aren’t any medical records you could check?”

  Ivana Frankel gave a charming sigh. “I can check—though you must understand that our record-keeping from the war years is dismal at best. The Serbs cut off water and electricity, even food supplies. If the tunnel hadn’t been built, I don’t know how we’d have held on. I advise you to check the archives—there may be more information there.”

  Esa passed her one of his cards and asked her to call him if she was able to find anything.

  She responded with the same warmth and zest for life that characterized the photograph behind her head.

  “You must come to my house for dinner—meet my husband and my children. Bring your friend Skender along. Sometimes it can be healing to talk to friends who remember those days.”

  Esa took down her address, as well as directions for the archives, and promised her he would.

  2

  Rachel was sitting in front of her computer, rubbing her eyes, when Khattak called her. In a few moments they had caught up on each other’s business. There was still no word on the fate of Community Policing, but she was happy to tell him the rabid press commentary that had surrounded the Drayton inquiry had died down. He told her about his friend Amira with a mixture of regret and nostalgia, and she listened with avid interest, caught up in the tale. When he asked for her advice, she gave it in no uncertain terms.

  “Look, I know it was a dark time, sir, but that’s not enough of an explanation. Amira enlisted in the army and dropped right out of Skender’s life when at any time she could have told him what she was up to and that she wouldn’t be talked out of it. From your description, she doesn’t sound like someone who could be told what to do. Not even by a man she loved.”

  She gave him a moment to think about this. He admitted it made more sense than his own half-formed theories.

  “She was angry and she wanted to do something with her anger. You’re right. Why wouldn’t she have told Skender that? If not right away, then eventually?”

  “He’d left?” Rachel suggested. “And that made her angrier still? Or there was some other reason, and she was holding on until the end of the war.”

  “Could be,” Khattak said. “Thank you for listening, Rachel. Is everything all right on your end? With your father, I mean?”

  There was a long pause on the line. Rachel’s thoughts ticked over, wondering how much he knew about her background. Khattak never brought up anything personal unless Rachel did so first. This time he seemed to be prodding. He went on before she could answer.

  “He doesn’t like me, I could see that. Is it because of who I am? Or because of the mess I dragged you into by asking you to join Community Policing?”

  “I guess you could say it’s a bit of both.” There was a wry sound to Rachel’s voice. “My Da was never the biggest fan of our unit—he hasn’t adjusted to the new Toronto, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to. But actually . . .”

  “Go on, Rachel.” Khattak’s tone was soothing, inviting her to continue.

  “Well, he seemed to warm up a bit when I told him what happened at Algonquin. He seemed to think you might have some redeeming qualities, after all.”

  “Like a strong arm?”

  Rachel chuckled to herself. “Like copious lungs.”

  She heard the soft echo of his laughter down the line and cleared her throat.

  “You need to talk to the women Amira served with. If she confided in anyone, it would have been one of them.”

  He agreed, and they moved on to other subjects. Then Rachel put out a feeler of her own. She found she was already missing him.

  “Are you coming home soon, sir?”

  He’d given her the briefest outline of his plans.

  “I don’t think so, Rachel. I don’t think I’ve found a reason yet.”

  The words struck at Rachel like painful darts, sharp and unerring in their aim.

  He wasn’t coming home for her, he meant. She nodded to herself, catching her reflection in the bedroom mirror. There wasn’t any reason that he should.

  3

  He waited for Edina along the overgrown bobsled track built for the 1984 Winter Olympics. The track on Mt. Trebevic was covered with snow, but it was still possible to walk down the inside of the tube all the way to the road. Much of the track was marked with lurid swirls of graffiti, most of which Esa couldn’t interpret.

  The air was cool and crisp up in the mountains, and Edina met Esa on the road, then drove him a short distance to the bombed-out frame of a restaurant that looked down upon Sarajevo.

  From here, red rooftops peeked out from under a cover of snow, and intermittent vertical white lines split the horizon, the perennial reappearance of Sarajevo’s minarets.

  Edina didn’t smoke. She paced instead, her ash-blond hair cut short enough to brush the nape of her neck, her eyes faintly blue as they studied his face and listened to his questions. He’d found her name in the army archives and Skender had done the rest. She was dressed in a chic jacket that hung on her slender frame, and her narrow jeans were tucked into high black boots. Her left wrist was tattooed with a lily. She could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty. Esa guessed she was close to his own age from the small lines that ran from her nose to her mouth.

  She was impatient in her manner, but she was also, he found, willin
g to talk about Amira.

