Novic Sara - Girl at War

“I was giving a speech at the UN.”

“The UN? What for?”

“The thing is, I’m not actually—” I searched for a word. “Italian.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was born in Croatia. Zagreb. Well, it was Yugoslavia then. When I was ten, the civil war started. My parents got killed.”

“But what about your parents in Pennsylvania? And your sister?”

“We were adopted. Rahela — Rachel’s my real sister.”

I told him about Rahela’s illness and MediMission and Sarajevo. About the roadblock and the forest and how I’d escaped. About how the UN presentation had brought on the old nightmares. Our food arrived and got cold. When I finished, Brian was still holding my hand, but he didn’t say anything.

“Are you freaked out?”

“No,” he said. “I mean I am. Not for me, for you. But that’s not that point. Shit, Ana. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry, too. I should have told you sooner.”

“It’s okay. I’m still trying to process all this. But it’s okay.”

Junior appeared with the wine again and slipped into the booth next to me. “Heya, princess. It’s good to see you. You should come around more often.”

“Yeah,” I managed. “School gets busy. How are you?”

“Same shit, different day. I got some tax man so far up my ass it’s like my colonoscopy all over again. But fuck it. How’s the family?”

“They’re good. Rachel’s getting big.”

“I bet. I’ve gotta get down there for a visit. Your father always throws good barbecues. I’ll make more of that ‘lemonade.’ ”

“Definitely. This summer.”

“Well, sir,” Junior said to Brian. “Don’t want to steal this pretty lady away from you any longer.”

“What are you thinking?” I said when Junior had gone.

“A lot of things,” Brian said. “I feel so sad for you.”

“And?”

“And. And I know this is gonna sound bad, but I can’t help wondering if it changes things for us.”

“It doesn’t,” I said. “I’m still me.”

“You can’t tell me this stuff doesn’t affect you at all.”

“No, you know me.” I pulled my hands under the table, rubbed at the thin white rings of scar tissue at my wrists. Wounds I’d explained away with an invented bicycle crash. “We’re supposed to be happy right now. You just asked me to move in with you,” I said, though that moment felt far away.

“I know. I just mean it’s a lot to work through. But, Ana?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m willing to do it, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Want to get out of here?”

“Don’t think you’re leaving without dessert!” said Junior, rounding the corner with two bowls of panna cotta.

“Thanks, but we’re really full,” I said.

“Dessert is a separate compartment,” said Junior and set the bowls down on the table. Brian, who intuited that it would be quicker to eat the dessert than argue with Junior, took a few big spoonfuls, and I followed.

“Uncle J, can we have the check?” I said between bites.

“Unfortunately I can’t help you. No such check exists.”

“Come on. We want to pay you.”

“You’re students. Forget it.”

“All right,” I said, willing to give in if it meant we got to leave. “Thank you.”

“No problemo. And tell your father to call me for chrissakes.”

Out on the street it was much windier than it had been when we’d gone in, strong gusts cutting through my jacket. Brian always sped up in the cold, and I struggled to match his pace.

“Have you ever thought about going back?” he said.

“Sometimes. But I don’t know what for.”

“It might give you some closure.”

“Oh, here we go.” Annoyed, I stopped trying to keep up.

Brian slowed, too. “Hey, don’t do that. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You don’t know the first thing about dealing with this stuff.”

“I know. You’re right.” We were blocking the sidewalk, and he broached the gap between us. He tried to pull my hand from my pocket, but I jerked away.

“It’s cold.”

“Ana, I’m sorry. Just come home with me. Elliot’s still off at some design conference. We’ll have the place to ourselves. We can…decompress.” He was holding on to my wrist inside my jacket pocket, and I interlaced my fingers with his. I could feel myself relenting. I didn’t want to fight with him, and I didn’t want to be alone.

—

Brian and I had quiet sex that felt like an apology. Normally we were relaxed with one another, having learned the patterns of each other’s bodies. But now we were overly careful, each of us fumbling to show the other we were willing to repair the trust I had broken. When it was over I felt a longing for the blitheness I had ruined.

“What is it?” Brian said.

“Nothing.”

“I can see you thinking.”

“Really, nothing.”

“How do you hold all this stuff inside such a little person?” he said, pressing his palm to my chest. “Don’t you feel like you’re going to explode?”

“I’m more worried about you.”

“What about me?”

“What you’re thinking, about all this.”

“I’m thinking that’s why you like Sebald.”

“Oh, don’t start.”

He smiled his crooked smile and ran a finger across my cheek. “Seriously though.”

“Isn’t there anything you want to know?”

“Everything,” he said. “But not tonight. We have time. Tonight let’s just do this.” He slipped his arm beneath me, and I laid my head on his chest.

I listened to his heartbeat slow. “Brian?” I said after a while. He didn’t respond. I slid from his bed and searched his desk for a piece of scrap paper. Sorry to leave. Been having trouble sleeping .

I took a detour to the library. I was nearly finished with Austerlitz and needed a new book. The circulation desk was about to close for the night, and the work-study girl scowled when I walked in and showed my guest pass. I found myself typing “Croatia” into the catalog database, and followed the resulting call number to the Eastern European section at the back of the stacks. I pulled the biggest nonreference book— Black Lamb and Grey Falcon —from its place on the shelf and thumbed through the first few pages in the volume of over a thousand. It had been published in Britain in the forties, and I was wary of what kind of light a dead Englishwoman might shed on modern-day anything, never mind a country so drastically changed as mine. But when I turned to the dedication page my breath seized at the stark precision of its single sentence: To my friends in Yugoslavia, who are now all dead or enslaved . I snapped the heavy cover shut.

The book hadn’t been checked out since 1991, and the work-study girl made a point of looking me over before stamping the due date card with the twenty-first century. I thought of the person who’d borrowed it more than a decade ago, when I was still across the ocean. A journalism student, I decided. An overeager one, looking for some deep background to inject sense into an article about ethnic cleansing.

I went home but didn’t open the book again. I could not shake the thought of friends gone missing. I turned on the computer and trolled the Internet in search of Luka. I’d done it only once before, but finding no trace of him had sent me into a weeklong depression and I’d forbidden myself from making it a habit. Now, I reasoned, I couldn’t feel much worse. But Luka’s life, if he was still alive, had produced no techno-footprint. At two in the morning my roommate, Natalie, came home drunk and fell asleep with her shoes on. I walked to the bodega and bought a Coke and a frozen burrito. Going to bed now would surely bring on another set of nightmares, so, sufficiently caffeinated, I went to the common room, turned the TV on loud, and read Rebecca West’s book until the sun came up.