Girl at War(58)

I didn’t move.

“Were there soldiers?”

Nod.

“Did they hurt you?”

“No,” I said.

“Did they hurt your parents?”

I stared.

“Are they okay?”

Stared harder.

“Are they coming back soon?”

“No.”

“Are they…coming back?”

I shook my head. Luka’s mother sat down and made a strange throat-clearing noise.

“What do I do?” she whispered. She was asking herself, so I didn’t try to answer. Moments later Luka’s father descended the stairs in a hurry, straightening the pins on his uniform. His bushy eyebrows arched when he saw me.

“Been a while, girlie,” he said, then, surveying my bloodied nose, he turned to his wife. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

“Do you want me to call her parents?” He reached for the phone book, but Luka’s mother shot him such a pointed look that he stopped short. He sighed, then wet a napkin, and wiped the crusted blood from under my nose.

“Call Petar,” he said. He fumbled for his keys and headed off to train the newest troops.

—

Luka’s mother heated water on the stove, and I took it into the bathtub and dumped it over my head. It was warm enough, and I scrubbed myself pink until the water at my feet turned gray.

Luka stayed home from school, and we played cards on the kitchen floor. Luka’s mother was on the phone all day, speaking softly and twirling the spiral cord into an even twistier knot around her finger.

“Petar’s going to pick you up in the morning,” she said when she hung up the phone for good before dinner.

“Can’t I just stay with you?”

“You’re always welcome, honey. But Petar is your godfather, so legally—”

“I know,” I said, feeling bad for having asked.

—

Luka and I slept in his bed that night. I was glad to have him beside me, but the mattress I had been jealous of now seemed sterile and unwelcoming, and I longed for my couch. Luka threw an arm over me and said, “So?” and I spilled the most complete version of the story I could, telling it like I couldn’t to his mother, like I never did to anyone else. I told him about the roadblock and the forest and my father and me tricking the soldiers, the Safe Housers, the bug-eyed captain and how he’d named me Indiana. I told him about Damir, the bus full of bodies, right up to the point where I’d shown up on his doorstep. I told him about my gun.

“Forward grip, gas chamber, cleaning rod, bolt, frame, magazine, function check,” Luka repeated, mimicking my hand motions.

“You’re fast.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

The soldier in the field was the only thing I’d left out of my story. “I don’t know,” I said, which was technically the truth.

We went quiet again, but I could feel him awake, and we stayed listening to the bura wind like that, eyes wide and blind in the dark.

—

Petar had called to say he was on his way. Luka’s mother was buzzing between rooms dusting and straightening, and I followed her around.

“What is it?” she said.

“I need my shirt back.”

“I don’t think—”

“Please.”

She pulled the shirt from the bottom of her bureau drawer as if she’d known I’d ask for it.

“Maybe you shouldn’t put it on, though,” she said, handing it to me. I nodded and tucked it into the plastic bag with Damir’s sweatshirt. By this time the shirt had been washed by several hands, but the stains remained.

Petar was fit from his stint in the army, his hair growing in from his crew cut, his arm strapped in a thick plastic brace, which I assumed was the reason he was back early. He bent to one knee to hug me, then seemed to find it difficult to stop, because he scooped me up with his good arm and held me that way until we got out to the car.

Luka’s mother stood in the doorway, arms crossed against the cold.

“Thank you,” Petar said to her.

“Thanks,” I said.

Petar set me down in the backseat next to a small pile of my clothes, schoolbooks, and the spare keys to my flat. My bike, he said, was in the trunk, and I’d be able to ride to school from his house. He’d had to cut my bike lock but had bought a new one, the combination kind, and fiddled with it for a few moments, rolling the number columns beneath his thick thumbs before handing it over to me.

“Do you know how to do this?”

“Not really,” I said.

He looked away. “Me neither.”

Marina was sitting on the curb outside their building, waiting for us. She motioned me to her, and when we hugged I felt her tears on my neck.

“Don’t cry,” I said, which made her cry harder.

“Let’s get you inside,” Petar said. He handed Marina my clothes and carried me into the house.





4


At Petar and Marina’s grief filled the flat, as present as a fourth person in the room. Every night for a week Petar spoke to me softly, asking what had happened, but it still felt strange to talk, and finally he got so frustrated that he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook. It wasn’t painful, but it was hard enough to scare me, and afterward he backed away apologizing and cradling his bad arm.