It was well after midnight when they heard the long whistle of an oncoming train. Meli's relief turned to horror when she saw that the engine coming to a halt was pulling a long line of freight cars. It was just like the terrifying old stories. Policemen flung open the huge sliding doors. The metallic rattle echoed down the line like the death throes of a mechanical beast.
"Hold on to each other!" Baba's voice pierced her fear. "Tight! Hold on tight!"
"Move! Move! You lazy pigs! Get up there! Now!" The police used their big pistols to push and shove the Albanians up and into the cars. With babies crying and old people whimpering and the frightened crowd pushing and shoving, Meli was terrified that she would let go of Adil's and Isuf's small hands, but she clung to them as though all their lives depended on it. Baba and Uncle Fadil helped Mama, Auntie Burbuqe, and Nexima up first. Then they handed Granny and Nexima's children and Vlora up to them before they climbed in themselves.
"Meli, Mehmet," Baba called. "Help the boys!" Meli hesitated. How could she hand one brother up without letting go of the other's hand?
"I've got him," Mehmet said, and he slung Isuf up to Baba's waiting arms as though he were nothing but a small parcel. Then it was Adil's turn.
"Now you, Meli," Mehmet said.
Again she hesitated. She was nearly as heavy as Mehmet. "Come on!" he barked, grabbing her around the waist and hoisting her up so that she was on her knees, falling forward into the crowded interior. Baba pulled her to her feet and then, holding to the side of the car, leaned out and pulled Mehmet to safety. Seconds later a policeman came by and gave the door a powerful shove, and they were plunged into darkness.
She heard Baba and Uncle Fadil calling everyone's name. No one was missing. They might die, but they would at least die together.
There was no room for most people to sit down, although Meli learned later that Baba and Uncle Fadil had managed to get Granny to the side of the car, where she could sit leaning against the metal wall. Meli herself could only stand in the crowded boxcar, sweating in her two dresses, her sweater, and her jacket. She held on to her little brothers by their hands, their shoulders, their jacket collars—anything to keep contact with them in the dark.
She would never know just how long the family was on the train. It simply sat at the station for what seemed like hours before it began noisily to move, waking up all the sleeping children. Then it went for what could hardly have been more than a few yards before it squealed and shuddered to a stop. This happened over and over again, each time the train stopping so suddenly that it would throw the occupants hard against each other. Once Meli heard Adil cry out in alarm. Don't let him be crushed, she prayed.
She tried not to think of the smell. At first it was simply the sweat and dirt of the journey, but as the night wore on it became the unmistakable smell of human waste and vomit. If there was such a thing as hell, it could not be worse than this.
And then, although it seemed to Meli that an eternity had passed with the train hardly moving, the doors flew open. Unaccustomed to the light, she stood still, blinking for several moments before she realized that it was morning.
"Out! Out!" On the ground were soldiers in Serbian uniforms.
"Stay together!" As loud as the crowd was, she could still hear Baba's command. "Hold on to each other!"
"Out!"
Staying as close to each other as possible, the family came down from the boxcar. Meli could feel the point of a rifle between her shoulder blades as she held up her arms to take Adil from Mehmet. There was so much noise and confusion that she just focused on grabbing her little brothers by their jackets. Baba was carrying Granny. Meli pushed through the crowd toward him. She hoped they didn't have far to go now that they were without their wheelbarrow.
Everyone from the train was being herded in the same direction. "Go on! Hurry! Get out!" the soldiers were shouting.
Get out of where? What did they mean? And then she realized that they meant Get out of Kosovo. They were being thrown out of their homeland—like garbage. We are people! Meli longed to yell. Not pigs or trash. I used to have good clothes and live in a nice apartment. I used to read books and watch TV and go to films. I used to comb my hair and brush my teeth and misbehave in school. But of course she said nothing. No one did. They didn't want to tempt some angry soldier to use his gun.
Just then Meli heard a shout. "Nexima!"
She looked up. From a boxcar far up the line, pushing his way through the crowd, was Hamza. "Here," said Nexima, holding out to Meli the twin she was carrying.
