The Martyr's Song Read online

  Nadia hoped the soldiers wouldn’t spoil her birthday party.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JANJIC JOVIC, the nineteen-year-old writer turned soldier, followed the others into the village, trudging with the same rhythmic cadence his marching had kept in the endless months leading up to this day. Just one foot after another. Ahead and to the right, Karadzic marched deliberately. The other three fanned out to his left.

  Karadzic’s war had less to do with defeating the Nazis than with restoring Serbia, and that included purging the land of anyone who wasn’t a good Serb. Especially Franciscans.

  Or so he said. They all knew that Karadzic killed good Serbs as easily as Franciscans. His own mother, for example, with a knife, he’d bragged, never mind that she was Serbian to the marrow. Though sure of few things, Janjic was certain the commander wasn’t beyond trying to kill him one day. Janjic was a philosopher, a writer, not a killer, and the denser man despised him for it. He determined to follow Karadzic obediently regardless of the officer’s folly; anything less could cost dearly.

  Only when they were within a stone’s throw of the village did Janjic study the scene with a careful eye. They approached from the south, through a graveyard holding fifty or sixty concrete crosses. So few graves. In most villages throughout Bosnia, one could expect to find hundreds if not thousands of fresh graves, pushing into lots never intended for the dead. They were evidence of a war gone mad.

  But in this village, hidden here in this lush green valley, he counted fewer than ten plots that looked recent.

  He studied the neat rows of houses—fewer than fifty—also unmarked by the war. The tall church spire rose high above the houses, adorned with a white cross, brilliant against the dull sky. The rest of the structure was cut from gray stone and elegantly carved like most churches. Small castles made for God.

  None in the squad cared much for God—not even the Jew, Paul. But in Bosnia, religion had little to do with God. It had to do with who was right and who was wrong, not with who loved God. If you weren’t Orthodox or at least a good Serb, you weren’t right. If you were a Christian but not an Orthodox Christian, you weren’t right. If you were Franciscan, you were most certainly not right. Janjic wasn’t sure he disagreed with Karadzic on this point— religious affiliation was more a defining line of this war than the Nazi occupation.

  The Ustashe, Yugoslavia’s version of the German Gestapo, had murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs using techniques that horrified even the Nazis. Worse, they’d done it with the blessing of both the Catholic archbishop of Sarajevo and the Franciscans, neither of whom evidently understood the love of God. But then, no one in this war knew much about the love of God. It was a war absent of God, if indeed there even was such a being.

  A child ran past the walls that surrounded the courtyard, out toward the tall cross, not fifty feet from them now. A boy, dressed in a white shirt and black shorts, with suspenders and a bow tie. The child slid to a halt, eyes popping.

  Janjic smiled at the sight. The smell of hot bread filled his nostrils.

  “Petrus! You come back here!”

  A woman, presumably the boy’s mother, ran for the boy, grabbed his arm, and yanked him back toward the churchyard. He struggled free and began marching in imitation of a soldier. One, two! One, two!

  “Stop it, Petrus!” His mother caught his shirt and pulled him toward the courtyard.

  Karadzic ignored the boy and kept his glassy gray eyes fixed ahead. Janjic was the last to enter the courtyard, following the others’ clomping boots. Karadzic halted, and they pulled up behind him.

  A priest stood on the ancient church steps, dressed in flowing black robes. Dark hair fell to his shoulders, and a beard extended several inches past his chin. He stood with a hunch in his shoulders.

  A hunchback.

  To his left, a flock of children sat on the steps in their mothers’ arms, some of the mothers were smoothing their children’s hair or stroking their cheeks. Smiling. All of them seemed to be smiling.

  In all, sixty or seventy pairs of eyes stared at them.

  “Welcome to Vares,” the priest said, bowing politely.

  They had interrupted a party of some kind. The children were dressed mostly in ties and dresses. A long table adorned with pastries and a cake sat untouched. The sight was surreal—a celebration of life in this countryside of death.

