Chapter 4: d
The morning dawned cold and brittle. Vanja dressed quickly in the same clothes from the day before—dark trousers, a thick sweater—her mind still echoing with the revelations of the night. The house was silent, holding its breath. Downstairs, Bahri was already in the kitchen, staring into a cup of coffee as if it held answers. He didn’t look up when she entered.
“We’re going,” he said, his voice flat. “To Adem’s. Today.”
Vanja nodded, pouring her own coffee. The liquid was bitter and strong. “Leona?”
“Staying. To… prepare.” He finally looked at her, his eyes guarded, the openness from the night before sealed shut behind a wall of opaque duty. “You will speak when spoken to. You will not volunteer information. You are there to see your family connection, nothing more.”
“I understand the script,” Vanja said.
He stood abruptly, the chair legs scraping harshly against the tile. “Do you?”
They drove in a silence so complete it felt like a third passenger. Bahri navigated the winding mountain roads with a fierce, focused intensity, his jaw clenched. The scenery shifted from the relative gentility of the estate’s vineyards to rougher, more remote terrain. Forest thickened. Houses became fewer, more fortified. The sky was a slab of low, grey cloud.
The first checkpoint appeared around a blind bend—a makeshift barricade of felled trees and an old tractor. Two young men, barely older than boys, emerged from a lean-to shelter, Kalashnikovs slung loosely over their shoulders. Their faces were pale, their eyes wide with a adrenaline-fueled vigilance.
Bahri rolled the Mercedes to a stop and wound down the window. The cold air rushed in.
“Kush je?” one of them asked, his voice cracking. Who are you?
“Bahri Nika. I’m expected by Adem.”
The name worked like a password. The boy nodded, his gaze sliding to Vanja. Suspicion flickered there, raw and untempered. “And her?”
“She is with me,” Bahri said, his tone leaving no room for further questions. He didn’t offer her name. He didn’t explain.
The boy hesitated, then waved them through. They lifted the wooden pole blocking the road. As they drove past, Vanja saw the second boy wasn’t looking at them at all. He was staring up the road the way they had come, his knuckles white on his rifle stock.
They encountered two more checkpoints in the next fifteen kilometers. Each one was tighter, tenser. The men were older, their movements sharper. They recognized Bahri, but their scrutiny of Vanja intensified. At the third, a man with a scar across his eyebrow leaned into Bahri’s window, his eyes locking onto Vanja’s.
“The Serbian,” he stated.
“She is under Adem’s protection,” Bahri replied, his voice steady but his hands tight on the wheel.
The man spat on the ground, a thick glob of phlegm sinking into the mud. “Tell him the eastern ridge is quiet. For now.” He stepped back, his expression dark. “Drive.”
The car rolled forward, the tension coiling tighter in the confined space. The silence had become a physical thing, pressing against Vanja’s eardrums.
“Talk to me,” she said finally, her voice too loud in the quiet car.
“What is there to say?” he asked, his words sharp, in Albanian.
She switched to match him. “I’m sorry. It’s… complicated. Our history.”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Your great-grandmother is Adem’s father’s sister. I know. You made sure everyone knew.”
“That’s not why I said it,” she said, her throat tight. “I said it so he wouldn’t see me as just… the other side. So he’d listen.”
“And did he? Listen?”
“He told you to keep me here. He told you to get me to Tirana after. That’s listening.”
Bahri’s knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel. “It’s a complication I don’t need. A variable I can’t control.”
“You don’t have to control me.”
“That,” he said, glancing at her, his eyes blazing, “is becoming abundantly clear.”
They were climbing higher now, the road deteriorating into a rocky track. The forest closed in, skeletal winter branches scratching at the car’s paint like bony fingers.
“Bahri, please,” she said, her voice quieter now, stripped of its defensive edge.
He didn’t answer. He just drove, his profile a hard line against the grey light.
Suddenly, he wrenched the steering wheel to the right, pulling the car onto a rough, overgrown layby barely more than a dent in the tree line. He killed the engine. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the ticking of the cooling metal and the distant caw of a crow.
“What?” Vanja asked, her heart thudding. “We have twenty minutes till we get there.”
He stared straight ahead, through the windshield at the dense, grey woods. “Thank you,” he said, the words stiff. “For doing this. For coming.”
