by GlasOwl

VI

They didn't go back to the Zagreb apartment. Instead, Jeri drove through the night and when she stopped, it was to open a wrought iron gate and then drive the Yugo into a cobbled courtyard surrounded by a vine-covered wall. Kelly sensed rather than saw trees, but that was all the attention she paid to their location. Jeri came around and opened the door. Despite other feelings that struggled to direct her actions, Kelly shrank back from the extended hand.

"Oh, god," she gasped. "I'm sorry; I don't know what's wrong with me.

"Not a thing."  Jeri stepped back from the car door.  "There isn't a thing wrong with you. Kelly, listen to me. I want you to come in and rest. I think you may want a shower and I'll show you where it is and I'll wait right outside the door for you. Then I'm going to take you to a room with a clean bed and you're going to sleep for as long as you want. I'm going to be right outside that door, too. Later, after you get your sleep, we can talk. If you want."

That sounded okay. Kelly thought maybe that might be okay.

Occasionally, some stray night sound made Kelly jump as she went through the steps that Jeri had outlined. Otherwise, Kelly thought she was managing.  Her hands had swollen and there were marks where the cuffs had chafed, but she was making her fingers work just fine. When she came out of the shower, she found a large white t-shirt to put on. Jeri was waiting in the hall, a hall with a tile floor -- the whole house seemed to have beautifully colored tile floors -- and led her to a room with a large bed on which was a turned back comforter showing pale blue sheets. A small writing desk was against one wall and two upholstered lounging chairs indicated this was a sitting room as well as a bedroom. Remotely, Kelly noted that this all seemed a bit expensive.

Kelly started for the bed, and then suddenly felt how large the room was with its desk and chairs. She asked, hesitantly, "Maybe you could sit inside the room while I slept? And keep a small light on?"

"Done."

Only after she was sure that Kelly had fallen asleep did Jeri relax enough to let the rage she felt shape the contours of her face. If she saw any of those people in the interrogation room again, they were dead. Toland hadn't seemed to think it would matter. He said they had a loose government connection, but mostly they were about armaments. That's where you made your money in a war -- guns, and Croatia needed guns badly. As far as Jeri could figure, she and Kelly had become a blip on someone's radar when they entered the country with an arms shipment. If she'd known more about the crisis looming over Yugoslavia, Jeri might have considered another way to get to Dubrovnik. Of course, it was still likely that Toland was covering for something. You just never knew for sure when you dealt with governments.

Jeri stared at Kelly sleeping, seeing little more than a form curled beneath the thick comforter, watching the rhythm of her breathing. She was so relieved to have Kelly back, alive and not damaged physically, that she found her presence infinitely soothing. As for Kelly's mental state, that was another matter. Jeri had seen the effects of prison before, of interrogation and isolation.

Kelly hadn't been held that long. She might only need rest. On the other hand, the kidnappers had been experts and their methods had obviously been intense. And Kelly was still fragile from the deaths of her brother and his friends. Jeri saw how she struggled with that daily, trying to find a context , a way to accept the deaths and hold onto the love. Then factor in the events in the Krajina and there had been some big shocks lately, to say the least.

But Kelly was strong. Hadn't she just walked out of a war zone? Take the fact that she hadn't ever let go of their cover story. Hell, she could have told them. They did know. But Kelly wasn't about to give anything away.  "Don't ever give anything away," she'd said to Kelly more than once, referring to anyone who might be following them, might be interested. "Make them work for what they don't know."  But she'd never meant for her to die trying to defend just their identity. But what if Kelly had told them sooner -- would they have kept her at the same location or would they have moved her? Say to somewhere that Toland wouldn't have known about. Or would they have even left her alive? God Jesus -- Kelly had probably called it right.

But she shouldn't be here at all, said a voice that Jeri didn't want to hear. You need to send her home. This is your life because you blew it, but she hasn't. She can still go home. She hasn't done anything that anyone will need to make her account for. All she's guilty of is consorting with a known criminal, and there a few strings you have left you could pull to make that disappear. You need to let her go -- make her go. Make her understand that the best thing for you is for her to get a good life for herself while she still can.

