Novic Sara - Girl at War

“It’s funny, you at college,” I said instead.

“I’ve got good marks.”

“I just mean you’re all grown up.”

“Same as you,” he said. “What are you studying?”

“English.”

“English? You still haven’t gotten the hang of it?”

“Not the language. Literature and stuff. What about you?”

“Finance.” I was underwhelmed by his choice. I’d imagined him as a philosopher or a scientist, holed up in some library or laboratory in a profession that would allow him to scrutinize the minutest of details like he’d always done. “In third year at high school, all the adults were asking me what I wanted to study at university. I hated talking about it so I just made up the most practical answer I could to shut them up. Then, when it came time to apply, it actually sounded like a good idea.”

“Sounds stable.”

“It’s not as boring as you think.”

A man with a shaved head and unshaven face was staggering down the platform in our direction. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes shifting rapidly inside deep-set sockets. He clawed at his face as he walked, bumping shoulders with Luka as he passed. An odor of sweat and urine followed him.

I tried to refocus on our conversation, but the man spun around and now came toward us with a purposeful look. He clamped his hand down on Luka’s shoulder.

“Did you touch me?” the man asked.

Luka said he hadn’t. The man pushed Luka, asked again.

“No,” Luka said, more forcefully. “Keep walking.”

“You wanna fight?” The man swayed. “I’ll show you a real fight.” He reached into his sock and stood up quickly, wielding a serrated knife.

Luka stood in front of me protectively, straightened his shoulders. “Just calm down,” he was repeating. The man grinned and tightened his grip around the handle of his weapon.

I scanned the empty platform, wondering where all the witnesses had gone. Had I really come this far to be stabbed in the middle of the Trg in broad daylight? I was sure something terrible was about to happen, but panic eluded me. I found myself thinking of the next logical move. The violent Zagreb was, after all, the place I knew best. I considered a way to jump the man from the side and knock the knife from his hand, planned my route to the nearest shop where I could run for help if Luka was hurt, rehearsed a dialogue with the shopkeeper in my head. The man pressed the blunt side of the knife against Luka’s cheek.

But nothing happened. A crowded tram slowed to a stop, and Luka and I ran to the farthest car and ducked in, melting into the commuters as the doors shut behind us. The man stared up from the platform, then stuffed his knife back into his sock.

Luka, who had been calm throughout the encounter, was now cracking. Streaks of perspiration had formed at his hairline, and he pulled the back of his unsteady hand across his forehead.

“I take it that doesn’t happen often, then?” I asked.

“You often get knifed by hoboes in New York?”

“Well, no.”

“I’m going to buy a gun,” he said. He was breathing like we had run farther than just a few meters. The spot on his face where the man had pressed the knife was scratched, but he hadn’t broken the skin.

“It wouldn’t help anything,” I said.

The tram was going the wrong direction, and we rode it three stops before we noticed.

—

The economics college was the modern, windowless cube I had imagined, an exemplar of everything that was dismal about Communist architecture. I stood in the lobby while Luka circled between offices in a bureaucratic shuffle. I spotted a computer kiosk and waited for the dial-up, then checked my email. One from Laura, who, unaccustomed to email, had written the entirety of her message in the subject line: Are you there yet? Are you safe? Love, Mom .

Hi, Mom , I wrote. I’m here in Zagreb. Staying with some family friends . I thought of the man on the subway platform. Safe and sound, don’t worry. Will write again soon .

Nothing from Brian. We had been in contact only a few times after our fight, via perfunctory text message: U doing okay?; Can I come get my copy of Bleak House ?; Good luck w/finals . The night of my flight I’d written him an email to say that I was going to Croatia, that I was sorry for hurting him and hoped we could talk soon.

I opened a new message. Hi. How was graduation? Just wanted to let you know I got here safely and am thinking of you . I closed the window without sending it. Maybe he hadn’t written because he didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

I went to the bathroom and was met with the kind of public toilet I had conveniently forgotten, a ceramic basin recessed into the floor. I adjusted my stance, engaged in the awkward reallocation of clothing, but it was a skill set of balance and willpower I seemed to have lost, so I resigned myself to waiting until we returned home.

“Would’ve been easier if you had a skirt on,” Luka said when I mentioned it. His words were steeped in a masculine dismissal I found startling.

“When have you ever seen me in a skirt?”

“I’m sure you got new clothes at some point.”

“Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Different.”

He slowed his steps as we left the college. “Sorry,” he said. He veered close to the edge of the curb, and I took hold of his elbow and pulled him back onto the walkway. “I guess I’m a little overwhelmed.”

“By what?”

“You’re back. It’s a lot of shit.”

“It’s my shit.”

“It’s not just your shit,” he said. “You don’t get to claim the war as your own personal tragedy. Not here.” I watched his eyes flicker like he was deciding which cards to play in a hand of poker. “What’s the family like?”

“They’re nice,” I said. “They’re Italian. I mean, they’re American, but—”

“I get it.”

“Rahela’s eleven. She thinks she’s American. Everyone does. They call her Rachel.”

“Rachel,” he said, testing it out with his accent, a heavy rolled r . “She doesn’t really think that, though, does she?”

“She knows,” I said. “But she doesn’t feel it.”

“Hey! Luuu-kaaa!” A thin voice punctured the quiet between us. “Wait up!” I heard the click of heels, and we stopped as the girl approached. Her black hair, smoothed and straightened, swayed in just the right rhythm as she walked. The pointed patent-leather toes of her shoes protruded from the cuffs of her jeans. She seemed to belong to a decade I could not pinpoint.

“How have you been?” she was saying to him but looking at me. I looked down at my flip-flops.

“Danijela, this is Ana. An old friend, from primary school.”

“ Drago mi je,” I said, and felt a fake smile stretch across my face as she planted a kiss on each of my cheeks with unnecessary force.

“Ne, zadovoljstvo je moje,” Danijela said, and I recognized the same smile reflected back at me. She and Luka talked about registration for fall classes while I studied her olive skin, the kind my mother and Rahela had. I thought of the school yard girls who had made fun of my hand-me-downs and teased me for inheriting my father’s fair, freckled complexion, calling me Czech or Polish. I wondered if this girl had been one of them. I was relieved when she flipped back her phone to check the time and said she had to go. She and Luka made vague plans to meet for coffee, and she winked at him as she left.

“What was that all about?”

“What?”

“That,” I said, fluttering my lashes.

“Girl I used to date,” he said, suppressing a smile at my impression. “She’s not that bad. She’s actually kind of smart.”