She looked at him. He wasn’t looking at her. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.” He finally turned his head. The anger was gone, replaced by a profound, weary confusion. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand why you’re here, why you’re… like this. Why you kissed me last night.”
“Look at me,” she said softly.
He didn’t.
She reached out, her movements slow, and gently touched his cheek. His skin was cold, the stubble rough under her fingers. He flinched, but didn’t pull away. His eyes slid shut for a second, a betraying flicker of vulnerability.
Then she unbuckled her seatbelt with a sharp click.
His eyes flew open. “What are you doing?”
“I’m making you look,” she whispered, her voice rough. “I’m making you listen.”
In the confined space, it was an awkward, deliberate move. She shifted across the center console, her knees bumping against the gear stick. He sat frozen as she maneuvered herself, half-kneeling, half-sitting, facing him in the driver’s seat. Their faces were inches apart. She could see the fine lines of exhaustion around his eyes, the flecks of darker gold in the green.
“The children have to get out,” she said, her words a breath against his lips. “Lulzim’s. Adem’s. It’s a matter of time now.”
He was staring now, truly looking. His breath hitched. “Vanja…”
“And of course you won’t be there,” she continued, her hand moving from his cheek to the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the hair at his nape. “Not when it happens. Not until it’s over. Adem knows it. Someone has to lead what comes after.”
His control snapped. A low sound escaped him, part frustration, part surrender. He was already hard; she could feel the tense ridge of him against her thigh as she settled her weight. He kissed her then, or she kissed him—it was impossible to tell where the impulse began. It wasn’t like the desperate, angry kiss in the storage room. This was slower, deeper, a devastating exploration. His hands came up to cradle her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones. He tasted of coffee and something uniquely, essentially him—wild thyme and cold air.
She pulled back just enough to speak, their lips still brushing. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, not sure what she was apologizing for—the deception, the complication, the unbearable need.
“Don’t,” he murmured, his voice a rough vibration against her mouth. He kissed her again, a claiming, aching press. One of his hands slid down her back, over her hip, pulling her tighter against him. The world narrowed to the warm cave of the car, the scent of him, the shared, frantic heat.
Then, with a force that seemed to cost him everything, he broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged. “We can’t,” he said, the words choked. “Not here. Not now.”
“I know,” she said, her own breath coming in short gasps. She stayed there for another second, feeling the frantic drum of his heart under her palm. Then, with immense effort, she extracted herself, climbing back into the passenger seat. Her body felt charged, hyper-aware.
He sat back, adjusting himself with a grimace, running both hands over his face. He looked shattered.
“Now,” Vanja said, buckling her seatbelt again, her voice surprisingly steady, “drive me to my uncle’s house.”
He started the engine without a word. The car rolled back onto the track. Neither spoke for the rest of the journey. The air between them was different now, saturated with what had almost happened, with the fragile, terrifying understanding that had passed in that raw silence.
The house wasn’t a house. It was a compound, a cluster of low, stone-built structures hunched against the mountainside, fortified with sandbags and sheets of corrugated iron. Armed men were everywhere, moving with a quiet, purposeful energy. They watched the Mercedes approach, their expressions unreadable. 3 big family houses in the middle.
Bahri parked beside a muddy Land Rover. He turned to her, the commander’s mask back in place, but it was fissured now, thin cracks visible in the hard glaze. “Remember. Speak when spoken to.”
“I remember,” she said, and opened her door.
The cold hit her like a slap. As she stepped out, a figure emerged from the largest building—not Adem, but Lulzim. His face, which had been pale with fear the night before, was now set in a mask of grim resolve. He walked up to Bahri, nodded tersely, then his eyes found Vanja.
He came close, so close she could smell the woodsmoke on his jacket. He pressed a small, folded square of paper into her hand, his movements quick and furtive. His voice was a bare whisper. “The names. Their mothers’. My wife’s cousin in Tirana. The address.” His eyes pleaded with her. “Please.”
Before she could reply, he was gone, melting back into the flow of men. Vanja closed her fist around the paper, feeling its sharp edges bite into her palm. She looked at Bahri. He had seen the exchange. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek.
“Let’s go,” he said, and led her toward the door where Adem Jashari waited, watching them come, his face as inscrutable as the mountain behind him.
