Chapter Thirty
KONSTANTIN
27 yearsago
The first I know that something is wrong is when my mother freezes. Her eyes find mine and in that moment the world stops spinning. There is nothing but me and her. Then the air is shattered by the sound of guns firing, and I watch the terror fly into her eyes. Suddenly she moves, so fast my jaw drops.
Outside, I hear men shouting. They are speaking in Serbian.
My mother lifts me from my chair, tucks me under her arm. Covering my mouth with her other hand she stuffs me into the cupboard where we keep our winter things. It smells of wool and mothballs. She puts her finger to her lips and says in the fiercest voice I ever heard her use, “Don’t make a sound. Not one sound. No matter what happens you don’t come out, do you hearme?”
I stare ather.
She shakes my shoulders so hard my teeth chatter. “Do you understand?”
I nod blankly.
“Promise?” she whispers.
“Promise,” I whisperback.
“Not one small sound,” she reminds again.
Inod.
Then she smiles, even though her mouth is trembling. “I love you so much,” shesays.
“I love you too, Mama.”
“Hurry. They are almost here,” my grandmother, who had been sitting half-asleep in her chair, cries.
“Now close your eyes and do not open them until the men are gone,” my mother orders.
I nod and close my eyes. With my eyes closed I hear the door shut. As soon as I hear her footsteps move away I open my eyes. The door didn’t close all the way. The wood is old and warped. There is a narrow crack. I lean forward and put one eye to the crack.
I see my grandmother stand from her chair. Her face is pale and frightened. “Quickly, cover your hair,” she barks at my mother.
My mother grabs a scarf and ties it around her head. Then she runs her hands down her hips. I don’t know why she’s doing that. She only makes that action when her hands are wet. Straightening her back she starts walking to the table in the middle of the room where she was peeling potatoes and putting them into a bowl. The potatoes are for our dinner tonight.
Just as my mother reaches the table a soldier bursts into our home. My mother carries on walking until she is standing in front of grandma. “Take what you want. We are just two women here. Leave us be. Please,” she says in Serbian.
The man stares at my mother, then he begins to laugh slowly. My mother never learnt to speak Serbian properly and her pronunciation is quite funny. Papa always laughs at her. The man must be laughing at hertoo.
“Please. There is money in that tin,” my mother pleads. This time she even makes a mistake, but now her voice is shaking. Mama is scared of theman.
I want to open the cupboard and tell him to go away, but I am frozen. It is too late to close my eyes. I promised I would not make a sound. I wonder where Papa is. Or my brothers. Or even my grandfather. He is going deaf so maybe he didn’t hear the gunshots.
Another soldier comes into the house. He does not speak. He walks up to my mother and grins.
“There is food and money. Take it all,” my mothersays.
He doesn’t speak. He punches my mother so hard in the stomach she falls to the ground. I open my mouth to scream but no sound comes out. My mouth is wide open but no sound comesout.
“Keep your eyes closed, little bear. Keep them closed and don’t make a sound,’ my mother says in Bosnian.
But I can’t. I can’t close my eyes. I can’t make a sound. I can’t move. I am frozen.
“Don’t look,” she adds. “Don’tlook.”
The soldier turns towards my grandmother. He lifts his gun and shoots her in the head. She falls. My mother screams and my whole world breaks apart.
Who are these men? Why did they kill my grandmother?
I don’t understand what is going on. The man who shot Grandma grabs my mother by the hair and pulls her up. She cries out in pain. I feel my face grow warm and my hand clench. He is hurting Mama. I have to protecther.
“Don’t come out. Don’t come. And keep your eyes closed,” my mother says again in Bosnian.
Roughly, he throws her on the table. The bowl of potatoes overturn. Potatoes go flying. One rolls all the way to the cupboard door. If I put my hand through the crack I can pick it up and throw it really hard at the man. As I stare at the potato I hear a tearing sound. My head jerksup.
I cannot see him. Only my mother. The man has torn her skirt. I can see her pale waist and some of her white underwear. I have never seen her in her underwear. She doesn’t even dry them outside because she is too ashamed to let people see them. I have to stop theman.
“Don’t come out. Be a good boy,” my mother warns.
