Rose of Sarajevo (23 page)

When she left her room, the living room was still. Her mother must have gone to bed. She tiptoed to the front door and quietly slipped outside. The cool night air struck her like a slap to the face. She began running down the hill toward the Holiday Inn.

Nimeta was stopped at three different checkpoints. When she showed them her press card, they asked where she was going in the middle of the night. She insisted that she had a critical meeting at the Holiday Inn, and they let her through.

She entered the hotel through a back door—the front entrance had been closed ever since the war started—and went straight to the bar. But the lights had been turned off and nobody was there. She scanned the magenta armchairs and sofas one last time. Nobody. She woke up the receptionist.

“Stefanoviç,” she said.

He blinked at her several times.

“Stefanoviç. Could you tell me Stefan Stefanoviç’s room number?”

The man glanced at the registry in front of him and then at his watch.

“I’m a journalist,” Nimeta said, pulling out her press card.

“I recognize you. I’ve seen you on television,” he said. “Stefanoviç. Room number 500.”

“Call him, please.”

“At this hour?”

“Tell him it’s urgent.”

The receptionist dialed the number and waited.

“There’s no answer. He must be sound asleep.”

“Try again.”

He dialed the number again and handed the receiver to Nimeta. She waited until the twentieth ring and handed it back.

“Could he already have checked out?”

“No. He’s still registered.”

Nimeta searched the lobby again and even pushed open the door to the men’s restroom. But even there the lights were off. Some of the buildings in the city were being provided with emergency power, which was only enough to generate twenty watts’ worth of light. As a result, everyone looked jaundiced when she visited the Holiday Inn, the hospitals, and the presidential residence.

“Aren’t you going to leave a note?” the receptionist asked as she walked back toward the closed front entrance by mistake.

“No,” Nimeta said.

She went out the back door and trudged back up the same street she’d run down a half hour earlier. Later, as she walked past her husband’s old office, she asked herself why she’d even gone to the hotel in the first place. Why had she told Sonya she couldn’t go out, only to jump out of bed and rush over there? What had she been expecting?

For all she knew, Stefan was asleep in Sonya’s bed right now. She felt a pang in her heart, and her throat and eyes stung. She had no rights over Stefan. He was someone she’d once loved very much a long time ago. That was all. He could sleep with whomever he liked.

She started walking faster. It was getting chillier. As she strode along, head bowed, a man cut her off. She gasped in fear. He’d opened his arms wide as though determined to block her path.

“Please get out of my way,” Nimeta said.

“Nimeta!”

Nimeta stared blankly. “Do I know you?”

He was tall and wore a woolen beret. He pulled off the beret, and she saw he was bald.

“
I . . .
I’m sorry. It’s dark,” she said.

“It’s me, Nimeta. Stefan. Stefan!”

“Stefan! What happened to your hair? And your mustache?”

“I’ll explain everything. What are you doing out here? Do you know what time it is?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I was heading back to my hotel.”

“I went there to see you,” Nimeta said.

Stefan clasped her hands. “Sonya said you couldn’t make it. Why did you come so late?” he asked. He was rubbing her hands, trying to warm them. “Let’s go to my hotel.”

“No, Stefan. Let’s not go to the hotel.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you.”

“I don’t want to go to the hotel.”

“But weren’t you just there?”

“I was going to meet you and suggest we go somewhere else.”

“All right, let’s go to the park then. When I couldn’t sleep, I went out for a walk in Veliki Park. We can sit on a bench there. You can tell me everything that’s happened since I last saw you. It’s been ages, hasn’t it?”

He pushed a lock of hair back from her forehead, cupped her face in his hands, and softly kissed her on both cheeks. Arms linked, they walked through the darkness to the park.

It was getting light by the time Nimeta got home, but Hana and her mother were still in bed. She pushed the cat away with her foot and went straight to her room. She was about to get undressed when she decided not to go back to bed. She went into the kitchen and heated some water on the grill her mother had set up there, squeezed in some lemon juice, and drank it steaming hot. It was the closest thing to tea they’d had for weeks.

Her nose was running, her throat hurt, and she kept sneezing. Even so, she hadn’t felt this good for a long time. A great weight seemed to have rolled off her shoulders. She realized how much she’d bottled up and how desperate she’d been for a sympathetic ear and a kind word. If only Mirsada had never gone to Belgrade. If only!

She’d told Stefan everything, starting with the massacre in Zvornik, then moved on to Burhan’s departure for the mountains, followed by Raif and Fiko, Azra getting killed in a breadline, the decision to move in with her mother, word of Mirsada’s deat
h . . .
every last detail, with the exception of her last night with Burhan.

“He went off to fight and left you on your own here in the city?” Stefan asked.

“I’m used to being on my own, Stefan. You know that.”

“But the war hadn’t started back then,” he said.

She’d never tell him the real reason Burhan had left her. She’d broken down completely when she told him about Mirsada, sobbing on his shoulder as he held her tight and waited for her tears to subside, and she’d felt for a moment like she was safely in the arms of the only real friend she had left. Then they’d walked around the park for a while.

They were sitting on some tombstones, still talking about Mirsada, when a couple of militiamen approached. She showed them her press card and her papers.

“Haven’t you got a home somewhere?” one of them asked.

“Don’t you realize how many people don’t have homes anymore?” Nimeta asked.

The men had walked away.

Alongside the weathered tombstones in the cemetery were newer ones, the white markers of young lives lost in the war. There had been so many deaths across the city that they’d started burying the war’s victims in parks, the gardens of mosques, and the courtyards of their homes. Sarajevo was turning into an open cemetery.