The main room was warm, hazy with woodsmoke and the smell of strong tobacco. It was a rustic kitchen, dominated by a large stone hearth where a low fire glowed. Adem stood by a rough-hewn table, flanked by an older man who shared his stormy eyes and a woman whose hands were white-knuckled around a porcelain cup.
Bahri gave a slight, respectful nod. “Adem. Rafet.”
The older brother, Rafet, scrutinized Vanja with a gaze that felt like a physical weight. His voice was gravel and skepticism. “This is the one? She is just a girl.”
“She is my blood,” Adem stated, his tone leaving no room for debate. He gestured for them to sit.
Vanja remained standing, feeling the damp, folded paper in her palm like a live coal. “Lulzim gave me the names,” she said, her Albanian clear in the quiet room. “I have the address in Tirana.”
Adem’s wife, a woman with tired eyes and a severe bun, set her cup down with a sharp click. “You are going to give her all of the kids?” she asked, her voice trembling between fear and disbelief.
“I trust her,” Adem said, his eyes never leaving Vanja. “She is family. She cares about them.”
“This is crazy,” his wife whispered, her hands now twisting in her lap.
“Yes,” Adem agreed, a profound resignation in the single word. He looked from his wife to his brother. “But she is right. They will come for us. It is not a question of if. Only when.”
The finality in the room thickened. Rafet looked at the fire, his jaw working. He gave one slow, heavy nod. The decision was made.
The next hour was a blur of quiet, efficient chaos. Five small children were bundled into thick coats, their faces solemn and confused. Two belonged to Adem—a boy of four who didn’t speak and a girl of six who held his leg until he peeled her off gently. The other three were Lulzim’s, the youngest a toddler carried by a teenage cousin with red-rimmed eyes. They were given small bags, a few cherished toys poking from the tops.
“Your mother’s grandma in Podujevo,” Adem said to Vanja as she helped the little girl with a button. “She would tell us the old story of the siege. The one where they sent the children out through the tunnels with the shepherds.”
Vanja nodded, her throat tight. “I remember the story.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder, a brief, heavy weight. “You know what this is, then.”
“Yes,” she smiled sadly. “Another time. Another sacrifice.”
He nodded, his own eyes glistening for a fleeting second. He pulled her into a rough, brief hug that smelled of wool and gun oil and woodsmoke. “I probably won’t see you again,” he murmured into her hair.
“Take care,” he said, pulling back to look at her, then at Bahri who stood watch by the door. “Of you. Of the children.” He held Bahri’s gaze. “Of him.”
Bahri stepped forward. “Thank you, Adem.”
“We will talk again,” Adem said, gripping Bahri’s forearm. “But please. Make sure she is alright.”
“I will,” Bahri said, his voice low and certain. “At all times.”
The drive back was a silent vigil. The Mercedes was filled with the soft, uneven sounds of children’s breathing. The checkpoint guards saw the small faces in the back and wordlessly moved the barriers, their expressions grim. The toddler slept on Vanja’s lap, her head a warm weight. The little girl, Adem’s daughter, held Vanja’s hand the entire way, her grip tight and trusting.
By the time they reached Bahri’s estate, all five children were asleep, limp with exhaustion. Leona was waiting on the steps, her hand over her mouth. She moved quickly, ushering them inside, her voice a soft murmur as she guided the dazed, sleepy forms up to the prepared rooms.
Together, she and Vanja tucked them into borrowed beds. They moved like ghosts, smoothing hair, pulling up blankets. The house, once so empty, now hummed with the fragile rhythm of their sleeping breaths.
Vanja closed the last bedroom door softly. The hallway was dark. Light spilled from under Bahri’s door.
She walked to her room first, stripping off the day’s clothes, feeling the grime and fear seep from her skin under a shower that was barely warm. She toweled her hair, letting it fall damp down her back. She put on the white silk robe she’d packed, a relic of a different life. It felt alien against her skin now.
She didn’t knock. She simply turned the handle and entered his room.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, still fully dressed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. He looked up as she entered. The sight of her—the dark blond hair plastered to her neck, the white silk clinging to the curves of her body in the low light—made him suck in a quiet, sharp breath. It was a sound of reverence, of seeing something precious and terrifying.
She crossed the room and stood before him. He didn’t move. She leaned down and kissed him. It was not like the frantic kisses in the car. This was slow, deliberate, a question and an answer. He responded with a shuddering intensity, his hands coming up to her hips, pulling her to stand between his knees.
