Kara’s Game. Gordon Stevens

pulling out.’ The sergeant was wrapped against the cold, his face barely visible. ‘They’re sending up the big stuff.’

      ‘Thank Christ for that.’ Valeschov flicked on the safety and eased himself up. ‘Another hour and I’d have been a bloody snowman.’

      

      Something was wrong. There had been no shells at midday, and no small-arms rounds that afternoon.

      It was ten minutes to the time the Serbs on the hills above Maglaj began their late afternoon barrage – thirty rounds over a one-hour period, then more or less silence for the night.

      MacFarlane swung the Nissan in a tight circle, drove to the dilapidated building next to the bank midway between the radio station and the school, and went to the ground floor of the block where the UNMO team had established its base.

      The room was six metres by five, low ceiling and sparse furniture. The sleeping bags and American camp cots were against one wall, food and cooking items against a second, and a table and chairs in the centre. The windows were boarded against shrapnel, and the radio handset was on the table, coaxial wires running to the HF set mounted in the vehicle so they didn’t have to go outside to speak to Vitez.

      Umbegi brewed a tea and they waited.

      

      Jovan’s hands and face were cold. Kara closed the door, lit the candle, sat him by the stove and rubbed a semblance of warmth back into him. The semi-basement in which they now lived was crowded: the stove in the centre of the rear wall, the double bed to the right, which they also used as a sofa, and Jovan’s smaller bed – which he no longer slept in – to the left, the table in the middle with the wooden chairs round it, and the dresser against the left wall, on it the family photographs and the radio (connected to the bike, which you had to pedal to get the power). The only other furniture was an armchair to the left of the door.

      At the beginning of the siege they had boarded the windows with planks and moved the rest of the furniture to the floor above, leaving the top level empty … At the beginning the water and electricity had stopped almost immediately, so now they made their own candles and got their water from the well in the garden … At the beginning …

      How long ago that was.

      Jovan was playing on the double bed with the wooden toys Adin had made him. Kara knelt in front of the stove, opened the fire door, and added a little more wood. Not too much – even though every summer she and Adin made sure they had enough for the winter she was careful now, unsure how long winter would last. The boy’s eyes stared at her through the halo of light round the wick of the candle. She poured his share of the beans into a saucepan, then half of her own. Perhaps it was caution, perhaps premonition, that she saved the rest. Then she cut half a potato and half a carrot into cubes and put them in. It was a luxury, but today they should celebrate; this afternoon Adin would be home from the front, even if only for a few hours, and today there had been no sniper waiting for her to cross the bridge.

      Please God, may Adin be safe. Please may he really come home tonight. Please God, may this crazy war soon be over.

      Outside it was dark.

      At midday there had been no shells, and by now there should have been the late afternoon blitz, reminding them that the Serbs, the Chetniks as she called them, were on the hills above Maglaj and controlling everything that happened in it.

      Perhaps that was it for today, Kara realized she was praying; perhaps the Chetniks had run out of shells, perhaps they were going away. Perhaps there really was a ceasefire.

      Crazy war – the thought was more conscious this time.

      First the Serbs had attacked the Croats and Muslims. Then, just under a year ago, the Croats had changed sides, and were now fighting with rather than against the Serbs. So villages and towns and areas were split. But even that was logical compared with what was really happening. Take the small pocket containing Maglaj and, fifteen kilometres to the north, Tesanj. The pocket was an island, isolated in Serb-held territory, with the main front line with Muslim-held Bosnia to the south. On the west, north and east sides of the pocket the Serbs were attacking them; to the south the attack was coming from a combined Serb and Croat army. But in Tesanj the local Croats and Muslims were fighting side by side against the Serbs.

      Even the term Muslim was misleading. At first the world called me a Yugoslav, she remembered telling an aid worker once; then it called me a Bosnian, and now it calls me a Muslim. But I’ve never been inside a mosque, don’t even know how to pray. My mother’s mother, my grandmother, who lives in Travnik, is a Croat. And my husband’s grandfather, after whom we named our son, was a Serb.

      She thought she heard the whine of the first shell or mortar, and froze. Braced herself for the impact then relaxed again. If there was such a word or notion as relaxing any more.

      Don’t look at the photograph, she told herself, because it will only make you cry. Because of all those in the photograph apart from her and Adin and Jovan, only her Croat grandmother in Travnik was definitely alive. The others – her parents, Adin’s parents, their brothers and their sisters – had either been killed or had vanished in the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs or the bitter bloodletting between Croats and Muslims. Or perhaps they were alive, perhaps they had made it out and were in a refugee camp somewhere. Perhaps one day they would see each other again, take another photograph of the family happy and at peace with itself and the world.

      Sometimes it was as if the West had abandoned her, had totally and cynically forgotten about her and the likes of her.

      Forget it, she told herself; just concentrate on surviving today, don’t even think about tomorrow.

      She made herself kneel again in front of the stove, made herself stir the beans. Made herself laugh at little Jovan as she poured his share into the small round plastic bowl, then poured the smaller portion she had allowed herself and broke a piece of bread for him.

      Occasionally someone remembered, of course, occasionally a little aid got through.

      The first time was before the siege proper had started. They had still been cut off and under fire, but some British soldiers had come. The Cheshires, she remembered the name of the regiment. Then there was the man with a beard from the UNHCR. And after that, when the days were short and dark and the cold and hunger were seeping into them all, the planes had come over and dropped food packages on to the town, but the wind had taken the food on to the hillsides. That night the people had gone out with torches, Adin among them, to search for the oh-so-precious packages. Even now she could remember standing in the doorway, little Jovan in her arms, pointing out the lights among the trees and laughing because it was like Christmas, seeing the lights moving in the dark as the people looked. Then the Chetniks had started to shell the wood, and the lights had scattered like fireflies on a summer night, and one by one had gone out as people ran or died.

      There had been one more time the aid had come.

      Adin was at home, so she had gone alone for the pan of beans. Had crossed the bridge and was scuttling towards the school when she had seen them. Four soldiers, but not as she had seen soldiers before. Not riding in tanks or jeeps like other soldiers, or like the UN monitors who’d come in to cover the so-called ceasefire. Combat clothes but no helmets or berets, big packs on their backs, radios on them, and all carrying guns. Always walking, always carrying everything they had with them. Always moving quickly.

      The next day she had seen them again. Had heard them speak and spoken to them. And because she had spoken to them in English, because at university she had studied English, she always remembered them as English rather than British.

      And because there was no one else, she had interpreted for them. Had picked up the word laser, and interpreted to the Red Cross about the planes and the food drops. That night, and for several nights after, the soldiers had disappeared into the woods; that night and for several nights after, the planes had come over and dropped the food exactly where the soldiers told them to. And the people had eaten. Then the soldiers had gone, and she had never known how they had come to Maglaj or how they had left or even who they were. Except that once she had asked