Josip nods. They lock eyes.
“The fort?”
“The fort.”
Petar straps his hatchet onto his belt, Josip his knife onto his own. They are just getting into their outdoor clothes in the kitchen when Josip’s father opens the door, stomps snow from his boots, and steps into the house. “Boys, I need your help.”
Instantly they are alert, springing to attention. Yes! Anything!
“Tereza is bleeding more than before. Josip cannot leave her. In her home village lives a woman who is the best at delivering babies that are not born easily. Can you go to Tereza’s mother and tell her that she and this woman are needed?”
Of course, they nod.
“Can you run?”
Yes, yes, they will run. All the way!
They charge for the door, but he stops them and makes them take a moment to drink water. He gives Josip an extra water flask.
“Do not eat snow”, he warns. “Though you have thirst, it would chill you and make you more thirsty than ever.” He stuffs black bread into their pockets.
“Run swiftly, now. A life depends on it. Maybe two lives.”
They are out the door and galloping along the track to the southern end of the valley. The route is only a footpath during winter, yet it has been traveled in recent days, so the surface is firm. Because the snow on both sides is soft and deep, they go single file, Petar ahead, Josip hard on his heels. Their boots drum the surface, their breath whistles in and out. The sun is overhead, but a bitter wind is blowing at their backs from the north. They stop for a moment to button down the flaps of their fleece caps and to pull their trouser cuffs over boot tops, lacing them with thongs to keep snow from falling inside. Then they run again.
Petar is thirteen years old and strongly muscled. Josip is eleven, slighter of build and leaner, but a few centimeters taller than his friend. Each has his strengths and weaknesses, yet they both possess robust constitutions that are the fruit of endless racing up and down the pastures and the mountain side. Their lungs hurt from the sharp inhalations of frozen air but will not burst.
They say nothing, merely run and pant. They enter the pass and leave the valley of Rajska Polja behind. One, two, three kilometers, four, five, six. They stop and catch their breaths. Their tongues are now dry, for a lot of vapor has been blowing out of their mouths. They take a drink from the water-skin, passing it back and forth. Then they run again. Seven, eight, nine kilometers—more than halfway!
They stop again, a one-minute break. A few more sips, a bite of bread.
Let’s go!
Now Josip takes the lead, his longer legs falling into a pace that is best for him, a lope that eases his lungs a little without slackening their speed. Petar is pounding along behind but is not allowing any gap to spread between them. The trail is still single file, descending gradually, but the pass has opened up and has become another valley, swinging around to the southwest. There in the distance are a few wisps of smoke beyond a stand of trees, the kitchen fires of Pačići—named for a pond where the people of this place raise ducks. Josip thinks the name is amusing. A town called Ducklings. It is not in fact a full village, being no more than a cluster of five or six houses belonging to branches of a single family, whose name is Dučić. Petar is related to them all. He now leaps past Josip and takes the lead, putting on speed. Both boys round the edge of the naked beech woods within seconds of each other and slow to a trot as they enter a barnyard, scattering geese, ducks—an enormous black pig is galloping in circles, and a donkey tethered to a corral begins to bray and kick its hind legs in the air—all of which sets off a frightful clamor of animal noises. The door of the nearest house opens, and a man in shirt sleeves steps out just as the boys stumble to the finish and collapse at his feet.
“Petar! What—!?”
“Uncle,” Petar gasps, “Tereza’s baby is coming early. She is bleeding. The women have sent us to fetch the midwife.”
The man’s face clouds with worry. “Is the midwife in Rajska Polja not enough?”
“It is she who asks for help.”
“But Baba Jela and Tereza’s mother are not here”, he says, pulling the boys into his kitchen. “Where are they?”
“They are assisting a birth, at a farm—over there.” He gestures to the mountains farther south. “They went away two days ago. If all goes well they should be home soon.”
“But they must come now!” cries Petar.
