Page 8 of Spread Your Wings

CHAPTER THREE

The next morning, Sammy had showered, dressed, and was working on his second cup of coffee when Howard and Tima joined him in the atrium.

Tima, their Bosnian translator, wore a purple head-scarf over a tighter white scarf.

Maybe it was a headband? Sammy couldn’t tell.

She wasn’t the first woman Sammy had seen with the unfamiliar head-covering.

She was the first to answer his questions.

Yes, she was Muslim. No, she did not have to wear the head covering, but she did it to express her freedom.

“Too long Yugoslavia and the Soviets said no hijabs. Fuck them.”

“Fuck them,” Sammy said, raising his cup of coffee.

Howard glanced around the atrium at the armed guards. They were especially thick around a table in the middle, under the mezzanine. “Keep your voices down. Too many people here speak English.”

“What do I care? Fuck them all.” Tima winked and took another sip of her coffee.

Howard pointed to a corner not yet occupied by cameras. “We should set up. The votes will come in all day.” The people of the former Yugoslavian territory were taking the first step toward democracy—voting to become an independent nation.

As they worked, large groups of people shifted around the atrium. Sammy saw a couple of people wearing distinctive clothing—an orange vest, a pink ski parka—several times. Others blended in or wandered the atrium once and disappeared. One element remained: the armed guards were never far away.

Tima interviewed anyone who walked close enough to the camera. Sammy wrote her translations into his notebook.

“No Serbs,” Tima said as Howard took down the tripod around ten in the evening, once the crowd had dissipated. “I interviewed Croats, and Bosniaks, but no Serbs. The boycott was real.”

“Is it possible they went elsewhere?” Sammy asked.

Tima shook her head. “I expected them to boycott in the rural areas, but here in Sarajevo, this is a political standoff.”

Later that night, Sammy typed his notes into the computer and faxed a printed copy to Atlanta. They had a group email, but it wasn’t always reliable.

He stayed awake until three in the morning.

He attacked the keyboard with a flurry of words, but backspaced almost as often as he hit the other keys.

The white characters on the screen swam against the blue background.

He could barely keep his eyes open, despite the caffeine.

When he’d written everything he could without the exact results, he stood and paced the room to stay awake.

“The final votes are in,” Tima said, handing him a fax. “Sixty-three percent turnout, ninety-nine percent voted for independence. We are now the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

“Congratulations.”

Tima shook her head. “Sixty-three percent. Not good news. Too many people stayed home, and there are reports of voter suppression.” She cleared her throat. “Mumu was looking for you earlier.”

“Yeah?” Sammy was too tired to find the sexy Bosnian. He needed his bed and hours of uninterrupted sleep. Even so, he perked up when he heard the nickname.

“He didn’t look too good. Vasily took him to the hospital.”

Sammy tried to focus on Tima’s face, to see if she was telling the truth. Her features swam inside the circle of purple. He still couldn’t tell. “Is he sick?”

“Injured would be a better word.”

“Injured? What hospital?” Sammy took a step toward the door and tripped. Tima caught him and pushed him back into his chair.

“You won’t do him any good right now, anyway,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Get some rest. If he is still in hospital tomorrow, I will take you to see him.”

“Thanks,” Sammy said, rubbing his eyes so he could focus on the screen once more. He typed the last paragraph to summarize his report, printed a final copy, and faxed it to Atlanta. Then he went to bed. Despite his exhaustion, he tossed and turned, worrying about Mustafa.

He woke around noon, still groggy and listless. He showered, shaved his three-day scruff, and downed two more cups of coffee. Then he headed to the office to find Tima and Howard. They stood at the fax machine, watching as each new line printed news from home.

“Nice job,” Tima said, handing him another fax from CNN Headquarters.

Sammy studied it.

“The referendum is just the beginning of the story. We will keep the team in Sarajevo for the full three months. If, on May fifteenth, the country has stabilized, we will bring you home.” May fifteenth marked the end of Sammy’s stay in Sarajevo, regardless, but Howard and Tima both grinned as he read aloud.

“Job security,” Howard said. “And another day off.”

