Chapter 12. And I Have Touched the Sky
And I Have Touched the Sky
We’d had no contact with Nazer for over two weeks. Still under cover of UNHCR, we were heading back once more to an area near Travnik, so we decided to visit the Marićs to try to garner additional information from them and possibly relocate them. This would most likely be our last visit, and with roadblocks increasing, we would be lucky to get through. We should have started pushing the haggling process to get them out a long time ago, to get them visas, I kept thinking, but we had no chits on our side. I had arranged to have Dorenberg’s new album and a CD player sent to me from our London office and was amazed that neither was lost or stolen in transit. Now I could give them to Enesa in person; she just had a bunch of cassettes and listened to the radio whenever possible. This would be pure gold to her. Just before leaving, we were told the village had come under shelling, and we were stalled for a day and a half.
When supposedly safe, Louis, Richard, and I drove in the Land Rover with UN insignia through the frozen countryside and across the river to the edge of the village, Louis doing his strange driving maneuvers that he had mastered (or so he liked to think), zigzagging around any imperfection in the road. But Nazer and Enesa’s village was no longer there. The village had disappeared, like Brigadoon. But instead of a dreamscape expanse of moors and mist, it was all smoke and rubble and an overwhelming sense of things gone horribly wrong. Louis slowed down as we passed a body on the side of the road. “Shouldn’t we stop?” I said, well after we had gone by, pulling distractedly on the ballistic vest under my jacket.
“And do what?” Richard asked. I had never seen a dead body up close before like that and inanities looped through my mind—how a dead person was very different from a living person; how the ignominy of being dumped along the road seemed the worst thing to me, and many other thoughts beyond the pale. When we drove up the deserted road to the Marić’s house, however, all thought ceased. Getting out of the sanctuary of the Land Rover, my reality changed: I could not speak to Louis or Richard, or explain to myself what had happened here. I could only hear and smell and be aware of things small and near: the buzzing of flies even in this frigid air, our breath swirling out into a red-brown fog of fear, the scuttling and scurrying of vermin more imagined than seen; and the cold and the stench and the smoke of fires left burning unattended.
Louis and Richard went into the house ahead of me. They headed to the back where there used to be a small shed attached to the kitchen. The back of the Marić’s house was charred and crumbled, still smoldering, while the front remained intact. Every room was ransacked. I found Enesa’s mother lying facedown on the living room floor. I felt it my duty to cover her with something, but I was too afraid to look around or focus on anything too closely. I stood in the middle of their house determinedly not seeing anything, wanting to be anywhere but here. Anywhere on earth but here. I made a move toward the kitchen when Richard appeared in front of me. He put his hands on my arms and stopped me from going further.
Don’t go in.” Richard said. “Find Enesa.”
Richard pushed me toward Enesa’s bedroom. Halfway down the hall I stopped. Reddish sunset rays shafted from her bedroom window through the open door into the murky hallway, frightening me as I had never been frightened before, even more so than when I’d been mugged. Then everything was permeated with a sense of super-reality; here the golden light was of an otherworldly quality: I didn’t know what I would find beyond Enesa’s door. I stood still for several minutes, swallowing, throat tightening, struggling to move. I could hear Louis and Richard roaming around the burning ruble, could hear Louis’ exclamations of disgust. I stood there in the hallway with the strange light shining out through the doorway for what seemed like forever. I have no memory of walking in, but eventually I did.
Enesa’s body was hunched over her desk, but her head was twisted sideways, her eyes locked open; by her strange position, I knew she was gone. I couldn’t believe it. Enesa, Enesa . . . how could this be? She was just a young girl, a young girl! I went over to her. Her hair was matted and bloody, her clothes torn and bloody as well; she had been beaten. Her diary with a piece of paper sticking out of it was under her one hand. I pulled the paper out and unfolded it. ‘Dear Mr. Dorenberg . . .’ Enesa, Enesa, Enesa. This letter would have been given to me to give to Andy, I was sure. She never did believe I didn’t have some sort of relationship with him, no matter what I said. I crumpled up the note and stuck it in my pocket. I stood staring out the shattered window. A horrible thought stabbed at me and I bent down and lifted her skirt. The nausea that had been building broke, and I leaned over the desk and threw up.
I straightened up and rubbed my hand over my face. I fumbled around for my bag and took out Dorenberg’s CD and the disc player. My hands were shaking so badly I struggled to get the disc out of its jewel case and almost broke it, barely able to snap the disc into the player. I plugged in the earphones, the little foam cover things had already fallen off somewhere. I sat down on her bed and turned the player on; the disc spun round and round, a living thing amid the stillness of death. I turned it off, stood up and went over to Enesa, ran my hand down over her eyes, gently moved her hair away from her ears, and put the earphones on her head. I put the disc player on her chest, close to her heart, slid the tiny latch to the highest volume, and turned it on. For me or her I couldn’t say. Just one more second of connection before such a chance would evaporate in the flow of time. The disc spun round and round. Even though I could just hear hissing coming from the earphones, I could feel her departure. Leaving on those soft notes and sweet voice, flowing into the sunset glow. Leaving the work of men who knew nothing of what it meant to be a man, what it meant to be human. I became mesmerized by the revolving disc catching the light, and I stared into that light, gripping onto her.
Richard came into the room. The horror of what he had seen here and the guilt he felt for our small part in drawing the visitation of evil upon the house of Marić was making this normally formal man wild. People thought he was a hard man, and he could be, but in truth he was a passionate man with a big heart, and this broke it. He turned his anger toward me, snatching the earphones off Enesa’s head and flinging them aside, trying to pry my one hand off Enesa’s arm and my other one off the disc player, ordering me out, “Let’s go. Go! Go!” I struggled with him, refusing to let go of her, and he smacked me hard across the face. The physical shock made me release my hold, and he pulled/pushed me out of the room, down the hallway, out of the house and into the backseat of the waiting vehicle. He jammed in next to me in the back and slammed the door. Louis drove off.
As I realized we were leaving Enesa behind there—exposed, alone—I descended into a fit of wailing so uncontrolled it was as if I had been pulled out of the socket of civilization and plugged into some dark primal state of despair. The disc player still in my clutches fell on the floor and Richard, in a fury, stomped on it, smashing it again and again with his foot as if he wanted to wipe out anything beautiful because beauty had betrayed him; to wipe out anything that had any meaning because what was the meaning of what we had just seen. “You son of a bitch!” I screamed, wrenching myself around in the ill-fitting vest, trying to lunge at him.
My outburst wound him up even more, and he grabbed and caught me by my elbows, pulling me toward him, continuing his abuse, yelling in my face. “You didn’t sign up for this? You didn’t sign up for this? This ain’t . . .‘
“Richard! Richard! Knock it off. Knock it off.” Louis shouted at Richard without turning his head around or taking his eyes off the road. He took a hard left. “Knock it off!” Again he turned the wheels hard to the left, sliding the two of us to the side of the backseat in a heap of rage and despair, and the Rover rumbled off into the distance, skirting Travnik, away from Enesa and Nazer’s village, heading east, away from the setting sun, never to return.
Image: Pure gold. Source: Photograph by J. Weigley