Chapter Text
The wind carried the smell of smoke. Now always only smoke. Lara had learned to distinguish its shades over these three years. The acrid fumes of burning straw – another village being wiped off the face of the earth; the sweetish smell of smoldering wood – they'd burned a church, and when a heavy, oily smoke hung in the air...it was better not to think about its source at all.
Today it smelled of straw.
Lara pressed her back against the cold stone wall of the cellar, listening to the floorboards creak overhead. Footsteps. Many footsteps. Rough male voices shouting orders in a language she didn't know, but had already managed to remember that some words could mean. The girl clamped her hand over her mouth, holding her breath, counting the beats of her own heart. One. Two. Three. Twenty. Fifty...
The sound grew quieter, the weight of heavy soldier's boots no longer pressed down on the space above the cellar, the footsteps moved away. She exhaled, but didn't unclench her fingers, it was still too early, they could come back. They could always come back. In the dim light of the single candle she'd allowed herself to light only after complete darkness fell, Lara could see the faces of the other eight people in this cellar. Eight more souls clinging to life in a space where one could barely stand at full height. Elderly Kata, who remembered times when peace reigned, sat in the corner, fingering her rosary beads. Her lips moved soundlessly, forming prayers she no longer said for God, there was no room for him here, but for herself, like an incantation that somehow helped preserve her sanity. Next to her sat two children, brother and sister, whose parents had burned in their own home two weeks ago. The boy, Stipe, still sometimes called for his mother at night, until his sister Ana, just as small and frightened, clamped her hand over his mouth. By the opposite wall sat Ivan, a middle-aged man with a face carved with wrinkles of exhaustion and grief. He'd lost his family in the first days, when what would later be called cleansing, genocide, war began – many words, but the essence was the same. His wife and two daughters had been taken away by soldiers. Ivan had seen them for the last time through the window of his own home, where they'd locked him so he wouldn't interfere. He'd heard the screams, seen himself lose the most precious thing he had and couldn't do anything. After that something broke in him, and now he spoke rarely, only sat and stared at one point, as if trying to see through stone and earth to the place where his loved ones rested. Three more: young priest Father Marko, who'd thrown off his cassock and now wore simple clothing of a peasant, dirty with earth and torn somewhere, an elderly couple, Josip and Mara, holding hands even in sleep, as if afraid to lose each other in the darkness.
And Lara. Twenty years old, though she felt much older, the terrible events around obviously leaving their mark. Before the war she'd studied at the music school in the neighboring town, dreamed of university in Zagreb, read books by candlelight and believed that education was the key to a better life, a path to truly great opportunities. Now the only thing life taught her was how to remain unnoticed, how to recognize danger by sounds and smells, how to live half-starved and not go mad with fear.
The candle had melted down, wax flowing down the neck of the bottle into which it had been stuck. Lara watched the flame, remembering words from a song her grandmother used to sing when she was still a child, when the world was whole and didn't know these wounds.
"Dok pališ svijeću pitaj svoju baku, zašto je kćeri rađala u strahu"
(While you light a candle, ask your grandmother why she gave birth to daughters in fear)
Lara's grandmother had died ten years ago, never seeing this nightmare, and the girl thanked God for this mercy. But she remembered the stories the woman told, sitting by the hearth on cold winter evenings. Stories about times when their people were already on the edge of extinction, when enemies came and offered a choice: renounce your faith or die. Many renounced. Some died. And others... others found a third way.
Lara ran her fingers over the back of her palm, feeling under the thin fabric of her shirt the traces of ink, forever imprinted in the skin. A design consisting of several circles, and inside them a cross, cut once with a needle and specially made ink when she was twelve. Her mother had done the same, and her grandmother, and great-grandmother – a chain of women bearing on their bodies a sign of faith that couldn't be taken by force.
"Zašto su mnogi odabrali groblje
Nisu naše majke iznjedrile roblje"
(Why did so many choose the cemetery? Our mothers did not breed slaves)
A woman's scream rang out outside. Lara flinched, everyone in the cellar froze. The scream repeated, closer, then broke off so abruptly that the silence after it sounded louder than any noise. Stipe sobbed, Ana pressed him closer to herself. Father Marko crossed himself. Kata continued fingering her rosary beads, but her hands trembled more strongly.
Ivan got up, moved toward the narrow cellar window located almost under the very ceiling. Lara wanted to stop him, because this was too great a risk. Any movement, any sound could give them away. But she didn't have time. The man had already pulled himself up on his arms, looked outside and froze. Lara saw how his back tensed, how the knuckles of his fingers gripping the windowsill turned white.
– "What's there?" – whispered Father Marko.
Ivan didn't answer immediately. When he lowered himself back down, his face was gray.
