Braco (37 page)

FRIDAY:
ATIF STAVIC

ATIF LAY ON
his back, staring at the sky. He raised his finger and traced the constellations the way his father had taught him. Cassiopeia, the Little Dipper, the Big Dipper, Draco. Lyra drifted directly above him. He turned his head to look south. Jupiter hung above the horizon; to the left, the full moon was rising.

Must be close to midnight. Have I been here that long?

Hours earlier, he had crawled away from the field and through the woods to the edge of a meadow bathed in the early morning sun. But the pasture had been too exposed to cross in daylight; he'd spent the day hiding in the bushes. He'd listened to a bulldozer chew at the earth a few hundred metres to the south. The grinding, cracking, and pounding continued until dusk.

When nightfall came, Atif found he didn't have the strength to keep going. His feet were cut, blistered, and swollen; every step like walking on a bed of razors. He had soaked them in a nearby creek, but the pain had gotten worse.

He remained on the edge of the meadow, forcing his eyelids to stay open. Every sound was a Serb soldier searching for him; every rumble a truck driving in his direction; every branch swaying in the wind a
blautsauger
. Gunfire and explosions echoed from the south.

“I can't walk two kilometres, Tarak,” he whispered to the night sky. “I barely made it a few hundred metres. What if the front lines have moved? They could be five or ten kilometres farther north by now. Maybe I'll just stay here. Someone will find me. Eventually.”

But no one found Tata.

“I can't take you this time, Atif,” his father had said that day in April.

“But you're not going that far.”

“It's not how far I'm going,” he said, pulling on his blue shirt. “It's where I'm going. There have been attacks in the area.”

Atif didn't reply. Nothing he said would change his father's mind. They went downstairs and Atif stood back as his father said goodbye to Tihana and his mother. Then he followed his father into the early morning fog.

“I was thinking,” Atif said as they walked, “that I might get a job.”

His father adjusted the pack on his back and glanced at Atif. “What kind of job?”

“I don't know. Maybe I'll see if the blue helmets need a translator.”

“You have to be sixteen.”

“Then maybe Ina can get me something at the hospital. Or I can get something at the post office.”

His father stopped and raised a finger. “No. Not with the army. Listen, Atif, when you're old enough I'll see what Ina can do for you at the hospital. For now, your mother needs your help.”

Atif looked away. He felt the weight of his father's hand on his shoulder.

“If it weren't for this war, you'd be more worried about which girls like you than about getting a job. Go play soccer with your friends. Go to the movie room with them. Find a girlfriend. Just be a boy for a little while longer.”

“But I want to help.”

“You have been helping. You don't see it, but you have been a great help. More than you know.”

Two soldiers materialized out of the fog.

“Coming, Yassir?” one soldier muttered without stopping.

“I've got to go,” his father said, touching Atif on the chin. “I left my razor if you want to shave off that scruff.”

“What? No. I like it.”

“Because you think it makes you look older?”

Atif smiled. His father kissed him on the forehead. “I think it looks scruffy.”

He patted Atif on the shoulder and turned to follow the soldiers. Just before the fog swallowed him whole, his father turned and waved.

So long ago.

Insects chirped. Stars shot across the sky. Branches swayed in a light breeze. Atif's eyes closed.

Stay awake!

He shivered and rubbed his arms. After the oppressive heat of the day, the night air felt as though the temperature was just a degree or two above freezing. Atif stuffed his chilled hands inside his pockets.

Curious.

He fingered something in his pocket.

Did the Chetniks miss something?

He pulled out the bag of salt his mother had given him. Atif sat up and stared at the plastic bag. He'd forgotten about it.

I need water.

He listened for vehicles, voices, and footfalls.

Nothing.

He used his elbows to crawl to the edge of the creek. Opening the bag, he dipped his fingers in the salt, licking them clean in between gulps of water.

Is this what Kemal meant? Was it a sign from God? Or was it there because a mother had been looking out for her child and a lazy soldier hadn't bothered to check every pocket?

Atif lay back and let the water soothe his swollen feet while the salt rejuvenated his spent body.

“Thanks, Mama. I'll try. I promise.”

For you. For Tarak. For my friends. For Tata.

He knotted the bag closed and stowed it safely in his pocket. Then he considered his feet. He had a choice between being cold and not being able to walk.

Not a difficult decision.

He pulled off the blood-soaked neon yellow T-shirt and used his teeth to tear it in half. Then he used it to wrap his feet. He stood up.

Razors. Knives. Needles.

He sat back down and massaged his painful feet. A machine gun popped to the south. A dog barked.

Atif got up again and gasped. Blades sliced to the bone. He turned his back to the moon and walked to the edge of the meadow.

Is it mined?

He knelt and felt the ground for a stick, then crawled into the field, probing the loose, moist soil as Tarak had taught him. The stick sank deep with every attempt.

Maybe it's just hay.

Vehicles rumbled on a road to his left. Gunfire erupted some distance away to his right. He heard nothing ahead. The moon was high by the time he crept into the trees on the far side of the pasture. Gunfire reverberated from the south.

Kalashnikovs.

He recognized the rifle's distinctive sound. Automatic gunfire followed by single shots. No one returned fire.

They're still doing it.