They made love with a desperate, wordless tenderness. It was not rushed, but it was deep, an anchor in the collapsing world. It was him washing the scent of gunpowder from her skin with his mouth, and her mapping the scar on his side with her fingertips. It was the silent communion of two people who had seen the same abyss that day.
Afterward, they lay tangled in the quiet dark. He traced the line of her spine, his touch wonderous.
“I didn’t know you were a virgin,” he said softly, his voice thick with something like regret. “You should have told me.”
“I was a virgin,” she whispered, a faint, tired smile in her voice. She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. “You made sure I’m not any longer.”
He let out a soft, incredulous laugh, then kissed her shoulder, his lips warm. He pulled her body tighter into his, as if trying to erase any space between them. “Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice muffled against her skin.
“A little,” she admitted. “It doesn’t matter.”
They lay in silence for a long time, listening to the unfamiliar creaks of the old house, now punctuated by a child’s distant sigh from down the hall. The responsibility of it lay over them, a heavier blanket than the one they shared.
“What was the story?” Bahri asked into the darkness. “The one you and Adem remembered.”
Vanja watched the shadow of a tree branch play on the ceiling. “A siege. Centuries ago. The city was going to fall. So they sent the children out, hidden in flocks of sheep, guided by shepherds who knew the mountain paths. To save the seed of the place.” She paused. “Most of the adults died. The children lived.”
Bahri’s arm tightened around her. “We are not at siege yet.”
“He thinks we are.” Vanja shifted to face him. His features were soft in the gloom. “You know he’s right. Today proved it. They’re coming.”
He didn’t deny it. He brushed a damp strand of hair from her cheek. “And you? Will you go to Tirana with the children? When the time comes?”
“Is that an order?” she asked, her tone gentle.
“A request,” he said. “A desperate one.”
From down the hall, one of the children cried out in their sleep—a short, sharp sound of fear. Vanja started to rise, but Bahri’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Leona will go,” he murmured.
Sure enough, they heard the soft pad of footsteps, a door opening, a murmured reassurance. The house was already adapting, forming a new, fragile ecosystem.
Vanja settled back against him. “I’m not just the seed that needs saving, Bahri.”
“I know,” he sighed, the words a warm exhalation against her temple. “But you are the only one I want to save.”
“But you are the only one I want to save.”
The words hung in the dark, a promise he couldn’t possibly keep. Vanja didn’t answer. She just pressed herself closer, her nose against his throat, breathing him in. They slept fitfully, tangled together, waking at every unfamiliar sound from the hall. The house was a cradle now, holding five tiny, stolen futures.
The next week was a taut wire of logistics and muted fear. Using the name and address Lulzim had pressed into her hand, Vanja made a single, static-crackled phone call to Tirana. A woman’s voice, sharp with worry, agreed to everything. Leona packed small suitcases with a pragmatism that broke Vanja’s heart. She included photographs, a handful of soil from the garden in a cloth pouch, a silver teaspoon from the house.
“So they remember where it came from,” Leona said, her voice thick.
Bahri was gone most days, returning late with mud-spattered boots and a hollow look. He met with Adem, with others, but he never spoke of it. When Vanja asked, he’d just shake his head, his hand finding the small of her back, a silent plea for her to let it be. The world beyond the estate was crystallizing into a shape there was no coming back from.
The morning the children left, the sky was a pale, washed-out blue. Too quiet. A borrowed van with Tirana plates idled in the driveway. Leona herded the children, now strangely solemn, into the back seat. Adem’s little girl clung to Vanja’s leg again, her small face pressed into the rough wool of her trousers.
“You come?” the girl whispered in Albanian.
“Soon,” Vanja lied, smoothing her hair. “Be brave for your cousins.”
Leona hugged her brother fiercely, whispering rapid-fire words in his ear that made him close his eyes and nod. Then she turned to Vanja, her eyes streaming. “Thank you,” she said in German, the language of their private talks. “For seeing us. For not looking away.”
Then they were gone, the van disappearing in a cloud of dust and gravel. The silence they left behind was absolute. It was no longer the silence of an empty house, but of a vault. That evening, Lulzim arrived with his young wife, Elsa. She was a slight woman with enormous, frightened eyes, carrying a single bag. They said nothing. They just moved into a guest room, their presence a confirmation. The clock was ticking.
