When Elephants Fight (11 page)

Nadja heard her mother moving around in the kitchen. Maybe it was time to get up. She knew her mother must be fixing breakfast, because she could hear her banging around. It might have just been her imagination, but Nadja thought that the less food that was available, the more noise her mother made when she was preparing it. She was making so much noise this morning that there wasn't much hope for what was being prepared.

Not that Nadja would complain. She didn't complain because she knew her parents did the best they could. As the siege continued, the food supply became less and less,
not just the amount of food but the type of food. Nadja would have loved to have had some fruit...a banana or an orange would have been like a little piece of heaven.

While the lack of food had been difficult for everybody in the family, Nadja felt it was hardest on her eighteen-year-old brother, Sanel. It seemed like he was always hungry. Sometimes Nadja would try to get extra food just to give it to him. That was just like Nadja.

Nadja closed her eyes and thought about the sort of things they used to have for breakfast. She had a wonderful imagination, and she could picture them in her mind so clearly that she could almost smell the meal cooking, the aroma wafting through the air, and taste those tender...She opened her eyes again. There was no point in dreaming or imagining. Not when there were things to be done.

Nadja rolled off the mattress, stood up and stretched. She needed to get dressed and get ready for school... or at least what passed as school. She opened the door to her bedroom and cold air rushed in. It was like stepping outside. Most of the windows were gone, replaced by sheets of plastic. It served to keep out the rain and snow but couldn't keep out the cold. They didn't even bother to try to heat the room, and the walls were patterned with mould and mildew.

She opened the closet and removed the clothes she would wear that day. They were old and cold, but clean. At times there was water, but most often they had to carry it up the stairs— fourteen floors. And even then the electricity was off and washing had to be done by hand. Somehow despite these difficulties her mother always tried to make sure that they had clean clothes—just her way of trying to create a little pocket of normal in a world that was far from normal.

Nadja retreated to the bathroom to change. The little room was dark— there were no windows—and the little candle wasn't lit. She left the door partway open to allow in a little more light.

This little bathroom was also the room that the family would retreat to if there was artillery or gunfire. It was in the center of the apartment and, with no windows, offered the most protection. It wasn't safe— just safer.

In the corner was a large container of water. It had already been used for cooking and cleaning. Now, after it was used and reused for other things, it was eventually used to pour in the toilet to flush it.

Sometimes Nadja brought the water up to the apartment. One day she made seven trips up the two hundred and fifty-two stairs, each time carrying a ten-liter container.
It was so much easier when water just flowed up through the pipes.

Nadja gave both her mother and her father a kiss on the cheek and then a hug. It felt good to be wrapped up in her father's arms—warm and safe...at least as safe as she could feel anywhere. She thought back to a time when she believed that her father could protect her from anything. Now she knew better. Her parents tried to act brave, to pretend that they were safe, but Nadja knew better. She felt that the war had turned everyone into frightened children. Nobody could guarantee safety. It was safe for nobody, nowhere in Sarajevo.

Nadja sat down for breakfast. Once again her mother had been as much a magician as a chef. She had taken nothing and made it into something. Not like the old meals, but at least there was food on the table. She almost felt guilty for wanting more, for dreaming about it. This was enough and more than many people had.

Whatever food that entered the city had to come at a high price, either airlifted in by the United Nations or driven in by trucks while snipers shot at them, trying to kill the drivers.

Nadja didn't know the people in the hills and mountains that surrounded her city, but she knew what they were doing. They were trying to kill everybody who lived in Sarajevo.
They were doing it by firing bullets and by raining down tank and cannon shells onto the city.

Population:
4,500,000
Location:
Latitude: 43° N, Longitude:
18° E, southeastern Europe
Area:
51,000 square kilometers
Climate:
moderate with hot summers and cold winters
Languages:
Bosnian, Croatian,
Serbian
Ethnicity:
Bosniak 48%
Serbian 37%
Croatian 14%
Other 1%
Religion:
Muslim 40%
Orthodox Christian 31%
Roman Catholic 15%
Protestant 4%
Other/Non 10%
Life Expectancy:
78 years
Infant Mortality Rate:
10 deaths per
1,000 live births
Per Capita Income:
$5,600
Literacy Rate:
97% (male 99% -
female 94%)

Sometimes there were just a few shells—she could hear them whizzing overhead and then the explosions as they hit. Other times there were dozens and dozens of explosions, so fast and furious that there was hardly a break between the explosions. And then when things got quiet again, she could go outside and see the damage, the destroyed buildings. Some of those destroyed buildings were schools and churches. Others were water or power plants. That was why there were times with no electricity or water. Nadja had started to realize how you took things like that for granted until you didn't have them anymore. There was no electricity for cooking or to run the vacuum cleaner or washing machine or tv. And the water had to be carried up all those stairs because there wasn't electricity for the elevators.

