by GlasOwl

VIII

The rumble of autumn thunder woke Kelly. She and Jeri were still entangled in the last embraces that had preceded their falling asleep. Kelly shifted slightly but it was impossible to get any closer so she settled for kissing the arm near her face. She felt a slight answering pressure that indicated Jeri was also awake.

The muffled barking of Srijeda from outside the room accompanied another rumble.

Not thunder. It hadn't been thunder for a long time now, but this night it sounded different.

Jeri was out of bed and slipping into a sweatshirt and jeans and tossing clothes to Kelly before the next and closer crash.

"Shoes," Jeri said. "Get them on quick."

The noise separated into the sounds of airplane engines punctuated by explosions.

Please, god, Kelly prayed to any that might be listening, please not yet.

Now. The rumble was overhead and the explosions were deafening and endless.  The building shuddered while noise made thought or action impossible. Things were breaking, shattering. One was simply a small mammal waiting for the huge rolling dice to cease and then one would know if life or death had won.

Arms lifted her, moved her, and then she felt herself on the floor, covered by Jeri. Kelly tended to forget the woman was so strong.

The noise lessened. Jeri rose, her weight, her presence, the safety of her gone.

"Come on. Let's find Alenka and Stepan."

There was still a house outside the bedroom. No broken roof or wall was apparent, although the feel of things beneath Kelly's feet explained why Jeri had insisted on shoes. Against all odds, the light switch worked.  Chips of plaster, glass, other things lay scattered over the floor. Kelly saw Stepan emerge into the hallway, nearly dressed. Alenka followed him, in a robe.

"Kelly, help Alenka get dressed. Stepan can check on the Antoljaks and I'll go make sure that the gas is off."

Alenka's fingers shook as she buttoned on a shirt.  "For the first time I am glad that Papa is not alive."  She paused.  "He loved this building. It was his grandfather's. And Papa loved Vukovar. He would be so sad at what is happening. I think maybe he is lucky."

As the sound of explosions receded, other sounds drifted in through the windows, sounds of voices calling from the street. Alenka pulled aside a curtain and Kelly saw that the windows were shattered. That was where all the glass had come from.

"My god, the Lackovic house across the street is broken," Alenka said.  "We must go."

"We should bring blankets," Kelly said, thinking of shock.

"And water," Jeri added, having just returned. "Water to drink."

"Ivo and Marija are not hurt."  Stepan had also returned. "They are going out to help."

The smell of smoke was strong on Pijacu Street, smoke and the acrid tang of explosives. Up and down the street, people were emerging from their homes.  A block and a half away, the glow of fire outlined a building. The apartment across from 18 Pijacu, a two-story structure, was crushed on one side, beams and walls jutting at odd angles, pieces of plaster dangling from wires, pipes leaning toward nowhere, but at least no smoke was apparent. A woman with disheveled hair, barefoot and wearing only a dirty nightgown, stood staring up at the ruin.

Kelly shook open one of her blankets and approached the woman, meaning to wrap her against the chill air. As Kelly came closer, she saw that it was blood, not dirt, that was darkening the woman's nightgown, blood from a wound on the side of her head.

"Madame  . . . madame," Kelly tried to get her attention but the woman seemed not to hear. As the blanket was wrapped around her, the woman turned her eyes from the damaged building but she didn't seem to focus anywhere else.  Kelly gently directed her off the street and toward Alenka and then she was relieved to see Marija hurrying toward them.

"Ivo, do you know how many people live across the street?" Jeri asked.  Most of those who had come outside were going to help fight the fire on the next block.

Ivo thought there were three families. In normal times there were only two, but relatives of the people on the first floor had recently arrived, fleeing from fighting in the country, which had grown increasingly vicious, to what they had thought would be the safety of the city. Altogether, probably ten to fifteen adults and children had been living across the street. Ivo thought that he had seen some of the residents among the neighbors on the street, but he wasn't sure. Stepan went to see if anyone could be spared from the fire while Ivo and Jeri went to see if the Lackovic house was empty.

The front door was wedged in place but Ivo had brought a crowbar and together he and Jeri forced the huge old door to move.

Inside, their flashlights revealed thick murky air that Jeri was almost certain was more dust than smoke. The hall was criss-crossed with fallen wood and piping, but the two made their way slowly, careful of hanging wires that might still carry live electricity. They came to a stairway and Ivo called out. There was no answer from below, but from above, they heard crying. Testing each step before trusting it with any weight, they crept up. At the top, they emerged into another hallway, but the destruction here was worse than below. In one direction, their way was blocked by debris, in another, they could see outside because the wall was gone. The moaning was coming though the debris.