Atif grabbed a branch and climbed to his feet. He took a step onto a bed of nails. Another step and the nails caught fire. Atif leaned against a tree and chewed on his lips until he tasted blood and salt.

I can't stay here. I have to walk.

He spit and took a step, then another and another. He stopped to give his feet a break and to listen then repeated the process, three steps at a time.

“Keep walking until you find someone.”

“But what if that someone is a Chetnik?” he whispered.

He took three steps. Then another three.

The woods opened onto a road. Atif dropped to his knees and felt the ground.

Gravel.

Damn it.

He looked to his left. Darkness.

To his right, lights. He glimpsed part of a house, its light hidden behind heavy curtains. Something moved next to the house.

Laundry on a line?

He looked at his feet and then at the gravel between the edge of the road and the clothesline. A shirt waved.

Too far.

He drew in a long breath and started to crawl across the road, the gravel clawing at his knees.

Voices.

He froze and then looked right.

An orange glow floated above the road near the house. A match flared like a sparkler on a birthday cake. Now two orange glows walked in his direction.

How stupid can they be?

Atif slid back into the woods and crawled under the bough of a fir tree.

Are they soldiers? Are they walking this way?

Voices drifted through the trees. Gravel crunched.

“It's not football,” one voice said. An orange glow swung up, glowed brightly then swung back down. “They don't even use a real ball.”

“But it's exciting,” another said. Atif counted four helmets, the features under them shaded from the moon. They stopped a few metres away. “The American game is full of strategy. They plan every move. They don't just kick it around and hope someone on the other team doesn't get it. All you do is sit for three hours and you're lucky to see one or two goals.”

“It's easy to get excited about that when you're drunk.”

One of the orange glows dropped. The other one brightened for a moment. Air seeped between Atif's teeth.

“You don't understand. I mean, in the last Super Bowl I saw, they were apart by a single point. All the other team needed was a field goal. That's three points. So, they march down the field and are well within field goal range. Only seconds left. The kicker comes out to make a sure thing. He kicks the ball and it sails to the right and misses by a metre. They had the win within their grasp and they lost it. You don't get that kind of excitement with our football.”

“I don't need excitement. I just need a reason to get drunk.”

“I'm out.”

“Here.”

A match flickered. Something splashed against a tree on the other side of the road.

“After the war, I'll take you to England to watch a good rugby match. No padding. No helmets. Just brute force. Those bastards know how to play.”

Boots crushed gravel. The orange glows floated away.

Atif's muscles relaxed. He released the rest of the air in his lungs and filled them without a sound. He counted the seconds until he hit one thousand and then he rolled out from under the bough and crawled to the edge of the road. He looked left, right, and then left again.

Dark. Quiet. Deserted.

Or had the soldiers doused their cigarettes? Were they sitting on the side of the road waiting for me to move out into the open?

He swiped the gravel aside and crawled out. Rocks stabbed at his knees. He brushed more gravel away, watching the road and the house and crawling until his hand touched grass that smelled of urine. He stood, checked the moon, and stepped into the forest. Every step found more red-hot razors. The land sloped up and he hiked until he came to a steep embankment. He sat on a rock to rest and stared up at the hill. Then he looked behind for the moon.

Zenith?

He turned his back directly to the moon and looked at the hill. If he wanted to go north, he had no choice. He had to climb.

This is going to hurt.

He stood and waited for the hot blades to recede into the ground and then grabbed a tree. Sap coated his fingers. He placed a foot at the base of the tree and grabbed a branch. Then he pushed himself forward with the same foot, cringing from the pain now radiating up through his legs. He moved from tree to tree like a monkey in slow motion until the slope levelled near the top. Then he dropped to his knees and crawled the last few metres. He lay back on the grass, panting quietly.

A sound.

He held his breath and listened.

Soft, rhythmic, nasal.

Snoring?

Atif crawled towards the sound, planting his sticky hands and knees carefully so he wouldn't crack twigs or crush brittle leaves. The moon lit the small clearing above him.

Does the blautsauger snore?

Then he saw the outline of a boot beside a tree.

Another survivor?
No, he told himself. They had been stripped of their footwear.
Would a Chetnik patrol the area alone?

He rose to his feet, his teeth clenched against the pain, and stepped up to the tree. He peered around it, catching himself before he reacted to what he saw.

A Serb soldier was sleeping against the tree. His rifle was lying next to him. Atif stared at the weapon and then at the soldier.

What do I do? Leave?

That risked waking the soldier.

Steal the rifle and shoot him?

But that would bring other soldiers.

Atif crouched next to the rifle. The soldier's hand lay motionless next to it. Then the soldier stirred, taking in a nasal breath. His head jerked back against the tree.

No choice.

Atif grabbed the rifle and skipped backwards, fumbling for the safety. He switched it off as his feet landed on the thorns of a wild rose. He grunted from the pain. The Serb woke up.

The soldier's arm swiped the ground and found it empty.

“Stand up,” Atif said.

The soldier hesitated and then climbed to his feet. He stepped forward, his wide eyes reflecting moonlight.

He looks my age.

“Don't shoot, please,” the soldier said.

“Why shouldn't I?”

“I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Liar. You're killing us by the thousands.”