  “What church is this?” Karadzic asked.

  “Anglican,” the priest said.

  Karadzic glanced at his men, then faced the church. “I’ve never heard of this church.”

  A homely-looking girl in a pink dress suddenly stood from her mother’s arms and walked awkwardly toward the table adorned with pastries. She hobbled.

  Karadzic ignored her and twisted his fingers around the barrel of his rifle, tapping its butt on the stone. “Why is this church still standing?”

  No one answered. Janjic watched the little girl place a golden brown pastry on a napkin.

  “You can’t speak?” Karadzic demanded. “Every church for a hundred kilometers is burned to the ground, but yours is untouched. And it makes me think that maybe you’ve been sleeping with the Ustashe.”

  “God has granted us favor,” the priest said.

  The commander paused. His lips twitched with a slight grin. A bead of sweat broke from the large man’s forehead and ran down his flat cheek. “God has granted you favor? He’s flown out of the sky and built an invisible shield over this valley to keep the bullets out, is that it?” His lips flattened. “God has allowed every Orthodox church in Yugoslavia to burn to the ground. And yet yours is standing.”

  Janjic watched the child limp toward a spring that gurgled in the corner and dip a mug into its waters. No one seemed to pay her any attention except the woman she had left on the steps, probably her mother.

  Paul spoke quietly. “They’re Anglican, not Franciscans or Catholics. I know Anglicans. Good Serbs.”

  “What does a Jew know about good Serbs?”

  “I’m only telling you what I’ve heard,” Paul said with a shrug.

  The girl in the pink dress approached, carrying the mug of cold water in one hand and the pastry in the other. She stopped three feet from Karadzic and lifted the food to him. None of the villagers moved.

  Karadzic ignored her. “And if your God is my God, why doesn’t he protect my church? The Orthodox church?”

  The priest smiled gently, still staring without blinking, hunched over on the steps.

  “I’m asking you a question, Priest,” Karadzic said.

  “I can’t speak for God,” the priest said. “Perhaps you should ask him. We’re God-loving people with no quarrel. But I cannot speak for God on all matters.”

  The small girl lifted the pastry and water higher. Karadzic’s eyes took on that menacing stare Janjic had seen so many times before.

  Janjic moved on impulse. He stepped up to the girl and smiled. “You’re very kind,” he said.“Only a good Serb would offer bread and water to a tired and hungry Partisan soldier.” He reached for the pastry and took it. “Thank you.”

  A dozen children scrambled from the stairs and ran to the table, arguing about who was to be first. They quickly gathered up food to follow the young girl’s example and then rushed for the soldiers, pastries in hand. Janjic was struck by their innocence. This was just another game to them. The sudden turn of events had effectively silenced Karadzic, but Janjic couldn’t look at the commander. If Molosov and the others didn’t follow his cue, there would be a price to pay later—this he knew with certainty.

  “My name’s Nadia,” the young girl said, looking up at Janjic. “It’s my birthday today. I’m thirteen years old.”

  Ordinarily Janjic would have answered the girl—told her what a brave thirteen-year-old she was, but today his mind was on his comrades. Several children now swarmed around Paul and Puzup, and Janjic saw with relief that they were accepting the pastries. With smiles in fact.

  “We could use the food, sir,”Molos
ov said.

  Karadzic snatched up his hand to silence the second in command. Nadia held the cup in her hand toward him. Once again every eye turned to the commander, begging him to show some mercy. Karadzic suddenly scowled and slapped the cup aside. It clattered to the stone in a shower of water. The children froze.

  Karadzic brushed angrily past Nadia. She backpedaled and fell to her bottom. The commander stormed over to the birthday table and kicked his boot against the leading edge. The entire birthday display rose into the air and crashed onto the ground.

  Nadia scrambled to her feet and limped toward her mother, who drew her in. The other children scampered for the steps.

  Karadzic turned to them, his face red. “Now do I have your attention?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  EVE PAUSED and closed her eyes. She could hear the commander’s voice as though he were still alive, as alive as the day she had watched him with the rest.