Jeri swore in Croatian, using terms that surprised Ivo, and then she got her temper back under control.  "Those pigs. If the YFA is half as good as it claims they must know this is a residential area."

"They know," Ivo said. Radio Vukovar had been reporting that the Yugoslav Federal Army was targeting places that had no military value. Like Eltz Castle, the Medical Center, the Franciscan Monastery -- and the homes of ordinary people. Anywhere that had cultural or communal value, anywhere that would discourage or destroy the spirit of the people of the city.

"Hall-o-o-o. Can anyone hear me? It's Ivo, your neighbor."

"Ivo."  The voice was faint, coming from behind the wreckage, and a fit of coughing followed the name. The moaning continued.

"Hold on, Josip. We're coming for you."  He leaned toward the jumbled wood and called out.  "Josip, can you get to a window? We could get a ladder."

"Won't work, Ivo. We're caught here in the hallway. I've got the kids, but I don't where Marta is. She sounds pretty bad."

The crash of a mortar falling somewhere near made the trapped children cry out.

Jeri fixed her flahlight to a standing board with a wire, aimed at the hallway.  "Let's work with just mine for now," she suggested.  "No sense to using up batteries we may need later."

Ivo nodded.  "Good, but I have more if we need them. I have been preparing for something like this."

It was slow work. They had to test every large piece of wood or wall board before removing it. Slow work, but Jeri and Ivo got each other's rhythm. At some point, Stepan and two other people arrived.

"Everyone from downstairs is accounted for," Stepan said, "but they think the whole Lackovic family is trapped in here."

Jeri remembered Alenka saying the family was ethnic Serbian. Not surprising since about a third of Vukovar was ethnic Serbian, but it was ironic since the YFA claimed they were bombing to protect the Croatian Serbs.

Clearing the hallway went faster after Stepan and the other two men joined the work, and now they also had two saws and a hand axe along with the crowbar. Pale light, visible through the space that had once been a roof showed that dawn was approaching. Jeri could see Ivo's face now, and she thought her own was probably as streaked with soot as his. The older man's hair, usually a thick shock of white, was peppered gray with the grime that kept sifting from the ceiling with each new shudder of the building. He seemed to feel Jeri looking at him and he paused to clasp her hand, his blue eyes soft in a wordless smile.

Along with the slowly increasing light came still more shelling. The last week had seen a step up in mortars fired from across the Danube and from the suburbs, and this day after the aerial bombing was apparently going to be no different.

Kelly brought hot tea and bread to the workers and Jeri took a few minutes to rest.  "What's happening outside?" she asked, wiping her damp forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of grime behind.

"They took Mrs. Babic to the medical site at the Tesla school. They set up a clinic there not too long ago. Mrs. Babic is the woman whose head was hurt.  I couldn't tell how she was; she never seemed to come out of shock."  Kelly pulled up a clean piece of her shirt cuff and wiped away some of the sooty smear from Jeri's brow. She went on talking.  "Marija and some of the other women organized a way to check the block and no one else besides the Lackovics seems to be hurt or missing. We're moving into the basement. Marija's sort of directing the project. She and Alenka are arranging living areas. It seems most of Vukovar is moving to a basement."

"Sounds like a good idea."

"Jeri? A bunch of concrete fell on the Yugo. I think it's destroyed."

"Damn! We won't be able to get another one here."

"And the bad news is?"

Jeri grinned and then turned to see a boy of about twelve waiting for her attention. She nodded to him.

"Miss Estellija? I think I can crawl through the hall and get to where Mr. Lackovic is. Maybe not all the way, but I think I can get some water to him."

The boy spoke Croatian and Kelly didn't understand, but she saw that Jeri's attention was once again completely engaged in the work. She did understand that Jeri had become a person who was asked for directions.

A nearby explosion shook the building and more dust sifted down in a cloud, causing everyone to cough. It also caused a wave of misery in the people trapped behind the debris. The children cried out, more afraid than hurt, but the moaning, which had quit for over an hour, began again. Kelly found a way to fit into the work.

It took two more hours until they came to where Marta Lackovic was trapped.  A beam had fallen across her upper legs and hips, pinning her to the floor.  She was unconscious again when the rescuers reached her and that was probably a blessing considering how badly she appeared to be hurt.