"No," Meli cried, "you mustn't." We have to stay together. It was all she could think of. She dropped Isuf's hand and grabbed Nexima's arm. People closed in around them.
A single shot cracked the air. Nexima's head jerked back as though she herself had been hit. She would have fallen, baby and all, except that Meli was holding her so tightly. For a few seconds there was a stunned silence.
Meli could see nothing over the heads of the crowd, so they would never know if it was that shot that took Nexima's husband from his family. Nor would Meli ever know if she had done the right thing. Baba had said they must all stay together. She could not let Nexima go.
***
It had been almost a year since they had left their comfortable life behind—two days since they'd left Uncle Fadil's happy, crowded farmhouse that was no more. They might never see Hamza again, but the rest of the family was still together. Mehmet had not disappeared into the KLA—or worse. Baba and Uncle Fadil were still in charge. Granny had survived the terrible journey, and even though her mind was more like a child's than Vlora's was, it was she who had smuggled bread right past those hoodlums. Remembering it, Meli almost smiled.
The surging crowd stopped so suddenly that she fell against the woman in front of her. What was happening? As usual, it was Mehmet who seemed to know. "The Macedonian border guards won't let anyone cross. There are too many of us."
Meli's heart sank. They couldn't go backward; they would be shot. And now they couldn't go forward.
NINE The Bus
"HOLD ON TO EACH OTHER," BABA SAID, JUST AS HE'D BEEN saying for hours. "Follow me." Somehow they all edged themselves out of the center of the crowd that had just been forced off the train, and they made their way toward a patch of brown grass. Meli felt close to collapse, but there was no hope of rest. The Serbs behind them were screaming at them to go forward. Where were they to go?
"No man's land," muttered Mehmet. "They've dumped us into no man's land."
"Come on," said Baba, looking up at the sun to get his bearings. "We have to go south."
Everyone seemed to know the direction at the same time, and again they were being jostled and pushed by the crowd. Meli had thought they couldn't stand on their feet another minute, but how could she complain? Baba and Uncle Fadil were taking turns carrying Granny, and the women were carrying Elez and the twins. She stumbled forward, holding Adil's and Isuf's hands, while Mehmet carried Vlora piggyback. She glanced over her shoulder. The Serbian soldiers were making no attempt to follow. They seemed to be checking that the train was empty and pushing those who lagged behind in the direction of those who were walking. She thought she heard more shots, but she tried to block out the sounds. They'd been on their feet all night, nearly suffocating in the crowded boxcar. She was too tired for terror and too filthy to think of much else. Still, when they had walked until they could see in the distance another line of soldiers, she could feel the sudden racing of her heart.
"What is that?" she asked Mehmet.
"Macedonians," he answered. "They don't want us, either."
Once again Baba maneuvered the family to the edge of the mass of refugees. He set Granny gently on the ground. "Sit down," he said. "We all have to rest. You, too, Mehmet." Mehmet was standing, grim-faced, his arms tightly crossed. Baba touched his son's shoulder lightly. "It's all right," he said.
"Unless these bastards decide to kill us," Mehmet muttered as he sat down beside Meli. She had tho
ught she was past feeling anything, but it still hurt to hear Mehmet sound so disrespectful to Baba. He mustn't lose faith in their father. Where would they be without him? Baba was their rock.
As exhausted as she was, she couldn't close her eyes. She listened to the cries of the crowd as they tried to push their way through the border crossing into Macedonia, and to the shouts of the soldiers determined to keep them out. She also heard through all that pandemonium the whimpering of hungry children and, quite near, just behind her, in fact, Granny coughing until she was almost choking. She could not bear to turn around and look.
What will become of us? Meli was too tired to cry, although the unspent tears pressed down like a giant weight on her heart.
***
It seemed like days, but it must have been only three or four hours—the sun was still high in the south—when she heard the sound of a large vehicle, then several. Buses were coming through the border gate.
"Quickly now," Baba said, jumping to his feet. "We must all get on the same bus. Hold on to each other. Don't get separated."
Mehmet had already picked up Adil. Meli grabbed Isuf's hand. Mama carried Vlora, and Baba had Granny. Uncle Fadil, Auntie Burbuqe, and Nexima each carried a child. The crowd had parted to let the buses through, and, miraculously, when the buses stopped, the family was almost next to an open door. They climbed in and fell into seats near the front. Baba craned his head around and counted to make sure everyone was there.
