“But nothing,” he said. The sun was red with morning, and I stared at my feet to avoid the glare. We rode in silence until I no longer recognized anything.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” Petar said. “When we get to Oto?ac, a Peacekeeper named Stanfeld will meet us.”
“I’m scared,” I said.
“You should be.”
“What?”
“It’d be weird if you weren’t.”
“The UN. Why is he helping us?”
“It’s a woman,” Petar said. “And I saved her life.”
“Is that how you hurt your arm?”
“Nah. She was on my day off.” Pleased with himself, he gave way to a smile I couldn’t help but return. Petar put his hand on my knee. “She’ll take care of you.”
After about an hour, we passed into Lika and arrived on the outskirts of Oto?ac. Farmland gave way to small clusters of beige and red-clay-roofed houses along the road. Most of them had been shelled and were in varying states of disrepair.
“Shit,” said Petar, and I looked ahead to see bearded men in the road. “For fuck’s sake.”
“What do we do?”
“Get in the back and lie on the floor and don’t move until I tell you,” he said. I stuffed the envelope in the waistband of my pants, climbed over the gearshift, and pressed my face against the dirty floor mat. Petar threw a blanket over me and submitted to the checkpoint.
I heard him crank down the window, then a stranger’s voice, close: “Can I help you?”
“I’ve got a delivery,” Petar said, and I heard the crinkling of paper, wondered if it was some instruction sheet or dinar to quench the “hunger” he’d mentioned.
“This road is closed. You need to turn around.”
“Haven’t you people heard of a cease-fire?” said Petar.
“I heard the JNA agreed to one. Luckily, I’m not in that army.”
“Look, I have a delivery. Commander Stanfeld.”
“There’s no Stanfeld here,” the soldier said, repeating the foreign last name with some difficulty.
“She’s UN.”
“She?” he said, amused. “There’s no UN here.”
“You better check your messages,” said Petar. “They’re at the airport right now, and there’ll be hell to pay if you make them wait.”
“I don’t take orders from Peacekeepers.” Paper rustling again. “Hold on.” A radio beeped, and the soldier asked about a delivery, the staticky reply indiscernible.
“Well, comrade. My commander doesn’t know about your delivery. So I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car.”
“Sure thing,” said Petar, but I could see him sliding his hand into the skinny space between seats, past his seat belt, where the glint of gunmetal caught my eye.
“Hurry up! Out!”
“Ana, count to three, then run to the center post office,” he whispered.
“What?” the soldier said.
“Sorry,” Petar said, and I heard him open his door. “I’m just—”
I heard the pop of gunfire and flew from the car, still clutching the blanket around my shoulders. The ?etnik was on the ground holding his face, and Petar was running into the scrub across the road, distracting the other soldiers as I darted through the fields down into the town.
“Goodbye!” I yelled to Petar, though I knew he wouldn’t hear. Would he be able to fight or get away with his bad arm? Maybe if I ran fast enough and found Stanfeld, the UN could send Blue Helmets to help him. The streets were potholed and gravelly from mortars, and I tried not to trip.
Compared to Zagreb, Oto?ac was a squat town. The houses looked the same—the familiar tan and white fa?ades and clay roofs—but there were no tall buildings here, nothing more than a few stories, so it was hard to find the center of town. There weren’t many people on the street, and no one noticed me.
“Post office?” I said to a man slumped on the corner drinking rakija from the bottle.
“Doesn’t work,” he said.
“I know, but where is it?”
“What good is it if it’s closed?”
“Forget it.”
“Two streets up. Next to the closed bakery and the closed bank and the closed—”
“Thanks.” I ran the two blocks, but there was no one out in front of the post office and it looked dark inside. The air raid siren began to sound.
Through the alley and around the back, I found a woman in Peacekeeping uniform. She adjusted her ponytail beneath her helmet, looked at her watch. I tapped her on the arm.
“Well, what do we have here?” she said in English. She gestured to my blanket. “Are you Superwoman?” I was intimidated by her language and her uniform, but needed her to send help for Petar, so I concentrated on the words I’d learned in school and from my mother.
“Stanfeld,” I said.
“Yes, how did you—Ana?”
“Petar has trouble.”
“Where is he?”
“?etniks,” I said. “The big road.”
“Is he hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shit.” She spoke into a walkie-talkie strapped to her upper arm, a series of numbers and something I couldn’t understand. Then to me she said, “Don’t worry, they’ll take care of him. Now let’s get you on this plane.”