Girl at War(70)

“Hey, Luka! Come see this!”

Luka appeared, sweaty and shirtless. “What is it?”

“Your toe has stood the test of time!”

“Are those your parents’?”

“And Petar’s and Marina’s, yeah.”

“And yours,” he said.

“Yeah. And mine.”

“I’m glad you have this,” he said, turning back in to the house. For a minute I wondered whether he was going to try to cut the rock out of the ground, but he returned instead with my backpack, and dug through it to find my camera. “Here.”

I took two pictures and set them inside on the table to develop. “Get my wallet out of there, too,” I said. “Let’s go to the store.”

We climbed the stairs back to the upper footpath toward the village store.

“Do you think you’ll go look for Marina?” Luka said. I thought of the day I escaped and wondered whether Petar had died or had gone back to the front and saved others. If he’d been caught in those woods, Marina might think I was dead, too.

“I want to. But it’s harder for me to wander around Austria than it is here.”

“I could go with you if you want.”

“Maybe I’ll try to write her somehow first.”

“If she’s alive, you should visit.”

“Let me do it,” I said.

“I will. But I won’t let you wait another decade this time.”

—

The bells on the door jingled when we made our way inside, and an ancient man glanced up from his Dalmacija News with disinterest. The store’s main stock—bread, fatty white cheese, stamps, and cigarettes—was laid out on a card table. In the cooler nearby were mackerels and mussels the fishermen had brought in. Luka and I picked two mackerels from the case. Luka asked for olive oil, and the man wrapped the fish in newspaper, then retrieved a small cruet. He added a book of matches to the pile.

“Does the pay phone still work?” I said. The phone attached to the side of the store had been the only one in the village when I was young, and even then it was finicky.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Do you want a phone card?”

“Please,” I said. “For America.”

He pulled a plastic card from beneath the till in the register that said NORTH AMERICA in bold lettering across the front, and added it to our total. Luka peeled a hundred-kuna note from his billfold, and the man put our food in a brown paper bag.

“Come back Wednesday, if you want,” he said as we left. “Some chocolate’s coming in.”

“I’m going to go get a fire started,” Luka said, handing me the phone card. “I’ll see you back at the house.”

I’d only made one other phone call from Tiska, when my mother forgot her bathing suit and let me call home to have my father bring it. She’d stood behind me, folded the cord just right, and held it above our heads like an antenna. I tried replicating her maneuver, shifting the bends in the wire until I got a tone, then hastily dialing the series of numbers on the back of the card followed by my American home number.

“Ana?”

“Can you hear me?”

“Barely! How are you? I’ve been so worried!”

“I’m fine. We’re down the coast. No Internet and stuff. Sorry I haven’t been in touch more.”

“I got your email. But you should’ve called.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Is Rah—Rachel home?”

“She’s at soccer practice.”

“Can I call back and leave a voice mail for her?”

“That’d be nice.”

“Okay, I’ll do that now.”

“You’re good though?” Laura said.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Well, I’m glad. Thanks for calling. And don’t—”

The line crackled, then went dead. I readjusted the cord, called back, and rang through to what I hoped was the voice mail, though the sound was more static than words. “Hi, Rachel. I’m in Croatia at the beach and it’s very beautiful. I’ve been taking some pictures for you. Maybe, if Mom says it’s okay, you can come with me next summer. You’d like it here—” The line made a loud, unfamiliar buzzing sound. “Love you!” I yelled over the tone and hung up. Then I went back into the store and bought a postcard and an airmail stamp so I could write to Brian that night.

On my way home I knocked on the door of the old woman and waited a long time for someone to come. The lamps were unlit and there were no children playing out back.

“Tomorrow then,” I said to the empty house.

—

I showered beneath a pipe that stood at the edge of the cliff, a place of both total exposure and unmitigated solitude. I could see the whole village, busy with the activities of dusk. Old men on the pier were pulling up their wire fishing cages. The shopkeeper turned off his lights; someone at the church turned the steeple light on. The salt from the sea had dried in visible tide lines on my body, and I rubbed them away. The wind whistled in the hollows of my ears, was sharp against my wet skin, and made the cold water from the spigot feel warm.

Luka stoked the fire in the brick grill out front, and I scrounged around in the kitchen for any utensils left behind. Marina hadn’t forgotten anything of use, and I took comfort in the fact that it looked like she’d had time to pack. I cleared off the counter, lining the Polaroids of the concrete hands and Luka and Plitvice on a ledge along the wall. I’d bring them home for Rahela, but for now they fit well here.