“I know, I know”, says the uncle, putting a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Sit down, boys, sit down here.” He closes the door, and paces about his little kitchen. Two live chickens are sitting peacefully on the table. A gosling is craning its neck through the slats of a wooden box behind the stove. The black pig is staring in the window, its two front trotters clacking on the sill. The uncle pours the boys cups of tea. They gulp it, burning their throats. He pours another and another.
They are calming down now, their heartbeats slowing, breath returning to normal.
“When will they come?” Petar asks, his voice hoarse.
“Soon, soon”, says the uncle, rubbing his unshaven chin. He sits down beside them and stares at the floor.
Petar and Josip are perched on the edges of their chairs, tense, scanning the man’s face. They can tell he is thinking about what to do.
“Look”, he says rising and throwing on his coat. “One of you must go back and tell them that Baba Jela will come. Let them know it could be a while, but she is coming. I will go to the farm and see if I can hurry them up. One of you should stay here in case the old ladies return by a different route, for they said they might go to visit a sister on another farm to tell the news of the baby. That is on a different trail, in the other direction—” He points vaguely out the window. “We could easily miss them.”
Petar jumps up and buttons his coat, then crams his hat down over his ears. “Joshko, you stay here in case the Baba comes when Uncle is gone. I will go to Rajska Polja to tell them she’ll be there soon.”
This makes sense. It is, after all, Petar’s family that is in trouble, and he is as good a runner as Josip.
So, it is agreed: If the Baba arrives with Tereza’s mother before Uncle returns, Josip must bring them to Rajska Polja by donkey and sleigh. The women will sit on the sleigh, and Josip will lead the donkey at a fast clip, hitting the donkey on the nose with a stick if it gets lazy. It’s a stubborn donkey, but it understands a stick. Can he do this?
Yes, of course he can do this, Josip nods in the affirmative, throwing his shoulders back. He has never before hit any living thing with a stick. Svez is lazy enough, but the Lastas have never been ones to rush things.
Uncle goes out the door and walks briskly away toward the south. Petar goes out the door, stops, turns back to Josip, and withdraws something from his pocket. He grins, throws an acorn, which bounces off Josip’s head, and breaks into a gallop toward the north.
So, there he is, sitting in a kitchen belonging to people he does not know, staring at their chickens and their gosling who has begun to peep. The pig tries to get in the door, it knows how to jiggle the latch. Josip forces him out again with the chair, and slams the door shut. The pig gives up. An hour passes, then another.
It is not easy to wait there doing nothing. The pail on the stove has stopped simmering because the wood in the firebox is burning low. He throws a stick onto the embers, lifts the pail, and gulps down the last of the tea. He eats the remaining black bread his father gave him. It takes the edge off his hunger, but not by much. Would the uncle mind if he took some of his bread? No, he won’t do this. The uncle probably wouldn’t mind, but, well, food is serious business these days. Maybe they don’t have as much food here as they do in Rajska Polja. He can wait until he gets home.
He ponders the pictures on the walls. A Sacred Heart, so brown with wood smoke that it seems to have no colors. An Immaculate Heart, the same. An old calendar from 1939, with a photograph of the cathedral in Zagreb. St. Stephen’s. He didn’t know
its name. This is interesting. You learn something new every day.
He sits down again and swings his legs back and forth. His legs are sore. That was a long run. Now he is really hungry. Still he won’t give in, he won’t steal. No, better to say he won’t borrow without asking. Is it the same thing? He’s not sure, but one thing is for sure: he wouldn’t enjoy telling Fra Anto about it in the confessional.
He falls into a light doze. When he startles fully awake, he finds himself still seated, with head in arms on the kitchen table. He cannot tell how long he has been in this state, but it seems by the light in the window that the morning became afternoon while he slept, and is now creeping toward dusk. The animals are raising a ruckus. There are men’s voices out in the yard. At last!
Josip stands, puts on his cap and mitts, and opens the door. He is surprised by what he sees. There are more than a dozen men out there, looking around at the houses, and a few stragglers are arriving behind them. Maybe eighteen men. He does not recognize them. They are dressed shabbily, most of them bearded or needing a shave. They all carry rifles. Josip’s mind goes blank, and he simply continues to stare at them.
