She pulled the shirt from the bottom of her bureau drawer as if she’d known I’d ask for it.
“Maybe you shouldn’t put it on, though,” she said, handing it to me. I nodded and tucked it into the plastic bag with Damir’s sweatshirt. By this time the shirt had been washed by several hands, but the stains remained.
Petar was fit from his stint in the army, his hair growing in from his crew cut, his arm strapped in a thick plastic brace, which I assumed was the reason he was back early. He bent to one knee to hug me, then seemed to find it difficult to stop, because he scooped me up with his good arm and held me that way until we got out to the car.
Luka’s mother stood in the doorway, arms crossed against the cold.
“Thank you,” Petar said to her.
“Thanks,” I said.
Petar set me down in the backseat next to a small pile of my clothes, schoolbooks, and the spare keys to my flat. My bike, he said, was in the trunk, and I’d be able to ride to school from his house. He’d had to cut my bike lock but had bought a new one, the combination kind, and fiddled with it for a few moments, rolling the number columns beneath his thick thumbs before handing it over to me.
“Do you know how to do this?”
“Not really,” I said.
He looked away. “Me neither.”
Marina was sitting on the curb outside their building, waiting for us. She motioned me to her, and when we hugged I felt her tears on my neck.
“Don’t cry,” I said, which made her cry harder.
“Let’s get you inside,” Petar said. He handed Marina my clothes and carried me into the house.
4
At Petar and Marina’s grief filled the flat, as present as a fourth person in the room. Every night for a week Petar spoke to me softly, asking what had happened, but it still felt strange to talk, and finally he got so frustrated that he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook. It wasn’t painful, but it was hard enough to scare me, and afterward he backed away apologizing and cradling his bad arm.
“I’m sorry. I just need to know. I can’t not know.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Petar and Marina were mourning the loss of their best friends, that they felt the same pain I did, and the realization gave me a little courage. I told him about the MediMission office and the roadblock, and how I’d stayed in the valley village. I said nothing of the Safe House, but Petar had his answer and didn’t press me to account for the missing time.
I returned to school and spoke to no one except Luka. He was always serious with me; with only the occasional slip he succeeded in hiding any evidence of joy in the world that had continued on without me. Still, Petar had told my teachers what had happened, and my classmates overheard things in the hallways. Everyone knew. I had my own uncontested turn on the generator bike.
It snowed. But the excitement that normally filled the city in a storm was dulled by air raid smoke and a new set of ration restrictions. Winter had always been my favorite time of year; I loved walking in the Trg drinking mulled wine, eating kielbasa, and talking to the tent vendors selling wood carvings of boats and crucifixes. I loved New Year’s Eve, when people threw Roman candles in the square and shouted songs while I sat on my father’s shoulders. But the holidays had passed unnoticed in the village, and if Zagreb had mustered a celebration that year, any evidence was cleared away by the time I returned. I recall nothing about those January days except the strain of an Epiphany hymn, eerie and minor, repeating on an organ from another time.
—
Petar and Marina took up fighting like a hobby. I’d never seen them this way before, so quick to accuse and attack one another. Petar had stopped going to Mass and Marina went to Mass more. Petar spent hours smoking and on the phone in furtive exchanges, and Marina channeled all her nervous energy into cleaning, scouring specifically, with a focus on tile grout. She’d urge Petar to do something productive, and he’d point to the receiver and turn away, covering his phoneless ear to block her out.
Petar began interrogating me on the finer points of MediMission. I didn’t know much, except that Rahela was at a hospital in Philadelphia especially for children, and that the family taking care of her had been assigned through the program. My parents had never spoken to them, and I didn’t know their names.
“I don’t know anything else,” I said, weary of the conversations.
“Just keep thinking about it. Maybe you’ll remember something that helps.”
“Helps what?”
At night they were sad, which was much worse than the fighting. Marina’s speech was soft and indecipherable, but Petar’s raspy voice traveled easily through our shared wall.