. . .Only once did they stop and that was shortly after dawn as they climbed a steep and rocky path. Kelly was laboring to match Jeri's speed, but the other woman moved uphill as if she were on level ground. Kelly looked up and saw that Jeri had stopped and was waiting for her. The tall woman watched her approach with an unreadable gaze, a frown that almost might have been anger. Before Kelly reached her, Jeri walked toward her, took her head in both her strong hands and kissed her. It was a hard kiss, and Kelly understood it was to seal the covenant she herself had put into words a short time before.

"I'll never ask you to leave me again," Jeri said. She turned then and they resumed climbing.

Jeri must have dozed. She heard her own words echoing in the gray light of dawn as she woke.  "Oh, god, Kell," she whispered.  "I did promise; but I wish I could make you go and be safe."

Kelly woke to the sound of birds. A length of sunlight fell through the curtains that lined one side of the room, indicating a sliding glass door.  She saw a figure standing by the curtain, gazing out to the day, a tall woman. She wondered for an instant why Jeri wasn't beside her and then she remembered and a wave of misery swept over her. She shut her eyes to keep it out and sleep took her away again.

Now, after the initial exhaustion was relieved, Kelly's sleep was lighter and restless. She tossed and turned and the noises she made were almost words.  Jeri ached to go to her. Maybe that would be the right thing to do, maybe she could slip in beside her and just hold her. But then she thought not.  She felt instinctively that Kelly was caught in a journey that she needed to get through on her own. To interrupt that journey would only postpone it.

The next time Kelly woke, the only light in the room was from the small lamp that was always on. Jeri was again sitting in the chair across the room and Kelly almost felt like she could have imagined her previous waking. Almost.

"Will I ever get synched up to day and night again?"

"Sure. Are you hungry?"

Kelly considered. "Yeah, I am."

"Good. Don't go anywhere."

Jeri got a smile. She left the room and returned with sandwiches so quickly that Kelly guessed they must have been made and waiting. The bread was thick, heavy Croatian bread that was a meal in itself, and the cheese was something strong, with a lot of flavor. Kelly ate several bites, then stopped, as if the food had stuck in her throat.

"I'm not sick. They didn't hurt me. I don't need to be treated like an invalid."

Jeri said nothing.

"I don't even know what they wanted. Something about guns. Like they think you know who's shipping guns into the country. Where did you get this place?  It's like a rich person's home."

"I called in a favor. It is a rich person's home."

"I thought the IRA was poor. I thought Irish Catholics were oppressed poor people."  Christ, where was this coming from? Kelly couldn't believe her words. She was trying to pick a fight.

"Some are. This place doesn't belong to a Provo."

"What the hell is a Provo? Why don't you just say IRA like everyone else?  Why are you so fucking perfect?"  Kelly picked up her plate and threw it across the room. The dish hit the wall and fell to the tile floor, shattering. She stared at the wall. Then she got out of the bed, crossed the room, and began picking up pieces of bread, cheese and broken plate.

"I thought I'd never see you again. And then -- then -- I thought that was probably for the best -- because you could never trust me again. Not after what they were doing."  The storm that had been building finally broke. With pieces of broken plate in both hands, Kelly sat on the cool tile and began to weep. Jeri was beside her instantly.

The theory was that you were supposed to cry and the feelings would move through you and then it would be over. Only Kelly couldn't stop. She lost track of what and who she was crying for. George, of course. Always George.  And Vojna. She had really liked Vojna. She'd had thoughts of how the young girl was going to make a new life in one of the pretty seaside towns of Dalmatia. And for herself. Kelly cried for herself, lost in the dark, caught and kept in the dark while they tried to steal her heart, her mind.

"They never came close," Jeri said. "They never came close to finding your heart."

So Kelly told her all that had happened. She remembered a lot more than she wanted to.

"I should have killed the bastard. Jesus, I should have killed him when I had the chance."

Jeri thought that Kelly had started sobbing again, and it took her several seconds to realize that Kelly was laughing. Only a little out of control.