They stare back for a second, until one in the forefront strides forward, grabs Josip by the collar of his coat, and drags him into the yard. A stab of fear constricts Josip’s heart. In his entire life he has never been treated so rudely. As the other men scatter to every house, throwing open doors, and pointing their guns inside, Josip stands before his captor, quaking in every limb and uncertain about what to do. The man lifts the hem of Josip’s coat, pulls the boy’s knife from its sheath, and hurls it across the yard. A gunshot explodes from one of the houses, followed by another in a different house. Josip bursts into tears and covers his face with his hands. His captor hits him hard on the side of the head, and he falls to the ground.
“Where is everybody?” the man shouts.
Josip shakes his head. The man grabs him by the collar, pulls him to his feet, and hits him again, a hard slap on the face. His nose begins to bleed.
“Tell me, now, boy, or I will shoot you.”
“I-I-I d-d-d-don’t know.”
“Did they hear us coming? Which way did they run?”
“I-I-I d-d-d-don’t know”, he sobs.
The other men come out of the houses and gather around. Their faces are unlike any Josip has ever seen before. The look in their eyes especially. Their trousers and the arms of their coats are soaked in blood. So much blood. They look at him as if he were a duck and they wanted to cut his head off.
“M-m-m-Mamica”, Josip whimpers.
The men laugh.
“Shoot him and get it over with, Jure”, says one of them to Josip’s captor.
“Not so fast. He knows something.”
“Who cares. If we go now we can still make it to Mostar by midnight.”
A big discussion breaks out among the men, as all the while Josip’s captor continues to stare at him.
“No, let’s stay here”, says another. “Make a feast. Roast pig, duck, chicken.”
“Let’s go!”
“Let’s stay!”
“If any come back, we pick them off—ping, ping, ping—one by one.”
“Right, I’m tired. Ten days in the snow.”
“In Mostar there will be booze and women.”
“Haven’t you had enough?!”
“Never enough for me!” More laughter.
“Shoot him, Jure, and let’s get going!”
“Why waste a bullet on this little scum?” replies Josip’s captor, fingering a hatchet hanging from his belt. “Right! Ammunition’s low.”
“Come on, the sun has set. We should move on.”
“Let’s stay”, says an older man, waving a pistol in the air.
“No, the road to the city is clear. The others are coming from the north and the south.”
“They won’t need us tonight.”
“Still, I want to be in on the fun at Mostar!”
The men turn their attention to each other and the discussion becomes an argument, growing hotter, with some shouting. Only Josip’s captor continues to watch him. His back is to the others.
“What is your name?” he murmurs.
“J-J-J-osip”, he chokes out.
“Your family name.”
“L-L-L-asta.”
The man’s eyes do not blink. He continues to stare at Josip as if the boy is already dead. “Run”, he whispers.
What does this mean? Where should he run to?
“Run”, the man mouths, and removing a finger from the trigger of his rifle, points it in the direction of a nearby shed standing against the edge of the woods.
Josip turns on his heels and trots toward it.
“Hey!” shouts his captor, and curses.
Something whizzes past Josip’s ear, followed in a split second by the crack of a gunshot. Another whiz and another explosion. The other men have stopped their arguing and are laughing at the sport.
“Your aim’s off today, Jure!” they roar.
“I’ll get him!” Jure barks, and charges after the fleeing boy, who has just disappeared around the back of the shed.
It takes no more than a few seconds to run Josip to the ground. The captor snags him by the back of his coat just as the boy is leaping into the deeper snow of the woods. He punches Josip hard on the spine and throws him down. Lying on his back, with the man’s boot on his chest, Josip screams. The man raises the muzzle of his rifle, points it at the sky, and pulls the trigger. Then he fires a second shot. He kneels quickly and covers Josip’s mouth with his bloody mitt.
“Be silent”, he says through gritted teeth. “You are dead. Lie here and do not move until we are gone.”
He wheels and goes around the corner of the shed.
