Novic Sara - Girl at War

“Can’t we get around?” my mother said. “Tell them we just want to get home.”

Two men stood apart from the group, motioning disjointedly at us.

“Shit.”

“Okay, just pull over!”

“What’s happening, Mama?” I said.

“Nothing, honey, we just have to stop for a minute.”

“Mama—”

“Just sit down, Ana.” My father cranked open the window as one of the soldiers staggered toward the car. The glimmer in his eye matched the reflection of the sunlight off the vodka bottle he held. In his other hand was an AK-47. A Soviet stamp covered the butt of the weapon, and the paths where the ink had dripped and dried looked like tear tracks.

“Is there a problem?” my father asked.

“Need your ID,” the soldier slurred. My parents’ faces grayed as my mother searched the glove compartment for our passports. Giving up our IDs would provide the soldier with the greatest weapon against us: the knowledge of our names. Our last name specifically, the one that carried the weight of ancestry, ethnicity.

“We have a child,” my father said. “We’re just going home.”

“Jurić?” the soldier read aloud. My parents were silent. The soldier readjusted his gun, looked away. “Imamo Hrvate!” he called over his shoulder. Hrvati . Croatians. Despite his drunkenness, he still managed a clear inflection of disgust. Another soldier approached and pressed his gun against the soft skin of my father’s neck. “Everybody out,” he said, then, turning to the rest of the men, “Get the others.”

“Mama, where are we—”

“I don’t know, Ana. Just be very quiet. Maybe they want to search us.” The car bobbed on its corroded shocks as we climbed from our seats. A line of cars had formed along the side of the road. Farther off, a group of civilian prisoners stood on a patch of browning grass, shifting their collective weight uneasily. I stared at them, tried to get someone to look back at me, but no one would. I was jolted from my gaze when a soldier jammed his gun into my back, sending a shock of pain up my spine.

“Tata!” I called out to my father as the soldier wrapped a thick coil of barbed wire around my wrists. The soldier let out a laugh and a mouthful of air that stunk of alcohol. Tides of the soured milk pitched against the walls of my stomach.

“Fuck you! Fuck all of you!” my father was yelling, struggling against his own wire cuffs. The soldier behind him struck the back of my father’s knee with the barrel of his AK. My father’s leg twisted in a way it shouldn’t have, and blood ran down the back of his pant leg. He was quiet.

I made my way over to him, leaned my head on his hip, and instinctively reached for his hand, but the wire around my wrists sunk into my flesh. “We’re going to be fine,” he said, softly now. “Just don’t get separated.” Beside him, my mother was shaking a little, even though she was wearing her coat. I’d left my jacket in the car, but somehow I didn’t feel cold.

The realization that my parents, too, felt pain and fear frightened me more than any strangers could. Panicked thoughts came like a rush of river water — they were going to take our car; we were going to be beaten; they were going to send us to the camps. They herded us into the group of other prisoners: a series of men wearing painters’ jumpsuits and stolid expressions, a teenage couple trying to touch one another and recoiling when the wires caught their skin, a woman with a run of blood down her thigh, an old man with white stubble and scuffed black orthopedic shoes. Others.

“ Hajde! Let’s go!” barked the leader of the soldiers. He staggered toward the forest that lined the road.

I focused on not moving my wrists beneath the wire, watching my feet as they sunk into the underbrush with each step. The child of a concrete city, I had never been in a forest before. It was cold and dank-smelling, like the basement of our skyscraper. The viny brushwood seemed to grab at the tops of my sneakers. I thought of Stribor and his kingdom and wished for a glimpse of magic inside a hollowed oak, a miraculous escape route. As we walked farther into the forest, the afternoon sunlight was swallowed by shadows.

“Tata,” I whispered. “Why’s it so dark in here?” But the group had stopped and he didn’t answer. We’d reached a clearing, the forest floor packed so thoroughly under the heels of combat boots that there was no more plant life, only dirt and rotting acorns. In front of us were the remnants of an extinguished fire and a large hole in the ground.

Behind me someone was shouting. One of the painters had tried to run back toward the road, but his gait was off-balance with his arms tied behind him. A soldier caught him quickly, and, after a smack of the rifle across the legs, the man was on his knees. The soldier pulled the man up by his hair, moving his head side to side at an unnatural tilt before letting him drop again to the ground. The man lay in the dirt, and the soldier wiped a clump of hair from his hand before angling the butt of his gun and dispensing a swift blow to the back of the head. Blood — runny — and a dent where bone used to be.

“Anyone else?” the soldier said. His teeth were brown.

The soldiers organized us into a single-file line. They shoved and jabbed. If someone didn’t move fast enough, they bludgeoned. They arched the line perfectly around the mouth of the pit.

The first time, the noise that came out of the AK didn’t sound like a gunshot. It sounded like a laugh. There was a unified gasp as the first victim crumpled and fell into the void below. For a few seconds, a minute even, nothing happened. Then another shot, and the man next to him — another one of the painters — went.

Witnessing these men’s deaths taught the rest of us two things: they were going to do this slowly, and they were going left to right. This was not the most efficient way to kill people. But it was not the least efficient either. It was good target practice for the new recruits. It was slow enough to make the prisoners squirm. It wasn’t messy. Bloody, maybe. But once they fell, they were already half-buried.

My father looked down at me, then back to my mother on his left side. His mouth twisted as he pulled his eyes away from hers, then spoke to me in a sharp whisper.

“Ana — Ana, listen to me.” A shot. “We’re going to play a game, okay? We’re going to trick the guards.” A shot. “They’re drunk — it’ll be easy if you pay attention. All you have to do is stay close to me, very close—” A shot. “Then when I fall down into the hole, you fall at the same time. Just close your eyes and keep your body straight.” A shot. “But it won’t work unless we both fall at the very same time, okay?” A shot. “Do you understand? Don’t! Don’t look at me.”

I didn’t understand what was happening, really, how we could trick the guards out of shooting us. But my father seemed sure that if we both fell at the same time we would be okay, and he was always right.

“Is Mama going to fall with us, too?” A shot.

“No, she—” My father’s voice cracked. “She’s going to go first.” I looked at my mother, watched my father watching her, the way something in his irises extinguished.

“Ana!” My father’s whisper was much harsher now, frantic. “Listen. Once we fall we have to stay absolutely still and wait until it’s quiet above us. Then we’ll get out together. Okay? Just remember—” A shot. My mother swayed on the rim of the muddy cavity. A dot of crimson appeared at the curve of her lip, streamed down her chin. She seemed to hover there, as if she’d jumped on purpose, landing quietly, not with the thud of the others before her.

I felt myself yell as I realized what had happened. Another shot, one that echoed. I waited, watched my father, then held my breath and fell.