"You should have seen him. I knew it was you, I heard your voice, and then I saw his face. He was so scared. After all those days of being the head bastard in charge of everything right and good, suddenly you were there and he was scared to his toes."

"Really? I was just making sure he didn't try anything to make me have to kill him."

"Oh, he was scared. After all those hours when I had to keep my eyes on him and guess his mood and think who and what he was, he couldn't keep me from seeing how you scared the shit right out of him. God, I liked seeing you hit him."

"Really? Why did you make me stop?"

Kelly quit laughing. "I guess I liked it too much. I wanted you to kill him, I really did, and then I remembered where we are and how that gets done here. How easy people die here."  She felt the tears begin again and leaned into Jeri; when the arms went around her, Kelly remembered just how much she had missed being held.

"Kell?"

"What?"

"Do you remember the day you came with me into the mountains in Nepal?"  Jeri felt Kelly's head nod against her. "I promised I'd never ask you to leave me, but if you want to go, I would truly understand."

Jeri felt Kelly grow very still in her arms, felt the muscles stiffen, the almost imperceptible withdrawal.

"Do you want me to go?"

"Oh, baby, I just want you to be safe -- and happy -- and have a good life."

"That isn't what I asked."  Kelly had pulled herself away from Jeri and was staring at her with those unfathomable green eyes whose fierceness was undiminished by the redness from her crying. "Do you want me to go?"

"No. Never." Maybe she ought to have lied, but she couldn't. Not to Kelly.

The head bastard in charge of everything right and good had been dead wrong.  Kelly didn't think of him at all when Jeri joined her in the bed.
 

"This is called Slavonia," Jeri said as they drove through country as flat as Kansas.  "They say if you stand on a pumpkin here, you can see the whole region."

"Those are corn fields!"  Kelly couldn't believe her eyes as she looked to the right and left. The tall green stalks stood like sentinels on either side of the road, obscuring everything but the blue sky overhead and the trailers of long, white, feathery clouds.  "Are you sure we're not in Kansas anymore?"

Without preliminary, Jeri burst into song.  "Oh, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn't -- didn't already have," Jeri sang.

Jeri sang the song all the way through. She had a singing voice to match her speaking voice -- rich, full of varied and subtle emotions. Kelly listened with delight -- not just because Jeri was singing which was a rare wonder all its own, but also because she really liked the song.

Kelly could scarcely believe that she'd been given her life back: she intended to pay attention.

The roadblock wasn't much of a surprise. This time Jeri had decided that they might as well be American writers. Both Serbia and Croatia were aware that this war was being watched closely. Tudjman, according to the rumors, was counting on good international press to make up for Croatia's lack of guns. He felt that if he followed the arms embargo and didn't try to circumvent it too obviously, then the other Europeans and the Americans would protect the new country. Perhaps he was thinking that the world just might think of Croatia as it had Kuwait and come to the rescue. Jeri thought he was whistling in the dark but, in the meantime, she was ready to take advantage of the desire for good press relations.

This roadblock, however, was being manned by Serbs, not Croats. They weren't as eager to please reporters as Croatians were, but they were polite enough.  They argued with her choice of destination.

"Why do you want to go to Vukovar? You should go across the river to Novi Sad, which is a beautiful city. You'll get nothing but lies in Vukovar.  Croats have no regard for the truth. They lie worse than a Gypsy and they have no loyalty to anything. Even Hitler's generals were surprised by how they --"

"My editor asked me to go to Vukovar particularly," Jeri interrupted the rant.  "How can I argue with a man who won't even give me money to rent a decent car?"

"What about your friend. Why is she going to Vukovar?"

"Same editor. He's trying to save money. She's going to do a piece about Croatian cuisine."

"There is no Croatian cuisine. They have terrible food. Whatever seems like a good food, they have stolen from Serbians, who were eating with forks while the rest of Europe was still ripping meat apart with their hands."

Jeri smiled her most pleasant and conspiratorial of smiles as she opened the trunk for the soldiers and showed them a space containing only her backpack and Kelly's. "But of course there are guns in this car," she said, laughing.  "Just think how many I can smuggle through."

