I didn’t know what else to do, so I stepped over him and crept through the wheat, searching for a way back to the house.
In the kitchen I called out to Drenka, but my vocal cords groaned with the vibrations of disuse. She turned and looked me over, trying to gauge whether I’d actually spoken. I saw her eyes catch on something and realized I was covered in blood, a little from my wrists, but mostly from the blowback of the soldier. I coughed and tried again to speak; my voice came stronger this time. “Damir’s hurt.”
She jumped from her chair. “Where is he?”
“The JNA. They got him.” My throat burned. “Safe Housers are bringing him here. They said to get ready.”
“Get ready? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Drenka instructed me to undress. I put on her nightgown as she wrung the blood from my clothes in a bucket on the kitchen floor.
—
Damir had been shot in the thigh, and the bullet was still inside him. It took two Safe Housers to carry him because they were trying to keep his leg straight. When they first put him on his bed, I still couldn’t tell if he was alive. But when Drenka cut his pant leg off and poured alcohol on the wound, he jerked awake and began to yell.
“Thank God,” I said. Bruce Willis stared at me, then tried to play off his surprise at my speaking.
The Bruces sat with us for a few hours, assuring Drenka that Damir was going to be fine. The captain was already radioing the neighboring villages to call for the doctor, they said. I thought of the soldier I had shot, wondered if he had been rescued or if he was still out in the field, bleeding to death.
Damir moaned and sweated in his sleep. Drenka and I stayed up all night staring at him and waiting for the doctor to come. He mumbled incessantly about his grandfather and watermelon, while Drenka cradled his head and poured swallows of rakija in his mouth.
“Listen,” she said to me the next morning as I slung my gun over my shoulder and double-knotted my shoelaces. “If you tell me where you’re from I can help you get back. There must be someone waiting for you.” I eyed her from across the table until she resumed her pacing. I thought about what it would be like if the doctor had to cut off Damir’s leg in front of us, right in his own bed. I thought of Luka knocking on the door of our flat, of his impatience and worry at the silence on the other side. The red shine of his bicycle streaked across my vision. I thought about the man I had shot, but I was not quite sorry. I went to the Safe House.
There was no one guarding the door. Inside, the house was trashed. The posters had been torn from the wall; their taped corners clung obstinately to the cement. It looked like Gotovina’s Chair had been set on fire. I ran upstairs, where I found the captain warbling a distress signal into the CB. Besides the Bruces and one of the Turtles, the place was empty.
“Stallone?” I managed, my voice still clumsy. The captain looked startled but quickly regained composure.
“A lot of people are okay. They’re at home, healing up for a day or two.”
“Stallone?” I said again, taking note of the captain’s evasion.
“Stallone is missing,” he said. “His brother is out looking.” I stood there frozen, the strength I’d gained over the past months gone all at once, as if it had drained out my feet. “Don’t worry about that now. Tell me about Damir.”
I told him Damir’s leg was swollen and oozing something yellow. “He needs help,” I said. “He’s dreaming of his dead grandfather.”
“Indy. You must go home and take care of Drenka now. The doctor will be there soon.” I stood there, immobile, which the captain mistook for protest. “That’s an order,” he said, so I gathered myself and went.
—
In Damir’s room the curtains were drawn, and he stirred as I sat on the edge of his bed, jamming and releasing the lever that detached the forward grip of my gun.
“Almost as good as a boy,” Damir said, surfacing momentarily from the fog of fever and brandy. From him this was a compliment. But his leg was twice the size it should have been, and there was pus. I left the gun leaning against the bookshelf and returned to my corner of the kitchen floor.
I thought of telling Drenka the whole story of where I’d come from and what had happened, but she was ripping bedding for bandages and worrying. Just as I was beginning to think I’d worked up the courage to open my mouth, a pallid face appeared above me in the kitchen window. I jumped to my feet and let out a yelp.
“Psst. Indy. Open up!” the face whispered through the glass. I looked again, the magnified eyes now familiar. I unbolted the door.
“How’s he doing?” the captain asked.
“He’s alive,” I said.
“Oh good, Josip, you’re here,” said Drenka from down the hall. It was the first time I’d heard anyone call the captain by another name. But her face dropped when she came round the corner. “Where’s Dr. Ho?i??”
The captain lowered his eyes. “We, uh, can’t find him.”