  She pursed her lips angrily, mimicking him. “Now do I have your attention?”

  For years she told herself that they should have made the children leave then. Run back to the houses. But they hadn’t. More recently she discovered the reason for that.

  Reliving that day was never pleasant, but always it brought her an uncanny strength and a deep-seated peace. And more important, not to remember—indeed, not to participate again and again—would make a mockery of it. “Take this in remembrance of me,” Christ had said. Participate in the suffering of Christ, Paul had said.

  And yet so many Americans turned forgetting into a kind of spiritual badge, refusing to memorialize suffering for fear they might catch it like a disease. Indeed, they stripped Christ of his dignity by ignoring the brutality of his death. The choice was no different than turning away from a puffy-faced leper in horror. The epitome of rejection.

  How many had closed this book here and returned to their knitting in a huff? Perhaps to knit nice soft crosses for their grandchildren.

  It occurred to Eve that every muscle in her body had tensed.

  She opened her eyes. Marci sat with a fixed stare.

  “I’m sorry. Where were we?” She cleared her throat. “That’s right, ‘Do I have your attention?’”

  “I’m not sure I like this story,” Marci said. “Something’s going to happen.”

  “It’s not your business to like this story. It’s your business to find out who you are in the story. And you’re right. Something is going to happen, and it’s going to happen to you if you’ll let it.

  There is a power in this story!”

  “It’s just a story. Nothing magical or—”

  “Not just a story! And who said anything about magic?” Eve said. “This is far more powerful than any magic. When you know who you are in the story, it will begin.”

  Marci’s eyes grew slightly rounder. If the girl only knew.

  Eve lifted the book and read.

  “NOW DO I have your attention?”

  Father Michael’s heart seemed to stick midstroke. He mumbled his prayer now, loudly enough for the women nearest him to hear.

  “Protect your children, Father.”

  The leader was possessed of the devil. Michael had known so from the moment the big man had entered the courtyard. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

  He barely heard the flutter of wings to his right. The dove had taken flight. The commander glared at him. Now do I have your attention?

  The dove’s wings beat through the air. Yes, you have my attention, Commander. You had my attention before you began this insanity. But he did not say it because the dove had stopped above him and was flapping noisily. The commander’s eyes rose to the bird. Michael leaned back to compensate for his humped back and looked up.

  In that moment, the world fell to a silent slow motion.

  Michael could see the commander standing, legs spread. Above him, the white dove swept gracefully at the air, fanning a slight wind to him, like an angel breathing five feet above his head.

  The breath moved through his hair, through his beard, cool at first, and then suddenly warm. High above the dove, a hole appeared in the clouds, allowing the sun to send its rays of warmth. Michael could see that the ravens still circled, more of them now— seven or eight.

  This he saw in that first glance, as the world slowed to a crawl. Then he felt the music on the wind. At least that was how he thought of it, because the music didn’t sound in his ears, but in his mind and in his chest.

  Though only a few notes, they spread an uncanny warmth. A whisper that seemed to say, “My beloved.”

  Just that. Just, My beloved. The warmth suddenly rushed through him like water, past his loins, right down to the soles of his feet.

  Father Michael gasped.

  The dove took flight.

  A chill of delight rippled up his back. Goodness! Nothing even remotely similar had happened to him in all of his years. My beloved. Like the anointing of Jesus at his baptism. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

  He’d always taught that Christ’s power is as real for the believer today as it was two thousand years earlier.

  Now Michael had heard these words of love. My beloved! God was going to protect them.

  It occurred to him that he was still bent back awkwardly and that his mouth had fallen open, like a man who’d been shot. He clamped it shut and jerked forward.

  The rest hadn’t heard the voice. Their eyes were on him, not on the dove, which had landed on the nearest roof—Sister Flauta’s house, surrounded by those red rosebushes. The flowers’ scent, thick and sweet, reached up into his sinuses. Which was odd. He should be fighting a panic just now, terrified of these men with guns. Instead his mind was taking time to smell Sister Flauta’s rosebushes. And pausing to hear the watery gurgle of the spring to his left.

