Page 17 of Spread Your Wings
“I’ll do what I can,” Sammy said as he got out of the car.
“That is all any of us can do.”
With a wave and a squawk of tires, Tima sped away from the hotel. Sammy returned the wave and wished he had family who gave a shit about him back home. Sure, his mom loved him, but she hadn’t been there when he’d needed her most. Like the time he’d been in the hospital with a high fever at Yale. She hadn’t bothered to leave her job, even when they thought it might be meningitis. “Oh, honey, I knew you’d be fine,” she’d said when he’d returned to the dorms and called her. He’d been scared, and alone, and she’d known he’d be fine.
He’d made it through, but life was still scary. Seeing Mustafa in a hospital bed for no better reason than for being gay shook the very foundation of Sammy’s identity. He understood why some men stayed in the closet. Sammy had been out at school, and at work, but he’d never come out to his mom. He tried to tell himself she wouldn’t care, anyway, but he worried she would hate him. Somehow, that would be worse than the apathy she’d shown him all his life.
To complete his day off, Sammy finished readingThe Wastelands.He ate dinner with Howard and Tol in the hotel restaurant. Then, he headed back to his room to write an obligatory letter to his mother. She also had email at her accounting firm. She wouldn’t read anything personal at work, and then she’d forget to print it out to take home. At least, she could blame the post office if she missed a letter.
He was lying in bed, listening toNews of the Worldon his Walkman when he heard a knock at the door, and shouts from the hallway. He tossed his headphones and ran to the door. Tima and Howard looked cross and distorted through the peephole.
“It’s war,” Howard said when he opened the door. Tima filled him in on the details as they rushed to the third-floor newsroom. The Serbian leaders, Milosevic and Karadzic, had refused to accept the referendum’s vote. They had mobilized forces around the city. Worse, a Bosniak gangster had openedfire at an Orthodox wedding, killing the bride’s father. The Serbs had taken the gun violence as a sign they would not be safe under Bosniak and Croatian rule. “They intend to take Sarajevo and force a new Serbian government,” Howard continued.
“Is that possible?” In Sammy’s mind, sixty-three percent was still a majority.
“They would need to convince the Croats to vote with them or push all Bosniaks out.” Tima shook her head. “There’s talk of ethnic cleansing, going house to house, pushing the Bosniaks out.”
“Ethnic cleansing? Like the Holocaust?”
Tima’s eyes filled with tears, and her bottom lip quivered. “It may mean that, yes.”
“I’m so sorry, Tima,” Sammy said, wishing he could take the words back. “Is your family safe? Is everyone all right?”
“Mustafa is out of hospital, but he shouldn’t work for a few days, with the concussion. Vasily said he heard gunfire from the hills on his way home from the airport. If they attack the city, none of us are safe. They stockpiled Russian weapons after the fall of Yugoslavia.”
Tima walked away, a hand over her face as she passed Tol on his way into the office.
“Way to go, Connelly,” Howard said. “You certainly have a way with women.”
“I didn’t know,” Sammy said. “How could they think ethnic cleansing is an option after the Nuremberg trials?”
“Even the United States has done some terrible shit in the name of war. Don’t forget Vietnam.” Howard scowled like he’d been there, but he looked at least a decade too young.
“War?” Tol asked. “Fill me in.”
By the time Tima returned, Howard and Sammy had brought Tol up to speed. Tima sat down at the radio and switched to a local talk radio station. They were playing Depeche Mode.“Overnight, it’s music. The talk shows start at six tomorrow morning. They will have Serb propaganda. I’ll interpret, and you share with the world.”
“Deal,” Tol said. “For now, the three of you need to get some sleep.”
Tol called the front desk to arrange a room for Tima, who usually stayed with her family on the north side of town. Sammy wanted to stay, to make sure she would be all right, but Tol dismissed him with a wave. He returned to his room with a fresh fear for his new friends. He hoped the war ended before it even began.
CHAPTER FOUR
No such luck. Every day, the Serbian army’s presence grew. They put up barricades around the parliament building and attempted to overtake parliament. Thousands of Sarajevo citizens stood between the snipers and the officials, and Howard caught it all on video. Sammy caught sound bites here and there, but Tima’s interviews and translations gave the most insight. The standoff saved the budding government, and the new government declared its independence from Yugoslavia. The tension only increased afterward.
Outside the hotel, Sammy saw more and more olive-green coats and Russian hats. The men wearing the Yugoslavian army gear also had rifles slung over their shoulders. The ones without rifles tucked pistols into their boots, pants, or anywhere else one could fit a holster. Whenever these soldiers accosted a Bosniak citizen, they called out. Sammy didn’t understand the words. The hateful tone made him walk faster toward his destination.
Mustafa returned to work after a week. He still looked a little green as he sat behind the hotel’s admissions desk. Sammy brought him a seltzer water after lunch, but he couldn’t stay and talk. He attempted to find Mustafa that evening, and the guy at the front desk confirmed he’d gone home early with a headache.
Sammy didn’t see Mustafa again until the weekend. By then, skirmishes had spread throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sammy, Harold, and Tima spent the weekend driving through the countryside. They stopped at every small-town tavern along the way to interview the townspeople. They returned to the hotel at night to write reports for Christiane to deliver around the world.
“I’m coming to Sarajevo myself,” she said on a teleconference the morning of April sixth. Christiane sounded chipper and friendly, and he wanted her to shut up already. Sammy was still shaking and hyper-aware of every sound after a sleepless night. They’d heard gunfire as close as the top of the Holiday Inn all night long. He tried to focus as she continued. “I want to see what you see. Hear what you hear.”
“She doesn’t trust us,” Tol said after they’d hung up.
“You mean, she doesn’t trust me,” Sammy said.
“You’re doing a fantastic job, kid.”
