The Edge of Me (20 page)

‘The town was attacked again and again – more lootings and killings. In the summer of ’95, we left
Srebrenica for a town called Potočari, another United Nations safe zone. It was July and the heat was terrible. You and Senka cried all the time. We were so weak, so frightened. There was hardly any food or water, and many, many people died.

‘Some of the soldiers were like animals. You cannot believe. They … raped, they killed women and children. One time, I saw a soldier slit the throat of a baby in front of its mother. We were terrified. It was then that we were separated. I was left in the camp, and the women and children were put on a bus, I didn’t know where to. We were told you were going to safety but we heard rumours that buses were being stopped and burned on the roadside, and the people killed. I thought I would never see you again.’

Here he breaks down and puts his hands across his face.

After a few minutes, he recovers and goes on: ‘We, the men, knew we were going to be killed if we didn’t act. We decided to make for the woods. To head to safety, to the government controlled area. We gathered what we could: scraps of food, a little water, only enough to last a couple of days, and we set out across country in the blazing heat. When the food was gone, we lived on leaves and slugs. We had no water left and we were exhausted. Only a few of us made it into our territory. We were starving, hallucinating, dressed in rags. I don’t know how I survived; all I know is that it was the thought of you two and your mother that kept me alive. And then I was caught. I was put in a camp. That was bad enough, I nearly died. But to
know that one of the people who put me there was my former student … She found me, and she told me what she’d done. I didn’t see her again until … but she made sure I never forgot her. I was in there, and later in prison on some made-up charge, for five years.’

In the other room, I can hear Natalija and Peter, and the tick and knock of spoons on bowls.

He goes on, his voice rising and falling, ‘When I got out of there, I knew I had to find you. I kept searching. I never gave up. I went everywhere. The Red Cross, the United Nations. I heard nothing. I followed every lead, however small. A friend found me a way out – to go to France. I’m a carpenter now – I make cabinets, tables, that sort of thing. From France too. I searched, I never gave up. I want you to know I never stopped looking.’

He starts to cry. I kneel down in front of him, and he takes me in his arms and presses me to him until I can barely breathe. He smells good: straw, wool, soap.

I gently break away: ‘What about Senka?’

Branko attempts a smile and smudges the tears away with his sleeve.

‘She doesn’t know I’m here yet.’ He takes my hands in his and together we stand up. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘Let’s do it together.’

I open the door a crack and look into the kitchen. Peter’s at the table with Senka and Andjela. They’re both wrapped in blankets. Andjela is wolfing down soup and bread, and Senka holds a spoon dumbly in her hand. Her eyes open and close mechanically. There is a little run of
soup on her chin. Peter’s sitting next to Andjela, talking soothingly to her. It seems to be doing the trick. I see her smile shyly at him. Senka looks up at me as I come in, and lifts her arm to wipe the soup from her chin.

My twin sister.

When Senka sees Branko, she gasps. I go and sit down with her and cradle her frail form which goes from hot to cold, while he tells her how we were lost and found.

When he’s finished, she says only one word: ‘Majka?’
Mother
.

Branko swallows hard. He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say anything, Andjela, who has been sitting quietly at the table all the while, stands up and goes quickly from the room.

I go out into the passageway and find her crouched against the wall, still with the blanket around her, her knees pulled into her chest. She raises her eyes to me. In them, I see real sadness and loneliness, and I know now what our joy at finding each other means for her. She gives a lopsided smile and makes the thumbs-up sign. I have to bite down hard on my lip not to cry.

‘You’ll be OK, Andjela,’ I say. ‘I’m going to look after you. You can stay with us.’

I lead her back into the kitchen. Branko and Senka are side by side, their heads touching. Peter and Natalija are standing by the door, hand in hand.

For the first time, it occurs to me to wonder what Branko’s plan is. Is he intending to take us back with him? Is it presumptuous to ask if Andjela can come too?
And then I think again about how he probably has a new family. But I figure I’ve come so far, I have nothing to lose.