“Shut the fuck up,” the man swears in Serbian.
He tears her underclothes. She winces with pain. She closes her eyes. A second later they fly open. My mother turns her face and looks in my direction. Her eyes fall on the crack between the doors. Tears fill hereyes.
“Good boy. That’s my good boy,” she mouths.
Suddenly her eyes widen and her face contorts. She clenches her teeth. The man starts grunting, and her whole body starts to move up and down along the table. She cannot hold back her cries of pain. My hand twitches towards the door. I need to do something. I need to help my mother.
“A promise is a promise forever,” she says, as if she can seeme.
Something truly horrible is happening to my mother. I can tell by the way blood is streaming from her lip because she has bittenit.
There is the sound of more boots hitting the floor. Another soldier arrives in theroom.
“Fuck, don’t leave a bloody mess for the rest of us, you animal,” he says. He has a commanding voice.
He comes to stand by my mother and I see his face. He unzips his trousers and takes out his cuckoo bird. His cuckoo bird is big and red. Other men come into the room. They too make my mother’s body slide along the table.
The only sounds she makes are to tell me how proud she is of me. To stay quiet. To not come out. To remind me of my promise. It seems to be hours that I am in that cupboard with the smell of mothballs and the men torturing my mother while I remain frozen with my eye to the crack.
“We’ll kill all of you. We’ll fucking kill all of you,” a man says as he punches my mother and she falls to the floor. My mother doesn’t move. A man kicks her in the stomach and she does not flinch.
Then they leave the house.
I hear them go out to the front, then the sound of their trucks rolling away, but I can’t move. I wonder why Papa has not come in. Or my brothers. Or Grandad. Then I hear Mama gasping.
In the dead silence, I think I hear her call my name, but I can’t be sure. I open the cupboard and try to take a step and fall. My legs won’t work. I look at Mama. How strange. She is naked waist down and covered in blood, but she is blowing a spit bubble.
My head feels strange.
I hear it then. A gasping, choking sound. My mother is calling me. I sit up slowly. I feel as if I am floating above my body. I crawl to my mother. Something is wrong with her. Her body is contorted in the way that Wanda, our goat’s was when she broke her hip bone. I crouch next to Mama. Her face and mouth is so swollen her eyes are slits.
Her lips move and she blows another bubble. It is tinged with red. She is saying something. I crouch over her and hold my ear over her mouth.
“Did you see the men?” she whispers.
“Only one,” I whisperback.
“Avengeme.”
I turn my head and stare at her. I don’t know what she means. I haven’t learnt the meaning of this wordyet.
“Avenge me,” she repeats, and tears flow out of hereyes.
I don’t know what she is asking, but I know it is very important. I nod. “Iwill.”
“Now. Do to me what you did to Mishka,” she croaks, and blood pours out of her mouth.
I stare at her, horrified.
“Hurry. I cannot bear the pain any longer.”
“I can’t, Mama. Don’t leave me, please,” Icry.
“The angels are waiting for me, Konstantin,’ she begs, and looks at me with eyes so pitiful something inside me tearsopen.
“You must do it now,” she urges.
I lean forward, my hands trembling, and smother her face with my hands. I pinch her nose and lay my hand over her mouth, but I can see her eyes. They look at me until the light goes out ofthem.
There are no tears in my eyes. No pain in my heart. I stand slowly. I’m six years old, but my mother’s soul has passed out through my hands and I feel as if I am ten feet tall and giddy, giddy with a strange emotion. I took my own mother’s life. The life of the person I loved most in this world.
I pass my grandmother without looking at her and walk out of the frontdoor.
Outside, I see my father lying on the ground in a pool of red. Dead. And a few feet away, my brothers. Also dead. I loved them all dearly. But I feel nothing. No pain. No horror.
I just walk. And walk. And walk. Andwalk.
My hands are covered in blood. My clothes are covered in blood. I walk down the stony path. The two goats are lying on the ground. Their bodies are still.
I know only one thing. It burns my brain. Obliterates everything else. There is nothing else. But the need to hurt my mother’s attackers.
I must find thosemen.
They have killed my family.
Now I must kill themall.