"How is she?" Josip called. He and his children were still trapped, but they were very close to being freed.

Ivo frowned. He was weary and his half-century-plus age was evident. He wanted to tell his neighbor the truth but he hesitated because of the children. He settled on a partial truth.

She needs to go to hospital," Ivo said. "She is unconscious now."

"Get her out," Josip called. "We are not hurt here."
 

Marta Lackovic moaned when she was picked up and carefully placed on blanket-covered boards; her eyes opened but she was not really conscious.  Kelly held a pad made from a towel to reduce bleeding that had started again when they moved the woman.

"Yakov has a truck outside," Ivo said to Jeri, indicating one of the other rescue workers. Yakov was a small, wiry man. "Would you and Laura go to the hospital with her? We can finish here."

Jeri and Kelly rode with Marta in the back of Yakov's battered pickup, protecting the wounded woman as much as possible from being bounced and jostled. The streets of Vukovar were pocked with holes and strewn with rubble. Neither woman had ventured far from Pijacu Street recently and the look of the city came as a shock. On every block, there were houses with
shell holes.

As they drove through a deserted commercial area, Kelly recognized the department store she had seen the day she and Jeri and Alenka had gone by on bicycles on their way to a picnic by the Danube. In a bizarre twist of circumstance, the elegantly dressed dummies were still standing in the bored postures of moneyed leisure, but the roof was gone from their section of store and the fragments of plate glass that survived were spider-webbed with cracks.

Through the missing back window of the pickup, Kelly could hear their driver praying. He kept repeating a phrase as he backed up or sped around piles of rubble. As they neared the hospital and the mortar shelling grew heavier, Yakov's praying got louder. Suddenly, Kelly recognized the 'prayer.'

"Head eem oop, head eem oot -- Raw - hi-i-i-de! Head eem oop, head eem oot -- Raw - hi-i-i-de!"

The nearer they came to the hospital, the louder Yakov shouted. The Vukovar Medica Center, which ought to have been a haven, was instead the target of intensive shelling. It was contrary to sanity, to humanity, to all the rules of civilization. Yakov, daring fate, drove them to a doorway and kept the motor running while Jeri and Kelly removed the wounded woman. Kelly heard the stuttering thump of nearby automatic gunfire as she and Jeri clambered out of the pickup. Someone from inside the building ran out to help them carry the makeshift stretcher and as soon as he could, Yakov sped away, still yelling: "Rawhi-i-i-de!"  As they hurried inside, Kelly felt a spray of grit as bullets hit a wall above them.

Once inside, the hospital was a haven. Jeri and Kelly were directed toward an inner room that was being used for triage, and here a sense of order and calm prevailed. Hospital workers moved among the wounded, speaking quietly, working efficiently. After the chaos of the night's bombing, the order and purpose inside the hospital were as soothing as any medicine. Marta was semiconscious and moaning again. A medical worker made a quick check of the newcomers and their patient. Then she left.

Kelly glanced around the room and then dared not look again. If this collection of the burned and the bloodied were among those considered least damaged, her mind quailed to think of those who might be even more hurt.

Kelly caressed Marta's forehead, murmuring soothing nonsense. The middle-aged woman was younger than her graying hair indicated. Not that long ago, when such evenings were still possible, Jeri and Kelly would take Srijeda out and down to the little park on Pijacu Street. They had encountered Marta Lackovic several times, presumably on her way home from work. At first, she had greeted Srijeda, knowing him for a neighbor, but soon she had begun to greet Jeri and Kelly, too, with a nod and bright smile as she bent to fuss over the large dog. Then the shelling had increased and leisurely evening walks were no longer possible.

The medical worker reappeared with some anti-bacterial salve and a damp cloth. She had noticed that Jeri's hands were scraped and blistered from hours of work without gloves. Kelly took the cloth and medicine from the aide.

Kelly's jaw clenched as she applied the salve.  "I don't understand," she said. "How can they get away with this? We're only hours away from Vienna or Rome or Paris. Doesn't anyone care that the people of this town are being slaughtered?"

"The rest of Croatia cares."  Jeri sighed.  "Vukovar is giving everyone in Croatia courage. And Serbia cares. They thought the Yugoslav Federal Army could just walk across the Danube into Croatia and on to Zagreb, but they can't. Vukovar is like Stalingrad where the whole Nazi drive into Russia was stopped."