Josip is paralyzed, alone with his racing heart, expecting to see at any moment another man come to shoot him. For a time, he hears noises from the barnyard, shouting, arguing, animals panicking, and the sound of smashing glass in the houses. No more shots are fired. Night falls before there is silence.
The sky is full of brilliant stars, casting a pale glow on the earth. Because he is shaking uncontrollably with chill, or terror, he picks himself up and stumbles to the back wall of the shed. Peering around the corner into the barnyard, he sees no figures walking or standing there. No light shines in any of the houses within his range of vision. He steps carefully through the snow, keeping to the backsides of the buildings until he is near the head of the path to Rajska Polja. He cuts across a bit of woods, the snow muffling all sounds, and strikes the path about a hundred meters north of the barnyard. It is a gray ribbon unwinding into the north. He walks slowly at first, because his body is aching in several places—especially his back where the man hit him, but also his head, his nose, and his legs, which are very sore from the long run earlier in the day. Nevertheless, he breaks into a slow jog, whimpering all the way.
Thinking is hardly possible, yet he is aware that the men have gone in the other direction because they are heading for Mostar. He must bring the news to Rajska Polja that bad men have been to the village of Petar’s family and that they may have killed some people in the houses. Petar’s father has a gun, and he will come back here to protect Pacici. Also he must tell them that he is unable to bring the midwife. He worries about the baby and its mother. Has he failed? Should he go back and wait for the midwife and Tereza’s mother? But what if the bad men return? . . .
His legs keep carrying him north.
His entire body is a mass of pain now. The muscles of his legs give out at times, and he stumbles. Again and again he trips because it is hard to see in the gloom. His feet miss the hard-packed trail and sink into the softer snow beside it. Yet he always gets up again, stifling his sobs, and presses on. His lungs are aching, his throat is raw, and the wind from the northeast is more bitter than ever. He wants only to lie down in the drifts, curl into a ball, and sleep. Yet he is propelled by the dual drive within him—fear lashing from behi
nd, the need to find help pulling him forward.
Hours pass. He is walking more slowly, stumbling more often. One foot after another, each step purchased with a stab in his lungs, a stab in his thighs. He is about to give up at last and drop into a snow bank, as soft and comforting as a goose-down mattress, when his will is strengthened by a glow in the distance. Yes, there, just ahead is the place where the valley opens wide into the fields of heaven. The moon is rising to show the way. It is still low and red, like a moon in autumn, when the wood smoke of kitchen fires lingers close to the ground. He has always loved that time of year, when the beech and oak leaves in the forest have been taken by the wind, the pines whistle and the harvest is in the barns; when houses are warm and cakes are made with walnuts and raisins. On such nights all souls are quickened, heaven and earth meet, and mortality and eternity are as one.
Josip rounds the last bend in the trail and enters his home valley. He comes to a halt, catching his breath. There is no moon. It is not in the sky where it should be. Then, with a start, he sees that a building is on fire, a house among those nearest this end of the valley. He cries out and stumbles forward.
Rajska Polja consists of only a handful of buildings: two rows of houses scattered haphazardly along its central lane beside the creek, which is frozen over now. Josip’s home stands close to the southern edge of dwellings, while the church and school are at the north end. That is where Petar’s home is too, and the home where the baby is being born. Mamica will be there. Perhaps Tata is closer, helping put out the fire. But as Josip passes the first house, he sees that there are no lights in it, nor are there any in other windows along the lane. The village is illumined solely by the glow coming from the burning house, the fourth from this end. Then he knows. It is his own.
Josip stands before his home and stares through its open doorway into a sea of embers. The heat is great, for all the books are burning. Poor father will feel so bad about this. He must find him.
Proceeding up the lane toward the north end, he finds that all buildings along the way are standing, yet black stains from smoke are above every window. The roofs have fallen in on most, though the thick stone walls are erect. He sees a shadowy human shape lying in the snow. He goes to it. It is someone, a man, he thinks. Josip goes down on his knees and shakes the shadow’s shoulder, pleading. “Where is my father? Where is my mother?” It may be he only thinks these questions, for his throat is making choking noises.