The guard tried to maintain his serious demeanor but he and his comrade both smiled as they looked over the dented Yugo. It certainly didn't appear capable of concealing much.

"So was that one of them?"  Kelly asked as they drove on.

Yeah," Jeri answered grimly, knowing exactly to whom Kelly was referring.  He'd been lurking in the background, wearing black, but the dark glasses and long hair and attitude were unmistakable.  "That was one of Arkan's men. I think I'd rather see buzzards."

"So where did you hide the gun?"

"Never you mind.  And that's guns."

"Gun - zz?  With an 's'?  With that little phoneme that indicates plural?  How many zz's?"

"We're not gun runners, Kelly. Jesus, you're always like this after we go through a roadblock. I can't take you anywhere."

"How many?"

"Just those two from your friends, Liz and Ernie. You should see them, Kelly. Ernie had a decent Beretta but Liz, the ole bull-dyke wannabe, had a Sig Sauer.  It is some hunk of -- what? Why are you looking at me like that?  You can have one."

A kilometer or so past the Serbian roadblock, they had to go through a Croatian stop, but they were practically waved through by a group of youngsters who looked like they should be in school. But youngsters with guns, Jeri noted.

Vukovar was a smaller version of Zagreb with the same Middle Europe, baroque charm. It also had the added attraction of the great and legendary Danube flowing past. They followed the main road through suburbs and then reached an older part of the city. Kelly couldn't believe it when Jeri pulled the Yugo to the side of the street and hailed a young pedestrian.

"Did you just ask for directions?"

"Yeah. Why? I figured he'd know where Pijacu Street was. 'Pee-yat-soo' means market."

"You mean you don't have a detailed map and history of all Europe etched into your brain?  Along with most of the other continents, of course."

"You don't have to sound like I know everything."

"But you do," Kelly said happily.  "That's what I really like about you."

"My mind. You like my mind."

"Maybe one or two other things."

"Yeah, well you're not half --"  Jeri stopped talking abruptly, hearing the last time she had told Kelly she wasn't half bad.

"Kell -- I --" she gripped the steering wheel and her knuckles were dead white. They were still parked and Jeri had to bend her head to the wheel.  Her voice was muffled.  "I nearly went crazy when they took you. I kept hearing myself telling you that -- that you're not half bad -- and I thought of all the things I really wanted to say to you, things I don't have words enough for. I swore that if I ever got you back I'd never say anything again but how much I love you."

The dark-haired woman had lifted her head; she was looking at Kelly with a tight, almost twisted expression, looking like someone might who was waiting to hear the word that activates the firing squad.

"Jeri -- love -- I swear, that's all I've heard you say, in every word since you found me."
 

18 Pijacu was a two-story apartment building, an older building, on a street with other structures more or less like it in either direction. A small, manicured park was maintained at the end of the block. Jeri's first sight of Alenka came almost immediately after she rang the bell and a round-faced, dark-haired girl leaned out from a second-floor window.

"Auntie Stella!"

Only minutes later, Jeri found herself inside one of the most heartfelt hugs she'd ever received -- aside from Kelly, of course. Alenka was a pretty sixteen going on seventeen. She had her brother's same elfin look and charm; a round elf, she would never be called thin, but to the appreciative eye she had assurance and openness, and she was as full and sweet as ripening fruit.

"You're just how I expected! Oh, I'm so glad you're finally here. I thought you would be here many days ago and I have been watching for you every day. You look just like Rafi said you would. He said you were tall and magnificent, like a queen on a chess board."  She spoke an accented English, but she seemed quite at ease using it. "Come in, come in. Oh, my manners are terrible. You must be Laura, Auntie Stella's very dear friend."

The look Jeri gave Kelly as they followed Alenka up the stairs was both a shrug and a rueful alarm. Alenka, of course, bounded up the stairs with more energy than one could believe possible. At the door to the apartment, they were met by large dog of uncertain parentage who eyed them carefully but whose tail moved in a tentative wag.

"This is Srijeda," Alenka said, stooping to wrap her arms around the dog whose tail increased its wagging significantly. She laid her head against the dove-colored gray and creamy gold side of the handsome animal.

