In the living room I ran my hand over the armrest of the couch where my father used to sit. Then I pulled my clothes from the bookshelf and shoved them into my pillowcase. From the bottom shelf I gathered a sampling of the pirated radio tapes my father and I had made. Over the piano there was a photo of the four of us, and another of me as a baby in Tiska. I took them from their adjacent places on the wall. My parents’ wedding picture was hung higher up, but I couldn’t reach it.
Petar called out and asked how I was doing and I jumped. Plunking my hand down on the bottom octave of the piano, I ran from the room, dragging the bulging pillowcase behind me. I thought about asking Petar to go back for the wedding picture, but as he turned in the doorway, the light revealed his reddened eyes, so I said nothing.
—
The night before I left, Luka appeared under my window on his bike. Petar had instructed me not to tell anyone when I was leaving or where I was going, but I had told Luka anyway, swearing him to secrecy.
“How did you—”
“I snuck out. Come down.”
“Come up.” I met him at the door, and we trod warily through the kitchen and out to the fire escape. Marina and the family in the next building had strung a clothesline across the alley, and someone’s bed linens crackled in the wind.
“Will you be safe there?”
“I think so. Rahela is safe.”
“But you know in the movies. All those cowboys and gangsters.”
“I guess all places are sort of dangerous.”
“I guess.” He put his hand on mine, then pulled it away.
“Will you write me?” I said. He said he would, and we sat for a while contemplating the Wild West and New York City and Philadelphia, where I might be able to see Rocky. When Luka’s eyelids began to flutter, I punched him in the arm and told him he could stay the night, but he had to get home before he was discovered missing. The ladder on the fire escape was broken, so he climbed back into the flat and let himself out.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered as he swung a leg over his bicycle.
“So don’t say anything. When you come back, it will be like you never left.” He stood up on his bike pedals and bounced down the gravel drive, then turned the corner out of sight.
—
I woke in the dark with Petar standing over me.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s time.”
“I’m awake.” I dressed in the only clothes I hadn’t packed. I went to the bedroom to say goodbye to Marina, kissing her on the cheek.
“Be safe,” she murmured. “And take care of Rahela.”
“Come. Be my co-pilot,” Petar said, motioning to the passenger seat. He was wearing his army uniform with the left sleeve cut off to accommodate the brace. He put a yellow envelope in my lap and backed out of the driveway. “Now this is very important. These are all your documents—ticket, passport, contact information for the family, letter of invitation, and”—he reached in his pocket and stuffed some dinar into the envelope—“something extra in case anyone gets hungry.”
“Hungry?”
“Not for food,” he said, tapping the envelope. “You’ll find powerful men can often be persuaded. At least they can here. I don’t know about America. Don’t worry. You’ll know if you need it. Subtlety is not the military way. Now. When you get to Germany—”
“Don’t leave the international terminal,” I said, remembering Srdjan’s instructions.
“Good. And when you get to New York?”
I gave him a blank look. I couldn’t remember any advice about America.
“Just play it cool!” he said. “They’re going to meet you at the airport, so once you make it through customs, you’re home free.”
I leafed through the papers. I went back to the start of the pile and looked through them again. There was only one ticket.
“This says Frankfurt–New York. Where’s the other half?” I’d assumed the American visa would be the hardest component to procure; I hadn’t considered that getting out of this country would be a problem. But the more I thought about it, the more frightened I became. Of course no company would be stupid enough to fly commercial planes in war zone airspace.
“I’ve made arrangements,” Petar said.
“How did you find all these people to help us?”
“I’ve always known people. You just didn’t notice. You were young.”
The airport was ringed by white vehicles: smooth-front supply trucks with covered flatbeds, fuel carrier tankers, shiny white SUVs, even a series of white tanks, all bearing UN in bold black paint. On both sides of the fence, the area was swarming with Peacekeepers, their helmets and flak jackets almost luminous in the diffuse dawn light. But Petar drove past the entrance. I waited for him to turn in to a side gate or service road. Instead he got on the highway, southbound.
“Petar. The airport?”
“We’re not going there,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Too heavily guarded. They check the planes.”
“Then where are we going?”
“Oto?ac.”
“Oto?ac! Do they even have an airport? Aren’t there ?etniks down there?”
“We’re counting on it,” he said. “Right now, disorder is our friend. No one will notice you.”
“But—”