Sammy always felt strange working on Sundays, anyway.

“I can drive you to the hospital,” Tima said. “Mumu is still there.”

“Let me grab my coat,” he said before Howard asked any uncomfortable questions.

The hospital smelled like every other hospital Sammy had ever entered. The scent of coffee near the entrance quickly gave way to antiseptics. The hallways gleamed. The bright yellow walls gave the place a false sense of cheer.

The patient rooms were two-toned, coffee brown on the bottom and cream on top. The privacy curtain matched the coffee brown color. It took Sammy a moment to recognize the scene on the curtain. Roots sank into brown earth on the bottom half, while vines sprouted and bloomed over the top half.

In the bed, Mustafa looked like death warmed over.

The white gown and sheets contrasted the deep purple bruises on his face, chest, and arms. Bandages covered the top of his head, some of them tinged with blood.

Uncle Vasily hovered over him with a Styrofoam cup.

Vasily maneuvered the straw to a place where it wouldn’t rub against Mustafa’s cut lips while he drank.

“What happened?”

“Serbian assholes,” Tima said, her eyes flashing with anger.

“It is nothing,” Mustafa said as he reclined against the pillows, breathing hard from the effort to take a drink. “At least, I am still here.”

“They will start shooting next,” Vasily said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Let them shoot. I would rather be dead.”

“Don’t say that,” Tima said.

“Does it hurt?” Sammy asked.

“My pride is wounded more,” Mustafa said. “They caught me on my way home from the restaurant. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“They hurt you this badly, and you tried to go to work the next evening?” Tima clucked at him with her tongue. “Mumu…”

“Careless boy,” Vasily said, cupping his cheek. “We must get you out of here.”

Mustafa sank further into the pillow and closed his eyes. “I will be fine.”

“This time, a concussion. Next time, the morgue,” Vasily said. “I know these men. They will stop at nothing.”

“So do something about it,” Mustafa huffed. “Stop talking and do something.”

“What would you have me do? They start with us because no one much cares if we die. We have been dying from AIDS for ten years, and no one has cared.”

“I care,” Tima said, grabbing Mustafa’s hand. They locked gazes, and Sammy noticed the family resemblance. Cousins, he guessed. “Bosniaks will care.”

“The Croats will not,” Vasily said. Then, he began speaking in Bosnian, and Tima translated for Sammy. “Once they are done with us, they will come for the rest of the Bosniaks. It will be too late for anyone, even the United Nations, to stop it.”

“How can I help?” Sammy asked. “I can talk to the hotel, make sure it’s safe?—”

“Nothing you do will make it safe,” Vasily said.

“I can take you with me to London,” Sammy said, the plan forming in his head. “Instead of returning, we can book you a flight to Atlanta.”

“I would need a student visa or green card,” Mustafa said, shaking his head. “The consulate cannot give either of those things. Our independence would need to be recognized by the United States.”

“Yes.” Vasily nodded. “I like this plan.”

“How could you like this plan?” Mustafa asked. “It’s crazy!”

“Take the American back to the hotel. We have much to discuss.” Vasily turned to Sammy. “When do you leave for London?”

“April nineteenth.”

Tima bent down and kissed Mustafa’s cheek. “Call me when you get home.”

“I will be back at work tomorrow, I promise.”

She glared at him but said nothing as she bowed out, making room for Sammy.

Sammy didn’t know what to do, so he stepped in and took Mustafa’s hand, intending to shake it. The bruises changed his mind, and he clasped his other hand to Mustafa’s, as well. “Glad you’re okay.” He gently placed Mustafa’s mottled arm back on the bed and let go of his hand.

“Thank you for coming to see me. I will be back on my feet tomorrow, I promise.” He laughed, then winced. “Well, maybe on my ass at the front desk.”

“I will see you then.”

Tima was silent on the drive back to the hotel.

She pulled up to the front entrance of the hotel instead of parking in the lot.

“Mustafa is the baby of the family, the favorite cousin. His parents abandoned him for, you know,” she sighed.