“We didn’t know what happened until so much later, Stefan. She never answered the phone, she’d quit her job, and we couldn’t get hold of Petar. Even so, it never occurred to me that she might be dead. It was like I’d forgotten we were in the middle of a war. Why, when even my three-month-old nephew was killed in the war, did it never occur to me that Mirsada could be another of its victims? She’d told me in one of our last conversations that she wanted to take a week off from work and get away from Belgrade. Petar had relatives in Nis she thought they could visit together. I told everyone she must be all right and away on holiday. I’ve always hated having my every movement tracked and thought she should be free to go wherever she liked, without everyone asking questions and pestering her. Sometimes I feel like it’s all my fault.”

“What could you have done? You couldn’t have saved her.”

“We might have found her in time and taken her to a hospital.”

“Nimeta, the Serbs wouldn’t leave anyone alive. Especially if they’re a Bosnian journalist. They would have stayed with her until they were certain she was dead.”

“They didn’t just leave her for dead. They tortured her.”

“I wish she’d come back to Bosnia.”

“We all do! But Petar wouldn’t let her go.”

“Mirsada is resting in peace now. She’s saved. Perhaps she’s luckier than the living,” Stefan said softly.

Neither Nimeta, Stefan, nor anyone else knew what had really happened to Mirsada. Other than four Serbian commandos, nobody would ever know exactly what had transpired in her house the day she died.

Petar was away on a long trip. Since long absences were routine for journalists, Mirsada didn’t initially see anything unusual in that. Later events, however, aroused her suspicions. A letter informing her that her position was to be terminated at the end of the month was placed on her desk while Petar was away. When she got home that evening, she called Petar repeatedly but never got an answer. She’d hope to consult with him before making a move.

The next day, having been unable to speak to her lover, she was feeling extremely tense as she confronted her manager. Why had she been fired? Had she done anything wrong? She’d been working longer hours than anyone, scanning publications in English and German and translating them. Had she ever delivered her research late? Hadn’t the interview she’d conducted two weeks earlier generated a strong positive reaction? Why then had she been fired?

The manager told her they were downsizing the labor force. Well, there were other people who should be let go before her, she’d insisted, like that girl with an MP for an uncle and that pudding-faced stutterer said to be close to Mitević. Everyone had laughed at the thought of a reporter stammering his way through an interview, but Georg had said, “He’s not a correspondent, he’s an informant.”

“What do you mean?” Mirsada had asked.

“We’re a police state, Miza.”

Miza! Just as she was getting used to that name that she had once hated, she found herself getting the boot. Petar needn’t have bothered to find her a new identity. Nimeta was right; she’d have to return to Bosnia if she expected to find work. But Petar came first, and she’d stay in Belgrade for him even if that meant being unemployed.

There was a knock on the door at about eight that night. Mirsada was in the bathroom, so she didn’t hear it at first. At the thudding sound of boots, she raced to the door. She got there before they managed to kick it down.

“Your name?” one of the men asked.

“Miza.”

“Your real name?”

“I told you,” Mirsada said.

A towel was wrapped turban-like around her wet hair.

“Is that the name your lover gave you?”

Mirsada didn’t answer.

“Surname?”

“Efendic.”

“Efendic, is it?” one of them said. “And the whore of that traitor, Petar Miragoslav.”

“Efendic is the surname of my ex-husband,” Mirsada said. “And Petar is no traitor. He’s every bit as patriotic as you.”

“Don’t try to lecture us on patriotism. Tell us your real name, you Bosnian slut.”

“I was born in Bosnia,” Mirsada said, remaining composed.

“You mean you’re a Muslim.”

“I’m not. But so what if I was? Since I’m Bosnian, I could just as easily have been born Muslim.”

She felt the heat rise to her cheeks as she lied. This was the first time she’d ever renounced her identity, and she bitterly regretted having gone along with Petar’s scheme. One of the men waited with her while the three others went to the rooms in back. They turned the house upside down in minutes, ransacking every drawer and cupboard in search of documents and papers.

“Show us your ID card.”

“It was stolen. I was mugged about ten days ago on the way home. I haven’t had a chance to get a new one issued.”

“Your dark eyes tell us exactly who and what you are: a Muslim whore,” the tall one said. “Have you ever seen a Serb with those big, dark eyes?”

“I’ve seen hundreds. I can tell you their names if you like.”

A fist crashed into her face. The sash to her robe was tugged off, causing it to fall open and expose her breasts. When she tried to pull her robe closed, the tall one grabbed her wrists from behind. Her dark breasts were now completely visible.

“That’s not what your boyfriend told us. He said you were a Muslim Bosniak whore.”

“He didn’t, because it’s not true.”

“Maybe he lied on purpose,” the weasel-faced one said, “because, as he was dying, he thought he’d want you with him in hell.”

“Did you kill him!” She hadn’t expected her voice to thunder like that.

“Traitors who cooperate with Muslim dogs don’t live long!”

Mirsada sank to her knees.

“Bosniak whore, what’s your real name?”

Mirsada gave up without a fight. The person who gave her life meaning was gone, and Weasel Face was right about one thing: she’d rather be dead with Petar than alive and alone.

“My name is Mirsada Efendic.”

The tall one ripped the towel off her head, grabbed her by the hair, and pulled her to her feet.

“Now you’ll give us the names of all your friends. All your media colleagues and neighbors who make friends with traitorous dogs. You’ll provide every last name.”

“I’m not giving you anything,” Mirsada said.

She received another blow to the face, and blood began trickling from the corner of her mouth.

“Oh yes you will. But first there’s something else we want, all four of us. We wonder what Muslim whores taste like. Once we make you happy, you’ll be ready to answer our questions.”

Weasel Face unbuckled his belt, while the others fondled and pinched Mirsada’s breasts.