– "The church is burning... again... another one," – he said hollowly. "And houses at the foot of the hill. I see... I see people. They're being driven to the square."
The burning church was three kilometers from here. Friends of Lara's lived there, her loved ones, dozens of familiar faces. The girl closed her eyes from horror, from despair, helplessness, but it didn't help – images still rose in her thoughts: blazing walls, collapsing beams, people running nowhere, because there was nowhere to run.
– "We have to help them," – she said with a quiet exhale, though she knew it was madness.
– "How?" – Ivan looked at her with empty eyes. "We have no weapons. There are eight of us, two of whom are children. We can't even defend ourselves."
– "But we can't just..."
– "We can't," – he interrupted. "But we have no choice. If we go out, we'll die. All of us. The children too."
Lara clenched her fists so hard that her nails dug into her palms. He was right. However painful it sounded, he was right. But it didn't make it easier. Helplessness strangled more strongly than the stale air in the cellar. The city where they were hiding now had turned into a ghost of itself. War had come here a year and a half ago, bringing with it division by faith, ethnicity, language, by any pretext that could be used to distinguish those who, in their opinion, were worthy to live from those who needed to be destroyed – wildly, bloodily, cruelly, as if they were not people, but creatures who didn't even have the right to be born. First there were just rumors, then propaganda on the radio, then the first murders, which were called "accidents." And then no one hid it anymore. Lara remembered the day when everything changed finally. It was a clear April afternoon, the sky blue and cloudless, birds singing, apricot trees blooming all around. She was returning home when she heard trucks. Military vehicles covered with tarpaulin, a whole convoy. They stopped at the main square, and soldiers poured out of them – not local, strangers, with armbands of the newly formed militia. The commander, a tall man with a scar across his entire cheek, read out a decree.
– "All citizens professing Catholicism are obliged to register at the commandant's office within three days. Those who refuse will be considered enemies and will receive punishment corresponding to their offense. Registration meant receiving a special armband – a white ribbon with a black symbol, which was supposed to be worn on the sleeve. But these measures are for your own safety, so that we can protect you."
Lara's father, a blacksmith, a man of common sense and firm principles, refused to register.
– "I'm not cattle to be branded," – he told his wife when she begged him to comply, at least for the sake of the children. A week later he was arrested. Lara saw how they took him away, he sat in the back of a truck, straight, unbroken, and looked at his family. His eyes said: "Run."
They didn't have time.
The next day they came for her mother. Lara tried with all her strength to protect her, threw herself at a soldier with a kitchen knife, but she was hit with a rifle butt on the head. When she came to, no one was home anymore. A neighbor, old Croatian woman Ivana, dragged her to her place, hid her in the attic, nursed her for three days. Then helped her get to the underground – a network of shelters and secret routes created by those who still hoped to survive. Eighteen months had passed since then. Lara had changed five shelters, seen with her own eyes the deaths of dozens of people, learned to steal food and water, sleep three hours a day, trust only those going through the same trials as she. It became quiet in the cellar again. Light from the fire consuming another church still penetrated through the window. Lara looked at this light and thought about the words from the song.
"Mnoge su suze protekle k'o rijeka
Zašto se piše povijest ispočetka"
(Many tears have flowed like a river, why is history written from the beginning?)
History simply repeated itself, as if reaching some boundary, people again forgot what had been before and began to repeat the mistakes of the past. Again and again, each generation thought that surely it would pass them by, that they were more civilized, smarter, more humane than their ancestors. And each time they turned out to be wrong. Lara remembered the books on Balkan history that she often reread. The Ottoman invasion. The Austro-Hungarian Empire. World War I. World War II. Partisans. Corpses upon corpses, blood upon blood, graves upon graves. Her people, Croatian Catholics of this region, had lived for centuries under foreign rule, changed faith or died, adapted or fled. And always, in the darkest times, women found a way to preserve their identity. Tattoos in the form of crosses, the same as the one on her hand, which were applied to girls at the age of six or seven, this was not decoration, not a religious symbol in the usual sense. This was a declaration: "I know who I am and you won't take this from me."
Lara ran her finger over her cross under her shirt. Her grandmother had made this design herself, with old needles and ink from a mixture of crushed coal, seeds, honey – an ancient recipe passed down from generation to generation. The procedure was painful, the skin on the wrist thin, sensitive. Lara cried, but didn't ask to stop. And her grandmother kept saying: "Endure, child. The pain will pass, but the cross will remain. Let them know that we are not broken."
– "Lara," – Father Marko called to her, – "we need to decide what to do next, we won't last long here. Food supplies are running out, there's water left for two days, maybe three, and they're getting closer."
The girl turned to him. The priest looked exhausted, his cheeks sunken, eyes hollow, he'd long ago exchanged his cassock for torn peasant clothing, but his voice still held the firmness of a man accustomed to bearing responsibility for his flock.
