The Day of the Pelican Read Free Page B

was determined to do as Mama had asked. The police had seen her walk past every day with Mehmet. They might remember that the two of them were only schoolchildren, not terrorists to be jailed ... or tortured ... or ... killed. She closed her eyes to shut out such thoughts.
    The station door was locked. Her father knocked, and when nobody answered, he beat on the heavy wooden door with his fist.
    "No, Baba," Meli begged. "You'll make them angry."
    He ignored her and kept right on beating until the door opened wide enough for a pistol to stick out through the crack. "What do you want?" a voice demanded in Serbian.
    "I need your help," Baba said meekly, as though he really believed a Serb policeman would help an Albanian. "My son never returned home from school today."
    "So? Can I help it if your boy has run away?"
    Baba stuck his big hand in the crack and forced it open wider, ignoring the pistol in the officer's hand. Watching, Meli could hardly breathe. "I think one of your men has made a mistake. My son is only a schoolboy. He knows nothing of politics." It was a lie. Mehmet knew plenty about politics, but of course what her father meant was that Mehmet was not a part of the KLA.
    "Who are you?"
    "My name is Hashim Lleshi. I own a small grocery store on the west side of town. This is my daughter, Meli. My son, Mehmet, who is missing, is only thirteen. He—is he here? Do you have him in custody? By mistake? Perhaps you have confused him with someone else?"
    "Come back in the morning if you have a question."
    "But to make a child spend the night in jail ... He ... Do you have children?" Baba's voice was low and pleading now. It hurt Meli to hear him humiliate himself before this Serb, but she knew he was determined to do whatever it took to get Mehmet safely home.
    "I said, come back in the morning!" The policeman poked her father with the pistol to force him out of the doorway. "And be glad I didn't arrest you."
    "Come on, Baba," Meli whispered.
    Reluctantly, her father backed away. Once again he became the old man Meli had seen coming up the street. "Pray for your brother, Meli," he said. They were the only words he spoke during the long walk home. She did pray, or tried to; they were not a family who practiced daily prayers. As they walked past the dark shadow of the mosque, she prayed that God would not hold their lack of piety against them. Surely he wouldn't. God was the all-merciful, wasn't he?
    Baba and Meli went back to the station the next morning, but the result was the same. The Serbian police would not even say if Mehmet was in the jail or not.
    ***
    In the weeks following Mehmet's disappearance, the family went through the motions of getting up in the morning, eating, working, and lying down to sleepless nights. Meli couldn't make herself go to school, and her parents didn't seem to have the energy to insist. Suppose something should happen while she was at school? It didn't make sense, but somehow she reckoned that since she had been the cause of her brother's disappearance, she had to be home to make him come back safely. Whenever she wasn't working in the store or helping Mama with housework, she was standing at the front window, straining to see Mehmet turning the corner, coming down the side street, walking through the gate, climbing the stairs. He was laughing as he took off his shoes and came into the apartment.
    Sometimes she changed the picture in her mind. This time Mehmet was walking down the street, opening the door of the shop. She imagined the bell ringing to announce his entrance, and Baba rushing forward to embrace him....
    Meli rehearsed these scenes day after day, time after time. Once, as she stood at the window, Mama came over and put her arm around her daughter's shoulders.
    "It won't bring him home sooner," Mama said gently.
    But it might. If only 1 stare long enough and hard enough, 1 can will him home.
In part of her mind Meli knew this was foolishness, but she couldn't seem to help