‘Branko,’ I say, ‘could we …’

He looks at me with his head on one side and a smile that somehow reminds me of Joe. I try again, ‘Andjela … I mean … I don’t know what’s going to happen to her but … could we … Could we take her with us? To France?’

Before he can answer, Peter coughs awkwardly: ‘Um. We … it’s just a thought …’

He looks wildly at Natalija, who goes and kneels at Andjela’s side and speaks to her softly. ‘Andjela, Peter and I would like to offer you a home.’

Andjela’s expression is a mix of joy and fear as she listens.

Natalija turns to face us. ‘We’ve always wanted children but we couldn’t have any. And it would make us so happy if we could give her a good life with us.’

Peter steps forward. ‘You have your family now, Sanda. If Andjela will have us, we can be a family too.’

Andjela nods vigorously, smiling through her tears. Then everyone hugs everyone else, and Peter disappears and reappears moments later with a bottle of red wine. Branko reassures us that of course we’re coming back with him, and he’s going to get up early the next day and start making arrangements to get us papers to travel. This night is the best of my life so far. So much so, that I’ve almost forgotten about the letter from Joe.

Later, much later, after we’re all fed and ever so slightly drunk, and Natalija and I have persuaded the girls to go
to bed, she hands me the letter. It’s a page folded in two with ‘
Sanda
’ written on the blank side. My hands are shaking as I open it:

I lean back in my chair and run my hands through my stubbly hair. He’s in me, under my skin, and in my head where he’s always been. Joe. My Joe.

I send him an email on Natalija’s laptop. I know he’s in hospital, I know he may not see it for a while but I do it anyway; all I say is:
‘I’m back. I got your letter. I’ll call soon. And, me too.
’

I go to bed with the letter under my pillow. Senka and I top and tail on the single bed in the room I slept in before. She moans and scratches at herself in her sleep and I can feel the unnatural heat off her body.

When I wake in the morning, Branko’s already left on the early train to Belgrade to make arrangements for us to travel. Senka’s feet are in a terrible state. I call Natalija to take a look. Her skin is paper thin with rosy blotches that she picks at constantly. Between us we give her a
proper bath. She loves the hot bath water, and lies back and kicks her legs like a baby. I have to leave the room because I can’t see through my tears any more. When I come back in, Natalija has lifted her out, wrapped her in a thick warm towel, and together we help her dry and get dressed. Natalija then goes to get cream for her feet and medicine for her fever. While we wait, Senka feels for my hand and squeezes it, and I know I’m home. When I’m with her, I’m home.

Later on, Senka’s sitting up at the table eating bread and jam. She has jam on her elbows and butter on her chin. Clean and fed, she’s just beginning to lose the hunted look in her eyes.

Natalija goes out after breakfast and leaves Peter to the business of searching out information on adoption. The inn stays closed for the day.

Natalija returns after a couple of hours, laden with bags. In them are clothes, medicines, bandages for Senka’s feet and soft slippers while they heal, antiseptic cream for sores, antibiotics, lice powder and vitamin pills. We crowd round while she opens the other bags: for Andjela, there is a beautiful turquoise hoodie, a tartan mini-skirt and red tights with some black boots; for Senka, some jeans and the softest woollen striped jumper in green and blue. I get a little black mini-dress with a pair of blue tights. And for all of us: new underwear!

We’re so excited, we disappear immediately to try on the clothes. Andjela is transfixed by the textures, the colours. She doesn’t know what to do with tights so I
help her on with them. Senka sits and watches us and clasps her hands. Andjela and I then help her into her new clothes, and she spends a long time turning around in front of the mirror.

I say, ‘Senka
–
you’re beautiful!’

Just over a week later, Branko gets a call from the authorities. They have documents for us to travel out of Serbia as soon as we’ve had blood tests to prove he’s our father. Natalija says that she can get it done that afternoon. She has a colleague in the main hospital she can call.

Senka’s terrified of the hospital, of the white coats and needles, but she follows our lead and lets the nurse take a little tube of blood; she looks as though she can barely spare any. I stay while they run other tests on her. As Natalija thought, she’s malnourished and suffering from anaemia. Her skin and hair are very poor although Natalija’s treatments are helping.