  “We used to fight up here,” she told him. “Close contact combat. They were bullies and cowards—what courage does it take to set up tanks or fire mortars down on civilians? Or to shoot down women lining up for bread?”

  Her angry words struck a painful chord of memory.

  On Tuesday, there will be no bread in Sarajevo.

  As one of Christopher Drayton’s victims had once written.

  “Is that why you joined the Bluebirds?” he asked. “To prove your courage?”

  Her answer was flippant. “It felt good to have a rifle in my hands. I would do it again.”

  “I’ve been to the archives, Miss—”

  “Edina,” she filled in. She didn’t give him her last name.

  “Edina. They don’t say how or where Amira was killed.”

  Edina gave him a thin-lipped smile.

  “She evaded the record-keepers twice, eh? But who was keeping track anyway during the war? She tried to find this fiancé of hers, but he conveniently vanished.”

  Khattak found it necessary to correct her impression of Skender.

  “He was transferred to Gorazde.”

  Edina looked at him sharply. “Gorazde? God. That’s almost as bad. Was he still there in ’94?”

  Esa nodded. “He thought Amira was dead. It made him careless of his own life. What can you tell me about her? Why did she leave him without a word, do you know?”

  Edina wandered away from him inside the concrete shell of the old restaurant. She climbed the stairs, still littered with rubble, picking her way among the broken stones. At the upper level, she planted herself inside the frame of one of three large, square windows, drawing the frigid air of the mountains into her lungs. Esa followed her, curious. His instincts were telling him Edina knew the answer to his question. Perhaps she knew all the answers Skender was seeking.

  “We fought in the Zuc area in December of that year. Do you know it?”

  Esa shook his head, and a hint of acrimony entered her voice.

  “No. Of course you don’t.”

  She broke up a line of ice that ran along the frame. It shattered on the ground between them.

  “Skender didn’t come himself? He isn’t man enough to face the truth?”

  “What truth, Edina?” Esa kept his tone gentle and confiding. There was a steady flame of rage burning at the center of those pale blue eyes. “I thought it was you who didn’t want to see him.”

  “True.” She shifted herself out of the frame, shards of ice falling into her hair. Impatiently, she shook them out. “He has his perfect image of Amira. She wanted to go back to him, but she didn’t want his image of her to be ruined.”

  “How could it be?”

  “The fighting was heavy, but it was imperative that we held our position against the Serbs—they would have destroyed Sarajevo otherwise. Amira was captured in an ambush. We pressed the attack, and she managed to escape the next morning. She became more reckless after that, more determined to fight, though she was increasingly unfit for it. Eight months later, she was dead.” She flicked Khattak a burning glance. “Do you understand?”

  A female soldier captured by the enemy. This was Amira they were talking about—glowing, exuberant Amira. He didn’t need to hear more. And he tried to shut from his thoughts all memory of the Drayton investigation.

  “So that is her grave at Kovaci?”

  “Yes. She was awarded the Zlatani Liljan after she died. Only thirteen women who served in the army were afforded such an honor.”

  “I’m sorry,” Esa said. “I don’t know what that is.”

  Edina showed him a tiny tattoo on the inside of her wrist. “The Golden Lily—the army’s highest recognition of service during the war. Amira deserved it. Like all of us who fought, she deserved a lot more.”

  Esa gave this the weight it was due, letting the silence between them settle. Then at last, disheartened, he asked her, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  She walked straight up to him and jabbed his chest with her finger.

  “You tell me this. Is Skender any good as a man? Does he have a generous heart? Is he the kind of man who can forgive? Was his love for Amira real in any way beyond his admiration of her beauty?”

  Esa looked back at her steadily.

  He was seeing Skender and Amira in his mind, laughing together in the front room of the apartment, filmy curtains blowing through the shattered glass, as they ducked low to serve their guests coffee. Skender had caught Amira by the waist and kissed her upturned mouth.

  “As long as Sarajevo exists, I will love you.”

  She had flashed him a brilliant look and the intimate smile of a lover.

  “I will love you far beyond that.”

  “Yes,” Esa told Edina. “I think so. It’s been more than twenty years now. He never married anyone else.”

  “Let it be on your head then.” She took his hand to give him a piece of paper on which she’d written an address. “Go there,” she said. “If you’re sure Skender is worth it.”