Kelly, watching the interaction, remembered that she missed having a dog around. She'd grown up with them on the farm, but her life had been too unsettled since then to think of inviting a dog into it. Seeing the bond between Alenka and Srijeda, she felt a dormant longing awaken. With just enough hesitation to assure Srijeda the decision to be friends was up to him, Kelly moved forward to fondle the great head that looked much like that of a German Shepherd. She was rewarded by unmistakable signs that her attention was welcome.

"Srijeda, this is your Auntie Laura and that's your Auntie Stella. He likes you -- he likes that thing you're doing with his ears. Srijeda means Wednesday. In our family, Papa always said 'maybe next Wednesday' whenever he didn't want to do something. He always thought that getting a dog was like that, a thing for next Wednesday. Then one day we were at the market and there was this box of puppies and this one was so beautiful. Papa said, 'I suppose this must be Wednesday,' and that's how he got his name. I think Papa was very surprised, though, that Srijeda never quit growing. Now he's just the biggest baby in the whole world."

Jeri decided there was no point to being the only person not sitting on the floor and joined the group. She was somewhat less inclined to join in the adoration of Srijeda. He looked her in the eye for a second, one conspirator to another, it seemed, as if to agree that, yes, he was the best ice-breaker in Vukovar, and then he closed them again to better enjoy the petting.

"I think Papa let me get a puppy because we were both also sad at knowing that Rafi was in prison and we might never see him again. That made papa so unhappy. We didn't even know where Rafi is. Do you, Auntie Stella?"

Jeri shook her head. "The Russians arrested him, but only one or two people know where he's being kept. I don't."

"He was a fool."  The statement was so unlike what they had already come to expect from Alenka that both older women simply stared at her. Bitterness and sorrow marked her words and she seemed far older than she had just moments before. "Only a fool would leave his family like he did. Papa never got over missing him and when he learned Rafi was in prison, I know he just gave up. But he never said a bad word about him. Me, though, for me there is very much anger that he is not here now. With me. With Vukovar. He should have been at his father's funeral. He should have sung the Requiem and carried the coffin."

The hand that Kelly had been using to pet Srijeda moved over to touch Alenka.  "I'm sorry," she said. "This must be awful for you, going through this all alone."

With no warning at all, Alenka threw herself into Kelly's arms and started to sob.

Alenka's storm of feelings passed as quickly as it arrived. She went to clean her face and when she returned she was as irrepressibly talkative as ever.

". . .Stepan, that's my boyfriend, you will just love him, even Papa did, he will be here tomorrow. Since yesterday he has been in the suburbs on guard duty. He says if the Chetniks realized how few bullets he and the other National Guard have the war would be over today but I tell him he worries too much.  . . .Maybe Rafi was more political than me because Mama was still alive when he was growing up and I know she had troubles. She was Roma, you know, Gypsy, and I think from some things that Papa said, Rafi took on her troubles. People say bad things about Roma without even thinking.  Papa is -- was -- Serbian but he was also Croatian on his mother's side so no one ever made much about it. We were all just Yugoslavian. Oh, things are all mixed up here, but I'm not going to leave."

The apartment was quite old-fashioned. High ceilings had ornate plaster scrollwork around the edges and one sitting room had wallpaper with colorful flowers and vines on a dark gray background. The dining room had dark wood paneling on all the walls. A number of heavy wooden cupboards -- armoires, sideboards, desks -- were scattered throughout the rooms. The effect was too dark for Jeri's taste, but Kelly was charmed. She thought Rebecca West would surely have had some arch comment to make about its relationship to the Austro-Hungarians.

"But you must each have a room for yourself. Please, it is no trouble and I want you to be comfortable."

"One will do fine, Alenka.  That's what will make us most comfortable."

Jeri watched with amusement as her meaning occurred to Alenka.

The young woman's mouth dropped open, a hand flew up to cover it, and she started to giggle. "How modern!"  She was delighted.  "Oh, that is so wonderful."  Just what was so wonderful, or what was so modern, was unclear, but it was obvious that Jeri and Kelly's relationship was giving Alenka some kind of reflected sophistication. She looked from one to the other, beaming like an aunt at a wedding.

