The Things Ahead

I would have reached the girl in the yellow dress in time.

I had watched her for thirty minutes already, whenever I glanced from the letter to my friend about Josif and the people in the tunnel.

The girl was no more than five. She held the string of a yellow balloon as she chased the pigeons flooding Bascarsija, Sarajevo’s main bazaar.

I was slow to rise because I’d been thinking about Josif. He’d lost everything in the Bosnian War. Now, he ran a hostel with his family, and led tours for the backpackers that slept in his house. He was wiry with browned skin, and had the small, hard muscles of someone who’d always been thin. He spoke softly and continuously as he drove through the city, mixing history with memory.

The people in the tunnel had streamed through the darkness before them, and into light, forwards and backwards, for over two years.

When the girl in the yellow dress rushed the pigeons, they burst into flight and she ran, shrieking. Sometimes, in the frenzy, she released the balloon and chased after that instead.

Earlier, Josif had driven me and four others to the crumbled luge track from the 1984 Olympics, to the Old Jewish Cemetery, to the high places where Serbian snipers had picked out targets. Then he’d driven us to the tunnel. Look, he’d said, pushing us in. You must look.

During the Siege, food and medicine went in. People went out. All through the war.

A few days ago, I hadn’t even known there’d been a war.

The family of the girl was sedate. They also didn’t seem to notice when she ran after the balloon.

How had I missed the war? I had been a toddler when it happened, and none of my history classes had moved beyond the 1980’s. But how had I missed it? It baffled me.

The wind pulled the balloon to the street and the girl trotted after it. Dreamily, it registered. “No!” I yelled. I jumped up and ran towards her. A car horn blared. Tires screamed. Then a man pushed me aside and was upon her, and they tumbled into the road. The man stood up. The girl was in his arms, unharmed.

The mother swept through the crowd. She snatched the girl away and wrapped her into the folds of her black hijab. The crowd dispersed.

Later, at Josif’s hostel, I spread a map before me. I looked at the twisting borders of countries I’d never visited; I mouthed names I’d never spoken.

My stomach burned with hunger what I didn’t know. What other things had I not noticed, or nearly missed?

I wanted to know. I hoped I would be ready when they came.