Two days later, the crackle of the old radio in the kitchen sharpened into a panicked stream of Albanian. Bahri was on his feet in an instant, his chair clattering to the floor. Vanja stood frozen by the sink, a wet glass in her hand. She didn’t need fluency to understand the tone, the repeated, snarled names: “Jashari. Prekaz.”
Bahri met her eyes across the room. All the color had drained from his face, leaving his features stark. “They’ve gone to the house,” he said, his voice utterly flat. “It’s started.”
The siege began.
The radio became a grotesque lifeline, spewing fragmented reports of an armored police column, of resistance, of a family refusing to surrender. Bahri paced like a caged animal, the phone ringing incessantly—calls from other units, from commanders, voices shouting through the receiver. He would bark coordinates, orders, his voice brittle with a fury he couldn’t unleash. He was here, not there. It was a specific, exquisite torture.
Vanja moved through the hours in a numb haze. She made food no one ate. She watched Elsa rock silently in a corner, her arms wrapped around herself. Lulzim stood sentry at a window, his face a stone mask.
When the first, dull thump of distant artillery echoed through the valley hours later, Vanja flinched as if struck. It was real. It was sound. Bahri’s head snapped toward the window, his body rigid. Another thump followed, then another, a sickening, irregular heartbeat.
Vanja turned and walked upstairs, her legs moving on their own. She entered their room—it was theirs now—and closed the door. She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall where a crack shaped like a lightning bolt ran through the plaster.
Then she cried. She cried for the children who would grow up fatherless. She cried for the wife who had chosen to stay. She cried for the stubborn old man, Adem, who was now a symbol burning in his own home. She cried for the sheer, stupid, wasteful inevitability of it all. She cried until her ribs ached and her eyes were swollen slits, the distant booms a terrible accompaniment.
It was dark when he finally came in. The shelling had stopped, leaving a silence more terrifying than the noise. He smelled of cigarette smoke and cold earth. He didn’t turn on the light. He just sat beside her on the bed, his weight causing the mattress to dip.
He pulled her to him. He didn’t try to kiss her or speak. He just wrapped his arms around her, his chin resting on the top of her head, and held on. Her face was a wet mess against his shirt. They stayed like that for a long time, two shapes merging in the darkness.
“They’re going to die,” she finally said, her voice ragged and raw.
She felt him nod, the movement slight against her head. “Yes.”
“We should’ve taken his wife. More people out. We just… left them.” The guilt was a physical nausea.
His arms tightened. “You did what you could. No one could have taken Adem’s wife. You know that.” He let out a long, shaky breath. “I wish you went with Leona. I wish you were in Tirana, safe. I wish it every second.”
She pulled back just enough to look at his shadowed face. “I couldn’t leave you,” she whispered. “Not now.”
He cupped her cheek, his thumb wiping at a fresh tear. “You don’t want this war,” he said, his voice low. “You are Serbian first. You love your people. I know you do.”
“Of course I do,” she said, the conflict tearing through her like shrapnel. “But I love my family, too. And I…”
“And you what, Vanja?” His voice was soft, urging.
“You know what.”
“No.” A faint, tired smile touched his lips, barely visible in the gloom. “Tell me.”
“You first,” she said, her heart hammering against her ribs.
He was silent for a moment, his thumb still stroking her skin. When he spoke, the Albanian words were simple, bare, and undeniable. “Te dua.” I love you.
She let out a shuddering breath, a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. “Good,” she managed. “Now you can’t die.”
He kissed her then, a kiss that tasted of salt and despair and a fierce, impossible hope. When he pulled away, his forehead rested against hers. “And yes,” she whispered into the space between them. “I love you. I have never been as worried, or as torn, in my whole life.”
From downstairs, they heard the distinct, metallic click of a rifle’s safety being switched off. Then another. The night was no longer quiet. It was listening. Bahri stood, pulling her up with him. He kept her hand in his as he moved to the window, peering out into the blackness.
“They won’t come here tonight,” he said, more to himself than to her. “They’re focused on Prekaz. they wont come here at all most likely but people will rebel, the war is now matter of time"
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. The siege had begun, and its shadow was already lengthening, reaching for them across the cold valley. Their time in the vault was over. The war was at the door.