"Where are we going?" Isuf asked.
"I don't know," Meli answered, and for once she hardly cared. They were going. They were leaving the horror behind. She could hear sobbing from a seat a few rows back. Meli turned and saw an old woman. She was being held by a younger woman, who was trying to soothe her.
"My husband. Oh, my husband," the old woman was crying. "Why do they shoot him? He do nothing. Nothing."
Meli couldn't make herself look across at Nexima. She couldn't bear to. She could only hope her cousin hadn't heard.
When the bus was full, with people cramming the narrow aisle, the driver slammed the door shut, backed up, and jerked forward.
"Where are you taking us?" someone asked.
"Don't take us back!" another voice yelled.
Someone started up the aisle. "They'll kill us all. You must not—"
"Sit down and shut up," the driver said. "You're going to a camp like the rest of them."
A camp. First the boxcar, now a camp. Through bleary eyes Meli stared at her family. They were hungry, filthy, exhausted—and homeless. No home to go back to and none to look forward to. And what was Nexima thinking now? Oh, my husband! Why do they shoot him? There in that crowded bus she saw not only those she loved but strangers—people she had never met—who were now one with them in loss and suffering and death. Something was tearing at the numbness inside her. It was ripping the lid off a feeling she had tried for months not to acknowledge. And what was that? Nothing less than the one evil of the human heart that Baba had always feared and abhorred. She knew now that hatred lurked there, just below the surface, and that if it escaped, it might consume her.
***
By the time the bus finally pulled to a stop, it was clear that Granny was burning with fever. They all got off the bus as ordered and stood together in line, waiting to be told what to do. Baba and Uncle Fadil took turns holding Granny in their arms. They didn't want to put her down on the cold ground.
As the family neared the front of the line, Meli heard words spoken in some foreign tongue and then another voice speaking in Albanian. She peered around Uncle Fadil to see who was talking to Baba. The first speaker was a light-haired foreigner, one of several sitting at a long table; beside her was someone who seemed to be an Albanian man, interpreting for her. First the woman spoke and then the man said, "Take your mother to the hospital tent. Wilfried, that man over there, will show you the way." Baba, with only a quick glimpse back at the family, followed the young man. He had to go, of course—he had to get Granny help—but still ... They watched him until he was out of sight.
"Your family will be in tent 147 B." The interpreter hesitated, looking at the remaining twelve Lleshis gathered before her, still standing close together and holding on to one another. She said something to the man. "Is this just one family?" he asked.
"Yes," said Uncle Fadil. "One family."
"Two," said Mama. They all looked at her in amazement.
"I mean," said Mama, reddening under the family's gaze, "there are too many for one small tent."
When this was translated, the woman seemed to agree, checking a list. "She says she can't put you side by side. The only other available large tent is in A—172 A." She looked at Mama and said something else. "She says, 'Do you have any blankets?'"
Mama looked at Uncle Fadil. She'd said too much already.
"No," he said.
"Not even a stove for cooking?"
He shook his head. "Everything was stolen."
There was another exchange.
"She says, 'As soon as you get something to eat...' "
"Eat?" Adil came suddenly to life.
The woman smiled at him just as though she understood, and the man said, "After you eat, go to the supply tent. They will give you blankets."
"Where do we go for food?" Uncle Fadil asked. "The children have had almost nothing for two days."
The man stood up and pointed. "You see that big tent over there? That's the meal tent. They'll begin serving"—he looked at his watch—"in about an hour. In the meantime, you can wash up—at that table over there you can get your water ration—and get settled in your tents."
Mama hesitated. "My husband," she began, looking out at the ocean of tents, "how will he find us if we leave this place?"
The interpreter spoke to the woman who beckoned with her right hand to a spot behind the long table. "She says to wait here until he gets back."