  It was an address just outside the old town, up a climb of a hundred steps, between a student hostel and a craftsman’s shop where miniature copper tea sets were carved. A door opened into the garden of a private residence. The sky above them was an icy white, the cold air stabbing at their skin and freezing their hands. They paused near a set of wrought iron chairs parked in one corner of the garden.

  Skender began to pace, lighting a cigarette from the tip of another.

  “You go,” he said to Esa. “I’ll wait here. Take this.”

  He shoved the catalogue into Esa’s hands. Esa nodded, a strange tremor making his own hands shake. He mastered it, knocking on the door and waiting for an answer.

  An older woman answered his knock. She wore a kerchief on her hair and a navy blue apron over her dress. She dusted her hands on her apron, and when Esa asked her a question in English, her brow lowered and she backed away. He was about to call Skender to translate when her eyes chanced upon the book in his hands.

  She went still. Then she motioned him forward into a cramped room with a low ceiling and two sofas covered with embroidered cushions. She made a gesture with her hands that meant he should wait and Esa nodded in response. From the front windows of the small room, he could see Skender pacing in the garden.

  His eyes searched the room for the answer to Amira’s disappearance and the reason Edina had sent him to this address. The room smelled of fresh polish and some lemony scent, but there were no photographs in it, just a quotation from the Qur’an mounted in a silver frame.

  At a footfall behind him, he turned.

  He was greeted by a young man in his early twenties whose eyes shifted to the book in Esa’s hands.

  “Skender?” he asked, a nervous break in his voice.

  Esa introduced himself, not taking his eyes from the boy’s face—he could only think of the young man as a boy, with the innocence and near desperation in his eloquent, dark eyes.

  He was looking at Amira’s face—the sloping cheekbones, the finely molded mouth, the thick dark lashes—right down to a fleeting expression in his eyes and a small brown mole on his left temple.

  He recollected Edina’s words: Amira had continued to fight with the Bluebird Brigade even as she’d become unfit for it.

  “You’re Amira’s son?” he asked. “I was her friend. I knew her a long time ago.”

  The boy answered him in English. His hand gestured back in the direction of the woman with the kerchief who had left them alone together in the room.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s what her friend Edina told me.”

  “And what are you doing in this place?” Esa asked him. “It’s an orphanage, isn’t it?”

  “I was raised here,” the boy said. “I come back to volunteer whenever my foster mother needs my help.”

  “She seems like a kind woman,” Esa said, his thoughts racing.

  “She is.”

  The boy took a p
hotograph from his shirt pocket and showed it to Esa. It was a picture of Amira and Skender strolling over the Festina Lente bridge, their arms wrapped around each other, laughing into each other’s faces.

  “Is this Skender?”

  Esa moved so that his shoulders blocked the view from the room’s windows onto the garden.

  “Yes,” he answered. He was thinking Amira had been held by Serb soldiers for nearly twenty-four hours, and that after she’d escaped, she’d fought in the army like a woman possessed—or like a woman ready to die.

  And he knew the purpose behind this orphanage. Like many others scattered throughout the country, it was where women who’d suffered extreme sexual violence during the war had left behind those living reminders of their violation: the children who existed in a no-man’s land, unwanted by their families or the state, stigmatized from birth, unable to say who their parents were.

  The boy’s clear, young gaze faltered beneath Esa’s searching look.

  Esa could only see Amira; he couldn’t see anything else.

  “My mother wasn’t killed during the construction of the tunnel,” he told Esa after an uneasy pause. “She died giving birth to me. Edina brought me here. She gave me this photograph of Amira and Skender. Their names are written on the back.”

  He didn’t call them “my parents.”

  Very gently, Esa asked, “And you think Skender is your father?”

  The boy took a shuddering breath.

  “I don’t know. My mother told Edina it was possible, but she wasn’t sure.” An understandable resentment darkened the boy’s fine eyes. “I thought I’d find out for myself.”

  “So many years later?” Esa pressed. He could see it was a relief for the boy to be telling a stranger these things instead of saying them to Skender.

  “Edina never told me until a few months ago. She thought it was the right time. And I’ve—I’ve been working up the courage to ask him.”

  Esa’s heart twisted in pain—what could he possibly say to remedy anything this boy or Amira had suffered? He understood now why Edina had asked him whether Skender was a good man with a kind and generous heart. Would he strike this boy down with disgust and rejection, or would he be able to see him as an individual, aside from the crime that had produced him? Would Skender’s image of Amira be diminished or destroyed, like so many of Bosnia’s rape survivors who had found themselves outcast and without means of support? Esa sent up a prayer for guidance.