“My mother taught us we are all one in the eyes of Allah, all deserving of love. I have to tell my mother he’s all right.

” Her lip quivered. “He will be all right, yes? You will get him out of here?”

“I’ll do what I can,” Sammy said as he got out of the car.

“That is all any of us can do.”

With a wave and a squawk of tires, Tima sped away from the hotel.

Sammy returned the wave and wished he had family who gave a shit about him back home.

Sure, his mom loved him, but she hadn’t been there when he’d needed her most. Like the time he’d been in the hospital with a high fever at Yale.

She hadn’t bothered to leave her job, even when they thought it might be meningitis.

“Oh, honey, I knew you’d be fine,” she’d said when he’d returned to the dorms and called her.

He’d been scared, and alone, and she’d known he’d be fine.

He’d made it through, but life was still scary.

Seeing Mustafa in a hospital bed for no better reason than for being gay shook the very foundation of Sammy’s identity.

He understood why some men stayed in the closet.

Sammy had been out at school, and at work, but he’d never come out to his mom.

He tried to tell himself she wouldn’t care, anyway, but he worried she would hate him.

Somehow, that would be worse than the apathy she’d shown him all his life.

To complete his day off, Sammy finished reading The Wastelands.

He ate dinner with Howard and Tol in the hotel restaurant.

Then, he headed back to his room to write an obligatory letter to his mother.

She also had email at her accounting firm.

She wouldn’t read anything personal at work, and then she’d forget to print it out to take home.

At least, she could blame the post office if she missed a letter.

He was lying in bed, listening to News of the World on his Walkman when he heard a knock at the door, and shouts from the hallway. He tossed his headphones and ran to the door. Tima and Howard looked cross and distorted through the peephole.

“It’s war,” Howard said when he opened the door.

Tima filled him in on the details as they rushed to the third-floor newsroom.

The Serbian leaders, Milosevic and Karadzic, had refused to accept the referendum’s vote.

They had mobilized forces around the city.

Worse, a Bosniak gangster had opened fire at an Orthodox wedding, killing the bride’s father.

The Serbs had taken the gun violence as a sign they would not be safe under Bosniak and Croatian rule.

“They intend to take Sarajevo and force a new Serbian government,” Howard continued.

“Is that possible?” In Sammy’s mind, sixty-three percent was still a majority.

“They would need to convince the Croats to vote with them or push all Bosniaks out.” Tima shook her head. “There’s talk of ethnic cleansing, going house to house, pushing the Bosniaks out.”

“Ethnic cleansing? Like the Holocaust?”

Tima’s eyes filled with tears, and her bottom lip quivered. “It may mean that, yes.”

“I’m so sorry, Tima,” Sammy said, wishing he could take the words back. “Is your family safe? Is everyone all right?”

“Mustafa is out of hospital, but he shouldn’t work for a few days, with the concussion. Vasily said he heard gunfire from the hills on his way home from the airport. If they attack the city, none of us are safe. They stockpiled Russian weapons after the fall of Yugoslavia.”

Tima walked away, a hand over her face as she passed Tol on his way into the office.

“Way to go, Connelly,” Howard said. “You certainly have a way with women.”

“I didn’t know,” Sammy said. “How could they think ethnic cleansing is an option after the Nuremberg trials?”

“Even the United States has done some terrible shit in the name of war. Don’t forget Vietnam.” Howard scowled like he’d been there, but he looked at least a decade too young.

“War?” Tol asked. “Fill me in.”

By the time Tima returned, Howard and Sammy had brought Tol up to speed.

Tima sat down at the radio and switched to a local talk radio station.

They were playing Depeche Mode. “Overnight, it’s music.

The talk shows start at six tomorrow morning.

They will have Serb propaganda. I’ll interpret, and you share with the world. ”

“Deal,” Tol said. “For now, the three of you need to get some sleep.”

Tol called the front desk to arrange a room for Tima, who usually stayed with her family on the north side of town.

Sammy wanted to stay, to make sure she would be all right, but Tol dismissed him with a wave.

He returned to his room with a fresh fear for his new friends.

He hoped the war ended before it even began.