A knock on the door interrupted the exercise in modernity and Alenka flew to open it. Kelly wondered if she ever just walked. Srijeda was already at the door, wagging his tail.

"Marija! Come in. These are my new American aunties. Auntie Stella, Auntie Laura, this is my neighbor, Marija."

Marija Antoljak appeared as reserved as Alenka was bubbly. Marija stood stolidly in the doorway, making no secret of the fact that she was judging these two visitors to her neighbor, her building, her world. Stern, frowning, not so tall but very round, gray hair that was likely long when let loose from its braiding, Marija nodded to the two women.

'It is good that someone comes to visit our Lenka,' she said. Jeri translated.

Marija entered the apartment and made her way to the kitchen. She produced a large dish of something that filled the room with a mouth watering aroma, something to wake any appetite.  'You do not seem to be the type of women who cook,' she pronounced. 'I will bring some more.'

As good as her word, she left only to return in minutes with a tray full of such things as bread and coffee. 'There,' she said to Alenka.  Now you may give your guests a proper meal.'

Alenka smiled happily. Marija and Ivo Antoljak had taken her under their wing ever since her father died, though Kelly guessed that Marija had taken care of the youngster long before that. Perhaps the bird-wing analogy was not precisely appropriate, Kelly thought, when she met Marija's husband. They were more like two elk, large and attentive, dignified, careful not to overstep their boundaries, but adding a formidable presence to the young woman's life. They had three children of their own: a son in Budapest, a daughter gone to Canada, and a married daughter who lived in Osijek, a city north of Vukovar.

The meal was more than proper. Kelly tried to remember when she'd last had home cooking of potatoes and meat with a thick gravy. She watched with satisfaction as Jeri, who liked food well enough when it was put in front of her but who normally ate with all the interest of a furnace being given coal, actually reached for a generous second helping.

Srijeda positioned himself right in the center of the kitchen floor, on his side, perhaps auditioning for some kindergarten cutout of the profile of a Dog.  Alenka chatted.

After a while -- and despite Alenka's more or less ritual protestations -- Kelly began doing the dishes. It felt so homelike to have her hands in warm and soapy water. She would never describe herself as domestic; even when she did begin a project of scrubbing and dusting and sorting and straightening, it was an inconsistent affair with little or no follow-up. George had been much better, and Billy had been able to walk through a room while things flowed into place behind him -- spotlessly, of course. But tonight, as the evening light faded from the day and the kitchen became a haven, a harbor after the horrors that had marked the recent weeks, Kelly found nothing to wish for as she put one sparkling plate after another into the dish-rack on
the old-fashioned sink, listening to Alenka chatter and Jeri slide in an occasional question.

Alenka was going to University. She thought she would probably do something with computers but it was still all very new and she hadn't begun to make up her mind but -- and this always came as a surprise to people if she did say so herself -- she was very smart with science and numbers. Alenka and Rafi's grandparents on her mother's side had disappeared during Hitler's war when the Gypsies were taken away along with the Jews. Her mother was just a baby then and she had escaped by being left with a Croatian family who raised her as their own daughter. That was how she escaped most of the terrible way that Gypsies were treated, but there had been one time -- this was a family story -- when she and Rafi had gone somewhere on the train, to Hungary maybe, and the people had been rude and worse. Things like that didn't happen any more. Wasn't her best friend at University, Branka, a Serb, and wasn't their whole group of friends so mixed up in heritage that they were like a small Yugoslavia: Slovenian and Croatian and Bosnian and Montenegrin?

Srijeda lifted his head, and then rose clumsily to all four feet and cocked his head. The three women in the kitchen looked at him. He barked. Just then, they heard a series of thumps, not too far away, but still distant.

Jeri swore. "What was that?"

"Nothing. It is nothing."  But Alenka's words were more like a prayer than information. She sighed. "It is mortars from the Yugoslavian Navy. They are shelling parts of the city, but not always. They have not done this for several nights now."

Kelly stared at her hands, hands that still had soapsuds from the dishwater.

"It is nothing," Alenka said again.

 Continued in part VII