Over the past six months Nadja had come to realize all these things. What she really didn't understand was
why
this was all happening. Why would people want to kill somebody they'd never even met? She wanted to know if those people in the mountains were happy when they were shooting and killing people.

And they did kill people. Everyday. Sometimes it was a sniper's bullet killing somebody as he walked down the street. Other times it was an explosion and dozens of people were killed or injured in just an instant. One minute a person would be standing in line waiting for bread, or gathering cherries or firewood, and the next moment she was lying dead in the street.

“Are you going to work today?” Nadja asked her mother.

“It's a work day, so I'm going to work.”

Nadja knew what the answer was going to be before she even asked the question, but still she had to ask. Her mother was a business manager at the National Bank. Every workday she went down to the center of the city to work. Some days she could get a ride at least partway there. Most days she walked almost all of the twenty kilometers to and from the bank. And every day Nadja worried until she returned home.

“I'll be fine,” she said.

“Did you listen for the reports?” her father asked.

Her mother nodded. The radio was their lifeline. A little transistor, powered by batteries, gave reports. In the old days—the days before the war—the radio might say where there had been a traffic accident or if the trolley was running on time or if there was snow coming. Now they gave updates on where the sniper activity
was the worst. The radio reported which streets should be avoided, where the most shooting was taking place. Of course there were some streets that should always be avoided. The main street was called “Sniper Alley,” and it was always crossed in a rush or hiding behind a vehicle for protection.

“I know which streets are safe,” her mother said.

“Not safe,” Nadja said. “Just
safer
.”

“I'll be fine. Are you going to school today?” Nadja's mother asked.

“I wish I
could
go to school.”

“I mean in the basement.”

“If that's what you call it, then yes, I'll be going to school.”

It wasn't safe for students to go to their regular school. Instead all of the children in the apartment building met in the basement to take lessons. Since they couldn't go to school, the school came to them.

Nadja liked school and she liked being able to be with friends, but she didn't like the basement. It was dark and cold and moldy. This was also the same place where everybody in the building went when the shelling got too bad: two hundred and seventy people all crowded together in three small underground rooms.

And if the shelling didn't stop, they all slept down there, lying on blankets, crammed together in that little space, all pretending that they were sleeping, but really, hardly anybody did sleep. When they went down there at night, Nadja packed a bag with some crackers, playing cards and, of course, her teddy bear.

SARAJEVO

Population:
529,000
Location:
Latitude: 44 ° N, Longitude: 18° E
Founded:
1263 AD but existed as a
settlement since prehistoric times
Climate:
moderate with hot summers
and cold winters
Setting:
Surrounded by the Dinaric Alps:
the Miljacka River dissects the city.
Architecture:
Old buildings, churches, mosques on steep narrow streets.

It was home to museums, art galleries,
theaters, libraries and film festivals.
Its residents included poets, painters,
performers and Nobel Prize winners.
It was referred to as the “Jerusalem
of Europe” and people of Muslim,
Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish faith all
peacefully co-existed.

When the bombs hit close by, she could feel them, see the ceiling shaking, and she couldn't help but think about what would happen if one of those shells hit their building. The basement was the safest part of
the building, but it couldn't protect them from a direct hit.

Nadja in the ruins of the National Library, Sarajevo, summer 1996
.

“Maybe you could bring down your guitar today,” Nadja's mother suggested.

Nadja loved to play her guitar and sing. Before the war she was part of the famed children's choir, Palcici. This choir was just one example of the culture that was an integral part of Sarajevo.

And as much as Nadja loved to sing and play and perform, she was also a writer. She wrote poetry and kept a journal. These activities were as necessary for her as was food. Creativity was, by nature, part of Nadja's soul. But during the war, they also became an outlet, a way for her to express her feelings, her fears, and to try to understand why these terrible things were happening. While she didn't necessarily have answers, she had questions and thoughts:

“I think you really only appreciate something when you lose it.”

“Are those people in the mountains happy when they shoot and kill?”

“How can they do this and then look in the eyes of their own children?”

“For how long will my life consist of the dead space between two explosions?”

“I don't know how many more days will be scratched out of my life calendar.”

For months now the children in the building had barely gone outside. They had school in the basement and played in the halls. They tried to never play too much on one floor—they didn't want to bother the tenants. What they wanted was to go outside and play... not to go too far or for too long... just to go outside—to ride a bike or go for an ice cream or play a game of tag. But everybody knew the dangers, so while they did sometimes go outside, most of the time they stayed inside.

The radio and the newspapers carried stories and pictures. Every day there were people killed—waiting in line for bread, trying to get to work or
gathering firewood. And Nadja heard the reports, read the papers, saw the pictures in the obituaries. Men and women and children, some older and some younger than her—all dead.