The Book of Q Read Free Page B

said, his eyes on the cloth, “as if I’d handed him something irreplaceable.” He shook his head.
    “Maybe it was.” After a moment: “We need to get going.” As she moved toward Mendravic and the others, Pearse nodded, knelt down, and crossed himself.
    And prayed for Josip’s absolution.

    That night, they sat in one of the remaining houses in Slitna—few chairs, one square wooden table, beds of straw in every corner— watching as a handful of children gulped down great mounds of eggs. The mothers, in long printed skirts, solid-colored scarves around their heads, stood off to the side, beaming with each child’s eager mouthful. Mendravic watched as well, smiling with the children, his empty cheeks chewing along with them in mock ecstasy, eliciting bursts of laughter from the tiny faces.
    Pushing the memories of Josip aside, Pearse managed to get caught up in their delight, its novelty infectious. Petra, too. She took hold of one of the boys—only as high as her waist—and began to dance around the room with him, spinning them both, lifting his feet from the ground, wide eyes from the children as they clapped between each ravenous forkful. For a few minutes, the world beyond seemed to vanish. That fewer than half of them would make it as far as the border, and fewer still survive once there, played no part in their momentary grasp at normalcy. Enough to take what they could when they could.
    Perhaps it was the sound of their own laughter, or the high-pitched screams of the exhilarated children, that muffled the telltale whistle of incoming rockets. Whatever the reason, the terrifying screech torethrough the small room only seconds before the bomb struck. No time to race to the cellar, to cradle children in protective arms. The far wall was the first to go, splitting down its center as if made of paper, dust and smoke rising in great swirls. Pearse was thrown to the ground, his left shoulder landing with particular force, a jabbing pain as he tried to recover. He reached for his neck—nothing broken—the pain no less intense. Without thinking, he got to his feet and began to grab as many small bodies as he could. The children were screaming, some bloodied, some shaking frantically as he pulled four or five of them close into him. Again the whistle of artillery flooded the air, this time accompanied by a violent groan from the roof. He knew he had only seconds. Clutching the little bodies to his chest, he careened across the room, half-blinded by the dust, and leapt toward what he hoped was the door.
    The appearance of stars above and a rush of fresh air told him he had found it. Only then did he feel the weight in his arms; he glanced down at the four tiny bodies still holding tightly to his waist. They were screaming, but they were alive. One of the boys tried to break away, rush back to his mother inside the now-burning building, but Pearse’s grip was too strong. The boy screamed louder, began to claw at his arm— “ Molim, molim! ”—but there was nothing he could do. A second bomb exploded off to the right, the reverberation enough to dislodge the roof, a wave of wood and stone cascading into the night. Pearse dropped to his knees, trying to cover the children, the little boy still flailing away, the others trembling in abject terror. Dirt showered his head and back, a battering of pebblelike projectiles, four quivering bodies tucked under his torso as the onslaught subsided. One final explosion beyond the town’s fringe, and then nothing.
    The attack had been like any other—from somewhere in the hills, arbitrary, and with no real military significance. The tactic to terrorize. A drinking game for late-twentieth-century Bosnia. As quickly as it had come, it was over.
    People began to appear, shouts everywhere, panic as they poured from the surrounding buildings, lucky enough to have escaped the night’s target practice. Pearse tried to stand, a shooting pain in his shoulder as two of the children