"Yeah," Kelly muttered. "And like the Alamo where everyone died. Why doesn't the rest of the world do something?"

"They say it's a civil war, an internal matter."

"On what level does that make sense, Jeri? Where in the name of anything holy does that mean something sane?"

Yakov entered the hospital and joined them as they waited. There were no empty chairs, so Yakov found a place on the floor and leaned back against a wall, closing his eyes. Kelly noticed that he was wearing a flannel pajama top tucked into his loose jeans, a flannel with pictures of little pine trees and frolicking rabbits.

A woman whose gray hair was more or less tidily caught in a bun came through the waiting room, stopping here and there to speak to patients or to the people accompanying them. Kelly thought the woman was another aide worker until she reached Marta. She removed the blanket that covered the unconscious woman and her eyes narrowed. Gently replacing the blanket, she called out in a voice that wasn't particularly loud but still cut through the noise with sharp authority. In a matter of minutes, Marta Lackovic was taken away by aides.

"Can you say how long before we can know something?"  Jeri asked the woman.  "Her family was still trapped in their home when we left, and they'll be anxious to know how she is."

"Go home," the woman said.  "She has serious damage to her upper legs and maybe her hips, but you already knew that. Come back tomorrow and ask for me. I'm Dr. Bosanac."

As they turned to leave, Yakov added, "And we'll be sure to tell Josip that Marta is being seen by Dr. Vesna Bosanac herself. That will comfort him."

"Why is that?"  Kelly asked after Jeri had translated for her. She wasn't entirely surprised that the doctor had a wider reputation.

"Dr. Bosanac is the director," Yakov answered.  "Everyone has heard of how she manages things here so that in spite of the hospital being a target, anyone who comes can still get treated. The city safety committee stored a large supply of medicines early in preparation for this siege. It was her idea to set up satellite clinics once the shelling made it difficult to get here."  He glanced out through the doorway.  "We are down there about two blocks."  Without a further word, he was out the doorway and running. The sound of "Head eem oop" drifted back.

Jeri glanced at Kelly.  "Head eem oop?"

"Head eem oot," Kelly answered.

The two women sprinted after Jakov.

Alenka and Marija had made a very comfortable living area in the basement of 18 Pijacu. At one end, a kind of kitchen had been arranged with a large table, a little wood stove for cooking, and shelving turned into a pantry.  Both Ivo and Marija could remember the circumstances of World War Two when they were children, and the experience had given them the foresight to collect and stock things from potatoes to batteries. At the far end of the basement, boxes had been situated to create separate areas and blankets had been hung to give a little more privacy.

Jeri joined Kelly in their little alcove. A mattress took up most of the space, and a candle on an overturned box provided light.

"I've been talking to Stepan," Jeri began.  "He says that there's a path out of Vukovar through a cornfield and we still might be able to get out that way. What do you think?"

"Sounds like a trick question to me."  Kelly sighed.  "What about Ivo and Marija? Or Alenka?"

The answer was so obvious that Jeri didn't bother to answer.

"I'm scared, don't get me wrong. I'm scared most of the time, but it's not like when I was kidnapped. Everyone else is scared, too. If we left now, just left them behind -- I don't want to do that, Jeri. These people are so strong -- they just want to live their lives. It's not like they did anything to make this happen. I feel like it's important to be here."  She took Jeri's hand.  "The medical center at the Tesla school -- Alenka and I were talking about going over there to work."

Kelly took the Himalayan crystal from her pocket and noted how the candlelight played in the interior of the stone. "Do you know I haven't had a panic attack since Dubrovnik?"

Jeri nodded.  "Too afraid for panic, probably. Come with me."  She rose and Kelly followed her upstairs. The constant shelling remained at a distance.  Inside Alenka's apartment, Jeri turned to Kelly.

"I want you to learn how to use this."  The gun she held out was the one that she had taken from Ernie. "I can show you how it works without actually shooting it."

Kelly stared at the gun in Jeri's hand.

"Talk to me, Kell. Tell me what you're thinking."

"That I don't want to do this; that I do; that the gun is really cool. Did you know that I can remember the first time I went into the dime store at home -- it wasn't a dime store anymore of course but everyone still called it that -- the first time I didn't go to the cap gun section? Other girls were dating and I finally quit playing with toy guns. I always wanted one, I always wanted to be a cowboy, and then I grew up and I joined the other side, the one that says handguns are a really big problem."  Kelly was aware that the words were just rattling out of her.  "I still think that, but it doesn't mean anything here; handguns are hardly a problem in the middle of a war. But if I take it, that means that I'm agreeing to kill a person, doesn't it? I'm crossing a line by doing this."