  A dumb grin lifted the corners of his mouth. He knew it was dumb because he had no business facing this monster before him wearing a snappy little grin. But he could hardly control it, and he quickly lifted a hand to cover his mouth. He supposed the gesture must look like a child hiding a giggle. It would infuriate the man.

  And so it did.

  “Wipe that idiotic grin off your face!”

  The commander strode toward him. Except for the ravens cawing overhead and the spring’s insistent gurgle, Father Michael could only hear his own heart, pounding like a boot against a hollow drum. His head still buzzed from the dove’s words, but another thought slowly took form in his mind. It was the realization that he’d heard the music for a reason. It wasn’t every day, or even every year, that heaven reached down so deliberately to a man.

  Karadzic stopped and glared at the women and children. “So. You claim to be people of faith?”

  He asked as if he expected an answer. Ivena looked at Father Michael.

  “Are you all mutes?” Karadzic demanded, red faced.

  Still no one spoke.

  Karadzic planted his legs far apart. “No. I don’t think you are people of faith. I think that your God has abandoned you, perhaps when you and your murdering priests burned the Orthodox church in Glina after stuffing a thousand women and children into it.”

  Karadzic’s lips twisted around the words. “Perhaps the smell of their charred bodies rose to the heavens and sent your God to hell.”

  “It was a horrible massacre,” Father Michael heard himself say. “But it wasn’t us, my friend. We abhor the brutality of the Ustashe. No God-fearing man could possibly take the life of another with such cruelty.”

  “I shot a man in the knees just a week ago before killing him. It was quite brutal. Are you saying that I am not a God-fearing man?”

  “I believe that God loves all men, Commander. Me no more than you.”

  “Shut up! You sit back in your fancy church, singing pretty songs of love, while your men roam the countryside seeking a Serb to cut open.”

  “If you were to search the battlefields, you would find our men stitching up the
wounds of soldiers, not killing them.”

  Karadzic squinted briefly at the claim. For a moment he just stared. He suddenly smiled, but it wasn’t a kind smile.

  “Then surely true faith can be proven.” He spun to one of the soldiers.“Molosov, bring me one of the crosses from the graveyard.”

  The soldier looked at his commander with a raised brow.

  “Are you deaf? Bring me a gravestone.”

  “They’re in the ground, sir.”

  “Then pull it out of the ground!”

  “Yes, sir.” Molosov jogged across the courtyard and into the adjacent cemetery.

  Father Michael watched the soldier kick at the nearest headstone, a cross like all the others, two feet in height, made of concrete. He knew the name of the deceased well. It was that of old man Haris Zecavic, planted in the ground over twenty years ago.

  “What’s the teaching of your Christ?”

  Michael looked back at Karadzic, who still wore a twisted grin.

  “Hmm? Carry your cross?” Karadzic said. “Isn’t that what your God commanded you to do? ‘Pick up your cross and follow me’?”

  “Yes.”

  Molosov hauled the cross he’d freed into the courtyard. The villagers watched, stunned.

  Karadzic gestured at them with his rifle. “Exactly. As you see, I’m not as stupid in matters of faith as you think. My own mother was a devout Christian. Then again, she was also a whore, which is why I know that not all Christians are necessarily right in the head.”

  The soldier dropped the stone at Karadzic’s feet. It landed with a loud thunk and toppled flat. One of the women made a squeaking sound—Marie Zecavic, the old man’s thirty-year-old daughter, mourning the destruction of her father’s grave, possibly. The commander glanced at Marie.

  “We’re in luck today,” Karadzic said, keeping his eyes on Marie.

  “Today we actually have a cross for you to bear. We will give you an opportunity to prove your faith. Come here.”

  Marie had a knuckle in her mouth, biting off her cry. She looked up with fear-fired eyes.

  “Yes, you. Come here, please.”