When we get the results, I think I feel properly hopeful for the first time ever. I suppose deep down I had my doubts. I guess when the rug is ripped from under you once, then maybe you’re always ready for it to happen again. But now, after all we’ve been through, we have the answer we want: this man is our father. And we’re going home. He’s taking us home.

He’s brought no pictures of home, but he talks about it. He lives in a village about thirty minutes from Bordeaux in an old house – at least two hundred years old. It’s painted white, he says, with climbing roses and
honeysuckle that cover the walls. There’s a large garden at the back. He has his workshop in an outbuilding where he does his carpentry.

I’m scared but I have to ask, ‘Do you have other children? Do you have a wife?’

He looks at me and strokes my cheek affectionately. ‘You’ll meet my family when you arrive. It will be good, I promise.’

From the window, I can see Peter and Natalija strolling across the square with Andjela. She’s so changed. From the timid, racked creature I first met, she’s turning into a confident, loving young woman. Her dark hair shines and her violet eyes are always smiling now. They already look like a family. Natalija’s face is animated and happy as she listens to what Andjela is saying, and Peter’s the proud father.

When they come in, I see he’s holding a newspaper in his hand.

‘Look, Sanda.’

23

On the front page of the newspaper is a picture of Kristina being taken into court: she’s handcuffed between two grim-looking policemen. Her face is twisted into an indignant snarl. The sight of her crushes me, breaks me. I feel a toxic creep that works its way into me through every pore.

When Branko sees it, his mouth is set. ‘I will make it up to you. You will be happy. You and Senka will be loved. I promise you. I promise. For always. My darling daughters, you have been treated so badly but we can heal this. We can make it better. I promise.’

I know I have my father and my sister now, and I shouldn’t want more but my God I do. I want more. And the more that I want is Joe. It’s all about Joe. It always has been.

Of course, going home means leaving home too. The inn has become a kind of home for us. I’ll always remember it as the place I found my family, and where Andjela found hers.

Her adoption is going through. They tried but couldn’t trace any family for her. Peter and Natalija have found a tutor who will help prepare her for school next year, and they’re planning to teach her to read and write over the coming months. Peter’s teaching her to play chess and she’s getting really good at it. I love to watch him watching her, with his chin in his hands, as she considers her next move. They look after her with such tenderness. Natalija sits with her in the evenings, often with tears in her eyes. I think she’s weeping for the childhood Andjela has lost and the love she could have given her. Saying goodbye to them after everything we’ve been through together is really hard.

I hug Peter and he lifts me up to face him. ‘You look after your sister, girl.’

‘I will!’

‘It’s going to be tough, Sanda – I mean, for her. You’ll have to be –’

‘I know! I know!’

‘It’s just there are going to be lots of surprises …’

‘Surprises? What do you mean?’

‘I … well, stuff’s just going to be different. You know … stuff to take in…’

‘Oh. Right. Yes, of course.’

Natalija comes up to me and wraps me in her arms, and I breathe in her lovely rosemary scent. She says simply, ‘You will come back to visit I hope.’

I say, ‘Of course.
Of course
. Thank you so much for all you’ve done. You’ve helped me to find my family.’

‘And you’ve helped us to find ours.’

She smiles then and stands back so I can say good bye to Andjela. We look at each other and she touches my cheek very gently, just as she did that day in the dinner hall.

‘Goodbye, Sanda,’ she whispers in English.

‘Goodbye. We’ll see you soon.’

She turns to Senka and a look passes between them that tells at once of all the hardship and horror they have endured, and of all the hope that they have now.

I squeeze her hand and she steps back into the waiting arms of her new parents.

My sister, it turns out, is terrified of aeroplanes. And airports. And crowds. We find this out at the worst time, pushing through crowds at Belgrade airport to catch our plane. It’s the floor that gets her at first. The way the strip lights are reflected on the marble, then the snapping of the display boards overhead. Branko and I walk close on either side of her.