"Meli," Mehmet said, "let's go find the tents. Then we can take everyone straight there as soon as Baba gets back." She liked Mehmet wanting her to help him. It didn't usually happen unless Mama or Baba suggested it. Mama was glad, too. She smiled and nodded, and they were off to the rows of small, drab tents, searching for the numbers they'd been given. Children were running about everywhere, but most of the adults were just sitting on the ground in front of their tents as though waiting for something.
Mehmet went inside 147 B. "Well," he said when he came out, "it's no palace, but it's larger than the one on the mountain. Anyhow, we won't be here long. Milosević and his dirty Serbs can't beat Bill Clinton and NATO."
At the sound of the Serbian president's name, Meli could feel that ripped lid scraping open again. She put her hand to her chest to quiet it.
"Yes," Mehmet was saying, "trust me, we'll be home before summer."
He sounded so sure, but how could he know what would happen? The only sure thing they'd known for a long time was turmoil.
TEN Refugees
LIVING IN THE REFUGEE CAMP WAS, AS MEHMET PUT IT, LIKE being chickens sentenced to jail. Meli tried to laugh at the idea, but they were indeed living behind a tall chicken-wire fence topped by barbed wire. There were armed guards at the single gate to keep people from coming in, and, of course, from going out. Though where would we go? And were they being protected from the Macedonians or were the Macedonians being protected from them? Still, life in camp was a welcome relief from the days of terror and exhaustion that they'd gone through. There was water: it came in a large plastic bag with a spigot at the bottom, and they hung it on a pole outside the tent. She heard someone say that it had too much chlorine in it, but it was clean and, if they were careful, enough for the day's needs. The food was plain, but they never went hungry. There were cold showers at least once a week and privies that smelled but hardly ever overflowed. Perhaps it was harder for Uncle Fadil's family, who had never camped out in the hills, but no one complained. They felt safe in this tent city. They were together.
Meli sensed a deep sadness in her
cousin Nexima, but Hamza's name was never mentioned among them. It was as though he were still alive in the mountains with the KLA. And maybe he was. Maybe the shot they heard had not taken Hamza's life. She hoped so, even though there was little basis for hope.
The young international volunteers were cheerful and tried to make life bearable. To Mehmet's regret there was no space for a soccer field in their area of the huge camp, but one of the volunteers strung up a net and provided a ball, so the men and boys played endless games of volleyball. Anything, Mehmet said, was better than the boredom of just sitting around doing nothing.
The girls and women had no such diversion. Sometimes Meli watched the games. No, not the games themselves, but the players. The men and older boys attacked the ball with fury, as though with every hit they were taking revenge on all the losses they had endured. Even men who were quiet by nature, like Baba and Uncle Fadil, now yelled with every point scored and shouted encouragement to their teammates whenever a point was lost.
She would watch them, almost trembling in her fear for them, thinking, What if they lose the game?—completely forgetting it was just that, a game in a refugee camp, not the life-and-death struggle of the past year.
Mehmet was the worst. Though he was shorter than most of the men, he made up for it with his wild play, jumping into the air with a scream to smash the ball into the face of an opponent. Even if the others cried out that he should pass the ball, he never did. He always wanted to slam it across with all his might. And yet, as she watched, there was something in her that did understand his ferocious play. How she would have loved to give that ball the name of her enemies and smack it to the earth. She was becoming just like Mehmet, she thought. Although for Baba's sake she didn't express her hatred, she could no longer hide it from herself.
Whenever she became too overwrought watching the endless games, she'd wander back to the tent. Mama busied herself cleaning the tiny enclosure, but it was impossible to keep dust and dirt out of things. She made sure everyone left their shoes outside the tent—after all, it was their home, and no one would wear shoes in their home. They obeyed, just as they had at the camp in the hills, though it seemed a little crazy. There was so little difference between indoors and outdoors in a camp. Often Meli would find that Mama and the younger children had gone to Uncle Fadil's tent. There Vlora and the boys would play made-up games with Elez and the twins. Meli would watch them chasing each other about, screaming with delight, and wish that she weren't too old to join in their silly play. She would be thirteen on June 15. She wasn't interested in the women's chatter, she couldn't join the all-male volleyball, and she was past racing about with the young ones. Some days she thought about the rough KLA camp and missed it. There had been so much to do there—gathering wood, making fires, cooking.