Novic Sara - Girl at War

—

Over the next few weeks I told Brian pieces of my story — the sandbags and air raids and snipers in Zagreb, the Četniks in the forest, and the little village afterward. He was patient and didn’t push me if I stopped mid-thought, but it didn’t matter; I could feel myself slipping, and had no way to contend with the fact that all his kindness and understanding could not fix me. Each night I’d wait for him to fall asleep, then return to my dorm to pace the halls. Once I stumbled over my shoe and woke him.

“You can stay, you know. Elliot’s probably at Sasha’s for the night.”

“I don’t want to keep you up.”

“You have work to do? You can turn the desk lamp on.”

“It’s not that. The dreams I told you about. I wake up yelling.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do.”

“But if we’re going to live together—”

“Brian, don’t.”

“A few bad dreams are no big deal in the grand scheme of things.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I just can’t have that conversation right now,” I said. I fumbled with my shoelaces in the dark and left.

—

“There you are,” said Professor Ariel when I appeared in his doorway one afternoon. “That big research paper in Brighton’s class keeping you busy?”

“Yeah, sorry. And I’ve been reading…something else.”

“Come, sit.”

I put Austerlitz down on his desk.

“Lovely, no?”

I nodded.

He leafed through the volume. “I find the symbolic use of train stations throughout to be his most successful integration of photos. What have you dog-eared here?”

“Gosh, I’m sorry. I don’t even remember doing that.”

“The wily ways of memory.” He chuckled. “Not a problem. Here.” He handed me the open book, and I skimmed the page I’d bent. It was easy to find what I’d been trying to save.

“This,” I said. “ ‘I had never heard of an Austerlitz before, and from the first I was convinced that no one else bore that name, no one in Wales, or in the Isles, or anywhere else in the world.’ ”

“What do you like about it?”

“The isolation, I guess. That he can describe an emotion so perfectly, without any adjectives.”

“A rare talent.”

I passed the book back over the desk and nodded again.

“What do you make of his critics?”

It hadn’t occurred to me that there could be critics of such a writer. Brian was one thing, but he hadn’t even read the book. “What do you mean?”

“He’s got no new material. That it’s just more of the same.”

“Of course it’s more of the same. What else is there to write about when you have this?”

“That is the counterargument,” Professor Ariel said.

—

By mid-April the gray skies were receding, and I tried to let the sunny weather permeate the vacant feeling inside me. Brian attempted to coax me into talking about what was bothering me, and in response I picked petty fights with him until we had spiraled into a cycle of bickering and making up. I studied more than I needed to just to fill time. There were only three weeks left in the semester, and then I could get out of this city.

One night Brian and I ate Chinese takeout in his bed. He was reading an anthropology textbook, and I held Black Lamb and Grey Falcon open on my lap but could not concentrate. I was running out of time to decide whether we should live together. The dreams showed no sign of letting up, and I continued to pull away from Brian in every moment I most needed him.

“Do you think two people are meant to stay together forever?” I said.

Brian looked up with a tentative smile. “Did you read Us Weekly in the supermarket line again?”

I glared at him and he mumbled an apology.

“Some people do it,” he said. “My parents are still married. Yours, too. I mean, your parents in Gardenville—”

“I know what you mean.”

“So what’s got you worked up then? Trouble in Rebecca West paradise?”

“I’m not worked up,” I said with a sharpness that suggested otherwise. “It’s just, housing deposits come due next week. I don’t know what to do.”

Brian closed his book and moved closer to me on the bed. “I’ve got an idea.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“So you have bad dreams. We’ll deal with them. Maybe they’ll even go away. Is that really what you’re worried about?”

“Worrying isn’t rational. No one makes a conscious decision to freak out about something.”

“Look, you’ve got a lot on your mind. And you’re not sleeping, and finals are coming up. I get that. But these nightmares — all this stuff — it’s no reason for us to put our lives on hold.”

“Yeah, that’s it. I’m overreacting.” I was being unfair, I knew, but could not stop myself. I was so tired of his being even-keeled in the face of all that was upsetting and ugly and illogical. I wanted a reaction out of him. “Maybe I’m even hysterical. A hysterical woman,” I said.

“Whoa, Ana, I didn’t—”

“I know you didn’t. You didn’t have to — I can tell you’re thinking it.”

Brian dropped his chopsticks into his carton of noodles and stood. “You know what? Fine. I have been trying and trying with you, but you just refuse — I’m not sure I can take this anymore.”

“I think we need some time apart.” When I saw the words reflected on his face I wished I hadn’t said them. “Maybe we could just take a break, and talk again in a couple weeks.”

Brian didn’t say anything.

“Brian, I’m sorry. Really.”

“Okay. Can you just—” He nodded toward the door.

—

I left Brian’s room and walked Fourteenth Street all the way to the Hudson. In the gutter someone had dropped a pen and I eyed it uneasily. For years I had forgotten about the mines disguised as litter, but now I was staring at someone’s trash half-expecting it to explode. I cursed Sharon and the UN for stirring up trouble. Telling my story was supposed to be a good thing but it had just made everything worse. And now I’d been terrible to Brian and lost him, too.

“What’s wrong with you?” I said. I yanked at the necklace Brian had given me, but it held fast and my neck stung where the metal dug into my skin. I unclasped the chain and balled it up in my fist. The river glowed auburn with the lights of Manhattan and Jersey City. I considered throwing the necklace in the water. Had I died in the forest, at least I would be with my family and ignorant of such profound loneliness. But then there was Rahela. I dumped the chain in my coat pocket. Not knowing what else to do, I called my mother.

Laura answered in a groggy voice. “What’s the matter?”

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how late it was. Did I wake you?”

“No, no, it’s okay. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” I could feel my voice cracking.

I let Laura whisper placations into the phone but knew she could not console me.

“I think — I want to go home.”

“Do you want me to come get you?”

“No. I mean I want to go back to Croatia.”

“What?”

“Just for the summer.”

“Honey, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. It’s dangerous.”

“The war’s been over for ages.”

“Only two years since Kosovo.”

“So what am I supposed to do, hide out in Gardenville forever?”

“But a trip like that — do you think it makes sense to open old wounds?”

“Open them?” I almost laughed.

“I just don’t want to see you hurting again.”

“I’m already hurting. I am at a standstill with this shit. I’m never going to get better. Not like this.”

“Look. You’re upset. Take a day to cool off and we’ll talk more—”