– "Any ideas?" – asked Lara, though she knew there weren't many options.
– "Josip says he heard about a group of refugees making their way to the Croatian border through the mountains. If we can reach them..."
– "That's a hundred kilometers as the crow flies," – Ivan interrupted. – "And we can't go that way. Roads are patrolled, villages occupied. We'll have to zigzag through forests, ravines. With children. With two old people. We won't make it halfway."
– "So what? Sit here until they find us?"
– "I don't know!" – Ivan raised his voice, then caught himself, looked fearfully at the window.
Everyone froze, listening. Nothing. He continued more quietly: "I just don't know. Every option is suicide."
– "Then we choose the least dangerous," – said Lara. – "And... I'd rather die on the road trying to save myself than sit in a pit waiting to be buried alive."
Kata suddenly spoke, her voice, rattling with age, sounded strangely loud:
– "My grandmother told about times when the Turks came. They also hunted us, also wanted us to renounce. You know what she told me when I was as old as you are now, Ana? She said: 'God gave you legs to run and a heart to remember. As long as you have both, you're alive. And as long as you're alive, there is hope.'"
Little Ana raised her head, her eyes, huge in her emaciated face, looking at the old woman with something like desperate faith.
– "Will we go?" – the girl whispered. – "Really go?"
Lara met Father Marko's gaze, then Ivan's, Josip's and Mara's. One by one they nodded, which meant yes, they would go. Because there was no other choice.
– "When?" – asked Josip.
– "Tonight," – Lara decided. – "They're busy looting, attention is distracted and this is our chance. Gather everything we can carry, food, water, warm clothing, we leave everything else here."
They moved, each to their bundle of belongings. Lara approached the corner where her meager baggage lay: a sack with underwear, a small piece of already stale bread, a flask of water, a knife. And a book. The only book she'd taken from home when she fled – a collection of poems. She opened it, ran her fingers over the yellowed pages. On the flyleaf in her father's hand was written: "To my clever Lara. May words always be your weapon and shield."
Words. What weapon in a world ruled by violence? What shield against bullets and fires? But she put the book in the sack, because if they made it, if they survived, someone would have to tell this story, would have to write down the names of the dead so they wouldn't be forgotten.
The candle was burning down. Lara watched the last piece of wax melt, how the flame trembled and went out. In the darkness she heard the breathing of seven other souls united by a common fate. Outside the fire continued to rage, the sky colored crimson from the flames. Somewhere people were screaming, somewhere mothers were crying, somewhere children were falling silent.
"Sinovi naši nisu podanici
Dal vas noću bude iz kolijevke krici"
(Our sons are not subjects
Don't cries from the cradle wake you at night?)
They do. Every night. And Lara knew, these cries would stay with them forever, even if they lived to old age in some distant, peaceful place. Because there are things that are impossible to forget, wounds that don't heal. She felt for the knife handle in the darkness. A small, pitiful weapon against an entire army, but it was better than nothing.
Father Marko began to pray quietly. Lara didn't know if she still believed in God after everything she'd seen, but still joined the prayer, moving her lips along with the priest, because in this moment the words of prayer were not an appeal to heaven, but an incantation, magic, a way to say: "We're still alive. We're still here. We haven't given up yet."
In a few hours they would leave the cellar into a night full of dangers. In a few hours their flight to the border would begin, to freedom that was perhaps unattainable, and each of them would come one step closer to death or to salvation. But now, in the last minutes before the dawn of the longest night of their lives, they simply sat together in the darkness and breathed. And this was already a victory, small, fragile, but a victory, because as long as they breathed, as long as their hearts beat, they were not broken.
Lara closed her eyes and thought about the stars overhead, about the constellation Andromeda, which her father had once told her about.
"This constellation has its own story," he said. "Andromeda is a girl who was chained to a rock to be fed to a sea monster, but she was saved. There is always hope for salvation, Lara. Always."
Then it was just a beautiful fairy tale. Now Lara understood – the fairy tale was a lie. Andromeda was saved not because the world is just. She was saved because she didn't give up, even chained to the rock, even looking into the monster's jaws. Resistance – that's what distinguishes a victim from one who survives. And Lara, and everyone in this cellar, and thousands of others hiding in cellars and forests throughout the country – they were all chained to their rock, but as long as they fought, as long as they refused to become easy prey, the monster hadn't won. Not now.
Outside the window the first glimmers of dawn colored the sky gray. The fire began to die down....there was already nothing left to burn. Lara stood up, exhaled heavily, preparing for the coming journey.
– "It's time," – she said.
And eight souls bearing on their bodies the scars of faith and memory moved toward the exit, toward the unknown, toward possible death, toward phantom hope. Their story was only beginning...