Innocent Blood by Christopher Dickey

Author:Christopher Dickey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
Published: 1997-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

XIV

Highway signs are mysterious and disturbing things after a civil war. Place names carry new and tragic memories, but the signs don’t change right away to tell you that this city or that is not part of the same country anymore, or that checkpoints and lines of artillery and mines have to be crossed to get there, or that thousands of people died in that place. They don’t tell you that the place itself might not exist anymore.

If I had come to Yugoslavia a year before, it would have been simple to drive south and east through Bihac to Drvar, and from there to Ljeska Župica. There were still signs pointing the way. But the war had cut the roads. Drvar was on the other side of the Serb-held territory of Krajina, and the only way I could think to get there was to head southwest toward the coast, then work my way up through Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Rashid went with me. In fact, from that first morning when we drank the last of the mosque’s coffee, he barely left my side.

“Important things are happening here,” he said, swirling the coffee around in its plastic cup.

“More important than Kuwait?” A vision skirted through the back of my head of Rashid walking away from us on the highway of death. I started to say something, but he cut me off.

“More important. For any Muslim, much more important. And now you are here. And Muslim. It’s incredible. You are so American.”

“My father was Muslim from Bosnia. He came to the States in the forties.”

“He is alive?”

“No. He died a long time ago. I want to see his village.”

“I am sorry to hear this about your father. But—you are not here for the war?”

“That’s not why I came.”

“You are a good soldier. A fighter. This is strange for you, to be a tourist,” he said.

“Really? You think so?” I remembered the crawl through the minefield. And the night and the phosphorus and Jenkins. “Aren’t you sick of wars? It’s time to move on, man.”

“We’re not making these fights,” Rashid said, waiting for me to look up from my cup of coffee, then searching my eyes. “We’re not the ones making these wars,” he said again.

“‘We’ who? Listen, Rashid, buddy, this isn’t even my fight, and my folks came from here. I don’t see how this is your fight at all.”

“Do you believe in justice?”

“Justice? Un-hunh.” I was tired of all this talk. “You know, I’m really glad to see you. I can’t tell you how glad. I’m not sure why you’re here, but I’m glad you are. But it’s been a real long couple of days, and all my plans are changing already.” I could hear my voice starting to ramble. “There’s a lot—a whole lot—I’d like to talk to you about. But I’ve got to regroup right now. I’ve got to go back to my hotel. There’s a mess waiting for me there you won’t believe. And I want to head out for my father’s village sooner rather than later.

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