"You don't have to carry it around, but it would be good if you knew how it worked. It's better to have the option than not to have it. If the time comes when you need it, you'll know."

"You mean there's more to using this than just point and click? You're leaving, aren't you."

Jeri looked away from Kelly. "I've been talking to Stepan. They can use me. There are things I know how to do, that I was taught, that can help.  Things I'm good at, Kell. I know how to do street-fighting, I know how to make engines not run and things explode. I know ways to stop tanks and armored vehicles. And there are other women fighting at the front."

"I know," Kelly whispered.  "Look at me, baby, it's okay. I've been waiting for this. I know who you are. There. You better show me how to use this silly thing."

They worked into the evening. Jeri was under no illusion that she could teach Kelly how to shoot well in one lesson, or teach her how to cross the line that would make her kill another person, but if it came to a time that Kelly needed to make a choice, she need not be distracted by a being a complete stranger to the weapon. There weren't any extra bullets to practice with, there was only the one clip to be found in this city under siege, but Jeri taught Kelly everything else she could think of aside from actual firing. Her goal was to make the feel of the handgun, the size and weight and working of it as familiar as possible.

When they went back to the basement, they found that the residents of Pijacu Street had accommodated to their new quarters, melding into a family of sorts. A single lamp hung over the large round table -- the electricity, always erratic these days, was working for the moment -- and Ivo was talking quietly with Stepan while Alenka studied. A small set was tuned to Radio Vukovar, and although Kelly didn't understand the language, she recognized the voice of Sinisa Glavasevic, the young man whose voice was becoming the voice of the city to the outer world. Jeri went to Marija and spoke quietly.  The older woman nodded and then she directed Jeri to bring a chair close to the light.

Marija found a towel and placed it around Jeri's shoulders, a large towel of gold and blue that almost looked like a cape. Kelly felt her heart wince as she realized that Marija was about to cut Jeri's long dark hair. It was necessary, she understood that. For all sorts of reasons, where Jeri was going she needed short hair. Marija made the first cut and a dark strand slid to the floor. Kelly had to stop herself from rushing to grab it. Ivo, Stepan and Alenka stopped what they were doing and watched, as mesmerized as Kelly. Jeri stared straight ahead. Only Marija seemed immune to the sense of import, although even her stern features softened slightly.

The length was gone now. Marija began to trim, to shorten more, until Jeri's hair looked much like Stepan's. It was a ceremony. Jeri was being reborn in some way, though Kelly had no idea what exactly was being left behind, what gained anew. The light from the single hanging lamp made odd shadows as Marija moved round and back again. Jeri had changed from a beautiful woman to a handsome woman. She looked more resolute, the angles and planes of her face stronger now, more pronounced.

"You are ready now, Estellija."  Marija stepped back.

What do you think?" Jeri asked.  Alenka had handed her a mirror.

"Oh, Auntie Stella. You are elegant. But I think you could shave your head and still be beautiful. Isn't it so, Stepan?"

Stepan muttered something, his age suddenly revealed in his boyish awkwardness. Only the low lighting protected him from being seen to blush.

Jeri and Alenka both looked expectantly toward Kelly. She wasn't sure of her voice. Jeri appeared ready to dismiss the cutting of her hair as meaningless and yet there was something very vulnerable in her eyes, something straining not to show.

"I think you are more Estellija now."  Jeri's eyes narrowed slightly and she caught her lower lip between her teeth.  "You're just as always of course, and Alenka is right, you'd look great if you were bald."  Kelly laughed deliberately to break the oddness of the moment, and she reached out to run her hand over Jeri's head.  "Nice. Really nice."

But she was thinking how Estellija must mean star in some language or other.  She felt as if Jeri had stepped across to another dimension. For an instant Kelly was back on a broken wall of rock in Tibet and time was shifting in front of her like a slideshow.

Kelly wasn't sure why she and Jeri had decided to keep the names of Stella and Laura; reluctance to admit they had hidden their identity from the very beginning, a sense that these names might be important later -- several motives merged together. They had made no great effort to keep up the camouflage, and more than once they had used "Jeri" and "Kelly" in front of Alenka, but Alenka seemed to prefer aunties Stella and Laura, as if those names made them belong to her.

