Novic Sara - Girl at War

I nodded.

“It’ll take some work to get you out of here. But I think I can do it.”

—

Petar contacted MediMission, who offered a terse response that family reunification cases were not within the scope of their work, but that he could reapply on my behalf if I ever fell ill. Then he considered refugee status, but there wasn’t an American embassy in Croatia yet. The consulate in Belgrade was running a looping voice mail that apologized for the wait time and said, due to the high volume of inquiries, they were working through a backlog of applications at this time.

“Never mind that,” said Petar. “I know someone.”

The next morning Petar and I rang the buzzer of a basement apartment beneath a butcher shop in a southern part of the city where I’d never been. We waited, listening as a series of chains and dead bolts clinked on the other side of the door. It opened a sliver, enough to reveal one pale eye, then closed to allow for more unlocking.

“Security,” the man said. “You know how it is.” Finally the door opened a passable amount and Petar and I slipped inside. The flat was dank and smelled moldy. It was hard to make out at first, but as my eyes adjusted it was clear the single-room efficiency was home to more than just an overweight bachelor; the entirety of the counter space was lined with equipment ranging from typewriters and printing presses to what was, by my best guess, a blowtorch.

“What happened to you?” the man said, gesturing to Petar’s arm.

“Shattered humerus. Shrapnel still in there.” I felt bad that I’d never asked, but it had always seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it, and that I could understand.

The man changed the subject. “And what can I do for you today?” He squatted down when he spoke to me. “You want a driver’s license?”

“Ha ha,” said Petar, and the two men executed a combination handshake-hug. The man kissed Petar three times, the Orthodox way, and I winced. “Ana,” Petar said, “this is Srdjan.” An indisputably Serbian name. My heartbeat quickened. “An old friend from high school. Srdjan knew your parents.”

Srdjan was holding out his hand. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear.”

“Go on then. Shake his hand.”

“I can help you,” Srdjan said. I put my hand in his. “I hear you need an American visa.”

I looked up at Petar, who nodded. I nodded, too.

“Well, luckily, I happen to produce absolutely foolproof visas,” Srdjan said, with a sweeping gesture at his workshop. “I even have the very same paper that the United States of America uses.” He rummaged through paper-filled cabinets. “How are you going to fly?”

“Probably through Germany,” Petar said. “I’m still working out the finer points.”

“Germany,” he said. “As long as you stay in the international terminal you’ll be fine.”

He flipped some levers on the printing equipment, and the machines hummed. “With this paper I can produce exact American replicas! I got it from an intern at the embassy—”

“She doesn’t need to know where you got it,” Petar said, predicting the course of the story.

“Tits”—Srdjan held his hands far out from his chest—“as big as honeydew melons, I shit you not.”

Petar chuckled uneasily, and Srdjan looked surprised to find worry in his friend’s face.

“What’s wrong with tits? She’s a girl. She’s going to have tits.”

“All right! Enough with the tits.”

“Fine,” Srdjan said. He looked down at me. “Didn’t know he was so sensitive.”

“What about a passport?”

“What do you mean? We’ll just staple it in her regular passport.”

“It got…lost,” Petar said.

“Well, you could apply for a new one.”

“Not enough time. Can’t you just make her one? Make her a German one!”

“Yeah, I’ll make a fake German passport and we’ll send a kid who doesn’t speak any German to Germany with it!” Srdjan raised the heel of his hand and smacked Petar in the forehead, then shot me a wink. “Look out — we’ve got a real genius on our hands!”

“All right, all right,” said Petar. “Make her one of ours then. Don’t you need to take her picture or something?”

“Indeed.” Srdjan adjusted a pair of photographer’s lights that looked like umbrellas, and I stood stoic against a white sheet while he snapped a picture.

“I’ll be back to pick it up Wednesday?” Petar handed him an envelope, and Srdjan fingered the flap and peeked inside. “I’ll bring the rest then.”

“Very well,” Srdjan said, and took a dramatic bow before walking us to the door and releasing us out into the daylight. “Ana.”

I turned back.

“Your parents. They were good.”

“Thanks.” I tried to think of something better to say, but Srdjan had already shut the door, the dead bolts clicking behind us.

—

Voices of my neighbors echoed in the stairwell as we climbed the stairs to my flat; the walls there had always been thin. Just as I’d been unsettled at the idea that my friends had been going to school without me, I was shocked to find people were still living out normal existences here in my building, that their lives had not stalled as mine had. Petar turned the extra key in the lock, but instead of smashing against the wall, the door stuck to the frame, and he forced it open with his good shoulder.

“Can you stay out here?” I said. He looked hurt but hung back anyway.

Inside, the room was dim and the air was stale. Cuts of sunlight slid between the blinds, revealing swirling columns of dust. The door to my parents’ bedroom was closed, and I left it that way and moved through the kitchen. A sour smell emanated from the refrigerator, and something small and shadowy ran alongside the baseboard and disappeared under the door of the pantry.

In the living room I ran my hand over the armrest of the couch where my father used to sit. Then I pulled my clothes from the bookshelf and shoved them into my pillowcase. From the bottom shelf I gathered a sampling of the pirated radio tapes my father and I had made. Over the piano there was a photo of the four of us, and another of me as a baby in Tiska. I took them from their adjacent places on the wall. My parents’ wedding picture was hung higher up, but I couldn’t reach it.

Petar called out and asked how I was doing and I jumped. Plunking my hand down on the bottom octave of the piano, I ran from the room, dragging the bulging pillowcase behind me. I thought about asking Petar to go back for the wedding picture, but as he turned in the doorway, the light revealed his reddened eyes, so I said nothing.

—

The night before I left, Luka appeared under my window on his bike. Petar had instructed me not to tell anyone when I was leaving or where I was going, but I had told Luka anyway, swearing him to secrecy.

“How did you—”

“I snuck out. Come down.”

“Come up.” I met him at the door, and we trod warily through the kitchen and out to the fire escape. Marina and the family in the next building had strung a clothesline across the alley, and someone’s bed linens crackled in the wind.

“Will you be safe there?”

“I think so. Rahela is safe.”

“But you know in the movies. All those cowboys and gangsters.”

“I guess all places are sort of dangerous.”

“I guess.” He put his hand on mine, then pulled it away.

“Will you write me?” I said. He said he would, and we sat for a while contemplating the Wild West and New York City and Philadelphia, where I might be able to see Rocky. When Luka’s eyelids began to flutter, I punched him in the arm and told him he could stay the night, but he had to get home before he was discovered missing. The ladder on the fire escape was broken, so he climbed back into the flat and let himself out.