“Oh yes. He was shouting, ‘We are not going. You cannot make us and we are not going.’ The two soldiers who had been clearing his house fell to the ground. They yelled in Bosnian, ‘Spusti! Spusti!’”
There was another silence as the translator came to a dead end, not knowing Bosnian. Below me, Goos muttered, “Put it down.” For all his amiability, speaking Serbo-Croatian was, so far as I could tell, the only visible talent Goos brought to the job.
“Were they yelling ‘Put it down’ in Bosnian?”
“Va.”
“And did he put it down?”
“No, no. He kept waving the AK around. The soldier in charge, who had the horn, he yelled again.”
“In what language?”
“Bosnian. Then he counted, one, two, three, and fired. Boom boom boom. Boldo exploded with blood and fell like he had been chopped down. Then his son came running out of the house. The soldiers yelled again, ‘Stani!’”
“Stay back,” whispered Goos.
“The soldiers kept telling the son to stay away from the body and the gun, but of course it was his father, and when the son went forward there was gunfire from the other side. Two or three shots. He fell, too.”
“And how old was Boldo’s son?”
“Fourteen? A boy.” Again, Ferko worried his head about in mournful wonder. “Finally, Boldo’s brother ran up from his house. He was screaming and cursing. ‘How could you shoot my family? What did they do?’ He was weeping and carrying on. He fell to the ground, near the bodies. And he picked up Boldo’s AK. After the two shootings, the soldier who seemed to be in charge, the one who killed Boldo, he ran up and waved and gave orders. He pushed the soldier who had shot Boldo’s son away. And he ordered other soldiers forward to grab Boldo’s brother. They wrestled with him quite a while. The brother was screaming and he would not let go of the AK. They hit him with their rifle butts a few times, but on the last occasion, the blow hit one of the other soldiers instead of Boldo’s brother and that soldier fell. At that point, the commander ordered the soldiers back and he said to Boldo’s brother, like Boldo, that if he did not drop the AK before the count of three, he would be shot. Instead, Boldo’s brother raised the AK, and the commander shot him, too. Just once. In the side. The brother fell down and held his side and made terrible sounds.”
“Did they administer medical treatment to him?”
“No, he was there moaning the whole time.”
“And what became of Boldo’s brother?”
“He died. He was still there in a large circle of blood in the dirt when I came out of the privy later.”
“And about the words the commander yelled to his troops—did you understand them?”
“No, no. But there was much shouting. The People were screaming to get back. And take cover.”
“And after the gunfire stopped, what was the mood in the camp, if you can say?”
“Quiet. Like in church. The People went to the trucks. They didn’t yell. They didn’t want to get killed. The soldiers helped them up. As the houses were cleared, the trucks drove off. The camp was empty in perhaps twenty minutes after the last shots.”
“Now when the trucks drove off, in what direction were they going?”
“They went west, down toward the mine.”
I had a topographical map, which I doubted Ferko would understand. It depicted the valley adjacent to Barupra and the switchback gravel road that descended to where a large pit had been excavated.
“And what kind of mine was in the valley?”
“Coal, they said. It closed because of the war.”
“And what variety of coal mine was it? With shafts or open pit?”
“They dug for coal. Scraped up the earth. It was the brown coal.”
“And how far from the village was the mining area?”
“A kilometer perhaps, down the road.”
“Now, once the trucks left, did you ever hear the horn again?”
“Yes, I heard the horn again. It echoed back off the hill.”
“What was said?”
“‘Get out of the trucks. You will wait here in the Cave for the buses that will take you to Kosovo. We will go pick up your belongings now and they will follow you in the trucks.’”
“And by ‘the Cave,’ what did you understand the bullhorn to be referring to?”
“The Cave,” said Ferko.
“What cave was that?”
“The cave he was talking about.”
Beside me, Goos pinched his mouth to keep from laughing.
“Part of the mine was an area the People called the Cave?”
“Va.”
“Now, calling your attention again to the computer screen at your desk—this will be P76, Your Honors—does that photograph depict the Cave more or less as it was in April 2004?”
This was another photo that Esma had turned up, in this case from the New York Times. The picture had been snapped from a distance in January 2002. It showed dozens of people scavenging coal in the harsh winter with their bare hands, many of them stout older women in headscarves, crawling along the incline below Barupra. We had enlarged and cropped the photograph to better depict the landscape. Apparently, years before, a vein of coal had been discovered in the hillside, and heavy equipment had gouged out a deep oblong opening. That was the Cave. With its huge overhang, the site did not look especially stable, and in fact there were yellow signs in Bosnian telling people to keep out: ZABRANJEN ULAZ.
“How large was the Cave? Can you estimate its measurements?”
“Several hundred meters across.”
“And how deep into the hill did it go?”
“Fifty meters. At least.”
“Was it large enough that everyone from Barupra could stand inside the Cave?”
“More or less.”
“Now, did you hear anything further from the horn?”
“Yes. Eventually, he started repeating, ‘Step back. Crowd in. Everyone into the Cave. Everyone. No exceptions. We need to count you and take your names. We will let you out one by one to do a census. Stay put. Stay put. You will be there only a few minutes.’”
“Now when these instructions were given, where were you?”
“Once the trucks and the People were all gone, I came out of the privy. My son and I hid in what remained of one house where I could look down into the valley.”
“And could you see the Cave?”
“Not so much. I could see the headlamps of the trucks better. In that light, I saw them pushing the People back.”
“And what happened with the vehicles?”
“The trucks? After several minutes, they started to move again. I thought they were going to come back up to collect everyone’s belongings, as the horn had said. I picked up my son and was ready to run back to the privy, but I saw the lights going off in the other direction, further down to the valley floor, and then across it to the other road.”
“West?” I asked.
He simply threw his hand out to indicate the direction.
“And did you hear the horn at all after the trucks moved?”
“Yes, but it seemed fainter.”
“What was the horn saying?”
“The same. ‘Stay put. Stay put.’” This time Ferko repeated the words in Bosnian. “‘Ostanite na svojim mjestima.’”
“And what did you observe next?”
“Next?” He waited. For the first time, a tremble of emotion moved through Ferko’s long face. He grabbed the bridge of his nose before starting again. “Next, I saw flashes on the hill above the Cave and heard the explosions. Six or seven. And I could hear the hill tumbling down.” Without being asked, Ferko waved his hands over his head and imitated the sound, like a motorcycle’s rumble. “The earth and the rock rushing down were almost as loud as the explosions. It went in waves. The roar lasted a full minute.”
“Did you believe that the explosions had started a landslide?”
“Va.”
“And what did you do next?”
“What could I do? I was terrified and I had my son. I hid with him under a tarp in case the soldiers came back. Half an hour perhaps I waited. It was suddenly so still. Every now and then there was the sound of wind. Under the tarp, I could feel the dust still settling out of the sky.”
“Now after that half an hour, what did you do?”
“I told my son to remain under the plastic. Then I ran down into the valley.”
“Did you go to the Cave?”