Later, Jeri and Kelly made love with particular fervor-- fervor and caution considering the basement room arrangements. The shelling continued like a thunderstorm from hell, but the house above remained free from a direct hit.  Weary as they were from the long day, both women were reluctant to sleep, to lose their awareness of each other.

"Kelly, if --"

"Don't.  Don't say it.  You're coming back, that's the end of it."

"But --"

"No! Say you'll be back."

For a few seconds Jeri resisted, and then Kelly felt the tenseness leave Jeri and heard her say, "I'll be back, baby. I will."

Kelly was as relieved as if some arrangement had been made with fate. She took Jeri's head in her hands, meaning to kiss her but then she was distracted by the novel feel of the short hair.  "I like how it feels," she said.

"Stop that, you make me feel like Srijeda."

"You do feel like a puppy."

"I haven't had short hair, I haven't cut it, since I got out of prison."

Kelly grew still.  "Tell me."

"I've been wanting to tell you about Arkadia O'Malley."

Jeri was too angry at first to pay attention to any of the other women in the prison. Angry, and grieving the death of her cousin. Over and over, endlessly, the events at the roadblock played through her mind. They'd be driving happily, she and Fiona and Devlin. Then they'd be stopped at the roadblock and she couldn't keep herself from mouthing off to the soldiers.  She wasn't Northern Irish, she was American, and she didn't take crap from anyone, certainly not a bunch of nervous kids even if they did have rifles.  Then they found the explosive hidden in the door and all the pissed off rage Jeri was feeling turned instantly against her cousin, turned on the knowledge that Fiona and Devlin had used her. That was when Fiona reached toward Jeri, meant to make some gesture of -- who knew, because as she moved one of the soldiers shot her and when Devlin moved toward Fiona, he got shot, too.  It always ended that way, with Fiona and Devlin dead.

The woman sitting next to her on the prison bench somehow slid into Jeri's thoughts, was pulling them out as quietly as a countrywoman would roll a ball of yarn. It was as if Jeri's own mind was asking the questions, breaking apart the total horror into its component and contradictory parts.

"So you got your cousin killed."

"Yeah, me and my fucking temper. I should have protected them."

"The soldiers had nothing to do with it?"

"I should have kept my mouth shut. I know you don't fuck with the cops."

"Then why did you?"

"I was so happy just a few minutes before. I didn't understand everything had changed, that we weren't tourists. I was showing off, too. The butch American cousin."

Time passed. Jeri began to be aware of the place around her, the prison, the other inmates. She realized that the pale-haired woman with the hawk's gaze wasn't part of the group of political women who kept reaching out, offering companionship, direction. The politicals didn't push Jeri, they just recognized something in her and waited to see if it could be nurtured into growth. They seemed quite surprised that Arkadia O'Malley also took time with Jeri.  O'Malley had always kept to herself and no one seemed to know her story although there were, of course, rumors. She had been a nun and killed a bishop, she was an aging Nazi spy, she was the mother of ten and had murdered all her children, she was an aging Russian spy, she was the president of a college and had killed her lover when he took up with a student, she was part Chinese and had been caught spying.

"Nobody knows anything about you," Jeri said.  "They think I can find out."

"Do they? What do you think?"

"I think you're a librarian who decided the easiest way to get down to serious reading was to check in here."

"You're angry because I won't be your lover. But I do love you, Geraldine, and in a way that you need very much."

Jeri was aware of the contradictions in her days. She took to the political women, let their cause -- Fiona's cause -- become her cause. She was drawn to their passion, their discipline. But she couldn't leave Arkadia O'Malley either, and the vision of spirit that she had to share.

"You don't care that I learn from the Provos?"

"I'm not trying to take away your choices, Geraldine. But I do hope that you'll be able to make them from solid ground.  If you let that great heart of yours serve you, if you find a place to use your courage and keep your fine integrity, too, I'll have nothing to say against it. But I want you to have a free mind partnering that heart."

Years later, in a basement in Croatia while mortars exploded both far and near, Jeri recalled the very intonation of those words.

"I never cut my hair after they let me loose from prison," she said to Kelly.  "It had something to do with remembering her. I lost her path but I kept my hair so I could find my way back. Something like that. I hardly thought of it until tonight. It doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Sure it does. What a wonderful name. Arkadia O'Malley. I wish I could have met her."

It was still dark when Stepan came to take Jeri to the war.

 Continued in part IX