“Bastards. I don’t know what to do.” Marina made a quiet reply, and the bedsprings squeaked. “Fucking hell,” he said, as one of them clicked off the lamp. “What do I even pray for?”
One Saturday, Marina won out and Petar agreed to go to church, “for funeral purposes only.” Besides honoring dead relatives and celebrating holidays, my family didn’t go to church much, especially once Rahela got sick. I had learned the prayers and made my First Communion like nearly everyone I knew, but emotional attachment to the church had always felt just beyond me. Religion, I’d assumed, would make more sense when I grew up.
Marina, Petar, and I went to the Zagreb Katedrala and spent an hour at the back vigil candles, kneeling and clicking rosaries until I’d burned the tips of my thumbs with the cheap matches and bruised my knees on the cold tile floor.
Afterward, we walked to the Trg, where the beginnings of a makeshift memorial were laid out. The Wall was made of red bricks, each one bearing the name of a person killed or disappeared. Already it was hundreds of bricks long. I took a loose block from the pile, scrawled both my parents’ names across it, wanting to keep them together, and added it to the row in progress. Marina had another candle, the votive kind meant to stay lit even outside, and left it there flickering in the dusk.
—
Petar began acting even stranger. He came and left unannounced and when he was home couldn’t sit still, instead paced the kitchen and ran his good hand through his hair. His nervousness reminded me of the year my father bought my mother an expensive necklace for Christmas. He’d also paced the flat for a week, so excited that he eventually broke down and gave it to her three days early. She’d loved it, and when they kissed his face had flushed with her happiness.
Petar’s face did not have this light, and I was increasingly unsettled as it became clear I was the subject of his anxiety. Finally, one night at dinner, while Petar was staring at me and clearing his throat, Marina banged her cup down and pushed her chair back from the table.
“Petar, for chrissakes just tell her already!”
“Tell me what?” I said.
“I don’t want to tell her if I don’t have all the information.”
“Tell me what!”
“We tracked down Rahela and her foster family,” Marina said. “They want to adopt her.”
“What?”
“MediMission didn’t want to tell me where she’d been placed—it’s against the rules—but I found her,” said Petar.
“She was supposed to come back when she was better. She’s my sister.”
“Well,” said Marina. “There may be other options.”
“What do you mean?”
“The foster family said they’d be willing to take you, too, provided we can make arrangements to get you there.”
“Take me?”
“Adopt you, Ana. You could go and live with them and Rahela. In America.”
I felt a rage brewing in my chest. I wanted to hit something and kicked at the bottom bar of my chair. Why were they trying to get rid of me? Dump me with some strangers on another continent?
“Why can’t we just stay here with you? Don’t you want us?”
Petar shook his head. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? To move Rahela, sick, from America back into a fucking war zone?”
“Petar!” said Marina.
I shook my head. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Marina motioned me over, and I went and sat on her lap. She stroked my hair and glared at Petar.
“I think it’s what’s best,” she said. “For Rahela, and for you.”
“I’m sorry for yelling,” Petar said, gentler now. “But I know you’re smart enough to understand. You understand, right?”
I nodded.
“It’ll take some work to get you out of here. But I think I can do it.”
—
Petar contacted MediMission, who offered a terse response that family reunification cases were not within the scope of their work, but that he could reapply on my behalf if I ever fell ill. Then he considered refugee status, but there wasn’t an American embassy in Croatia yet. The consulate in Belgrade was running a looping voice mail that apologized for the wait time and said, due to the high volume of inquiries, they were working through a backlog of applications at this time.
“Never mind that,” said Petar. “I know someone.”
The next morning Petar and I rang the buzzer of a basement apartment beneath a butcher shop in a southern part of the city where I’d never been. We waited, listening as a series of chains and dead bolts clinked on the other side of the door. It opened a sliver, enough to reveal one pale eye, then closed to allow for more unlocking.
“Security,” the man said. “You know how it is.” Finally the door opened a passable amount and Petar and I slipped inside. The flat was dank and smelled moldy. It was hard to make out at first, but as my eyes adjusted it was clear the single-room efficiency was home to more than just an overweight bachelor; the entirety of the counter space was lined with equipment ranging from typewriters and printing presses to what was, by my best guess, a blowtorch.