Part II pages 120-152
Arrow cannot come to terms with the prior day. She knows the sniper had to be there but why did he not take the shot?
Today she returns and sits where the cellist will play but it is not the same. Her mind wanders to a funeral she once attended and how ostentatious the mourners were, and how the funeral left her exhausted because it enraged her further against the men on the hills. There was also a fat man at the funeral and she could not understand how he was getting enough to eat.
As she was staring at the fat man, a shell came whistling and everyone collapsed in fear. When she poked her head up she could not see anyone else except the fat man and wondered where they’d all gone. She saw them climbing out of the open graves and firmly believed she would not let the men on the hills determine when she went into a grave.
At the cellist’s spot, she does not know why she thought of this. She looks at the window where she thinks the sniper is; it’s the perfect spot. But suddenly she knows deep down the sniper is watching her. He does not know who she is, but he could kill her if he wanted to. Chilled, she walks the other direction nonchalantly.
As she prepares later to return, she decides to give the sniper the benefit of the doubt that he is as good, if not better, than her. She did not report to Nermin last night so he obviously knows the sniper has not killed the cellist and she has not killed him, but she does not want to find out how it will feel to fail again.
The cellist arrives and begins to play. Arrow is caught up in the music again, but also confused that the sniper has not taken his shot yet. There is movement in the decoy apartment so she tries to look, which, to her horror, reveals her; she is caught in her own trap and the bullet is coming. She crouches and avoids the shot, and waits one to kill the cellist. That one does not come, though, and the cellist plays to the end and leaves. She is sure the sniper thinks she is dead, and she does not move.
She meets with Nermin, who hypothesizes several reasons for why the sniper did not shoot again. She does not utter her speculations. Nermin says he will put a man in the apartment in case the sniper comes looking for a body.
Nermin looks exhausted. He ventures to tell her the situation is uncertain and while he has made promises to her, he is not sure what the days ahead will hold. She nods, understanding. There are the people who will defend the city at all costs and those who feel like principles should not be abandoned, and “in the middle are the criminals” (130). The defenders matter as much as the attackers, or why bother saving Sarajevo?
Arrow sees that Nermin is in a precarious position because “the autonomy he has granted her does not fit in with the plans of those who are angling for power” (130). She is a liability to him. She asks if she is in danger and he smiles and says of course she is, but she does not appreciate the joke so he changes his answer and says there is not much tolerance for tolerance right now.
The next morning Arrow does not go outside. She is becoming more frustrated by what she does not know, but she has a simple plan for the day—the sniper thinks she is dead and she knows she should be, so she will be safe in the apartment where she was. She does switch windows in the same apartment, which is what she knows she should have done first, and that bothers her.
The day passes. She wonders whether the men on the hills hate her or just the idea of her, but Sarajevo never used to be like that. It stuns her to think she hates the men on the hills as a group, not just for their actions.
The requisite time arrives and with it the cellist. The sniper is there too, Arrow notices. It is actually easy to spot him. She prepares to shoot when she notices his hand is not even in the vicinity of the trigger. In fact, he is listening to the cellist. This makes her feel a heavy, slow kind of sadness. The music is nearly over and still the sniper has not taken the shot. Arrow can even see that his eyes are closed. She knows “she does not want to kill this man . . . [but] she must” (135). The man opens his eyes and smiles. At this second, a bullet passes through his head and he falls from sight. The cellist finishes.
The brewery is damaged but the springs are deep under the surface. About a hundred people are in line for water, which is fewer than normal so Kenan is pleased. People move quickly, not wanting to linger.
It is Kenan’s turn and he wonders, as usual, why there isn’t a valve to turn off the precious resource so the time between people does not waste water. He fills up his canisters and Mrs. Ristovski’s.
Kenan hears the whistle of an incoming shell and he realizes it will fall near him and he has no idea where to go. He hears the loudest sound he’s ever heard in his life and is thrown to the ground. His ears are ringing as a second shell detonates. He is lying on the ground wondering if he is wounded, or maybe dead. His limbs do not seem to work, but then he starts moving them and sits up. He has peed himself, but his bottles are intact.
People are rushing around trying to save those who can be saved. Kenan sees a foot in front of him, and a woman clutching her leg, stunned to see there is no foot there. Two men come and pick her up and put her in a car. Other wounded people are taken away.
More sirens sound in the distance, followed by shells, and Kenan knows the men on the hills are firing on the ambulances. All around Kenan “people are screaming, running, shouting, moaning” (143) and trying to get away. Kenan notes there are three types of people: those who ran away when they heard the shells because their sense of self-preservation was stronger than altruism or civic duty; those who did not run and who want to help the wounded; and those who did not run or help, which is what Kenan does.
Kenan picks up his canisters as more bodies are being carted away. This is what happens, he thinks. Buildings and bridges and streetcars and roads are destroyed and the damage remains to be observed, but people are wounded and die and are taken away, which is “why the men on the hills are able to kill with impunity” (145). If the bodies remained and rotted in the streets, it might be a different story.
Carrying the bottles, Kenan is not sure of his route now. He decides to cross the Cumurija Bridge even though it might be more dangerous because he will have to cross steel girders and risk falling into the river, and he will have to take multiple trips with the water.
At one point in his walk he remembers a dog he saw at the brewery and wonders if he should go back to look for it, but he is paralyzed with fear and does not have what it takes. He moves on and finally comes to the bridge. A man is crossing from the other side so Kenan waits. He sets aside Mrs. Ristovski’s bottles for the second trip and once the other man is done, he starts his walk. He is slow and the canisters occasionally clank against him, filling him with irrational rage. He scrambles through the last part and falls to the ground in relief, uttering a cry that sounds like a “baby and an animal and an air-raid siren and a man knocked over by his own burden” (151). He is exhausted by his journey, by getting water; exhausted by this world he did not want and did not create.
Finally Kenan stands. He will keep going and he will soon be home.
Analysis
While Arrow, Dragan, and Kenan have different backgrounds and experiences, the siege of their city means that the three of them are each faced with decisions to make regarding who they want to be and how they want to survive.
To begin, Dragan witnessed Emina trying to cross the intersection, getting shot, and another man stepping in to save her. Dragan himself does nothing. It is as if he is paralyzed, for “he wants to go with the man, to help him and see if Emina can be saved. But his feet don’t move. Around him everyone is alive with a frenzied energy, but he hasn’t stirred an inch” (117). His senses are deadened—he cannot duck, he “doesn’t hear a sound” (119), and he “doesn’t remember picking [the hat of another man who crossed] up” (119). When a car comes to take Emina away, he “wants to go with them, but they’re already gone” (157). Dragan doesn’t stay in this state long, however; he starts thinking about what happened and what it means for and about him. It is not a simple situation, and Galloway does not condemn Dragan for doing nothing. It is an impossible life he is leading, and he wants to continue living it. He realizes “what makes the difference . . . is whether you want to stay in the world you live in. because while he will always be afraid of death, and nothing can change that, the question is whether your life is worth that fear. Do you face the terror that must come with knowing you’re about to die for the sake of one last glimpse of life? Dragan is surprised to find his answer is yes” (158). And while “he knows he should have tried to help Emina” (160) he is “comfortable calling himself a coward. He isn’t built for war. He doesn’t want to be built for war” (160). He briefly considers abandoning the trip to the bakery but doesn’t, and spends a few minutes imagining what it would be like to escape to Italy before he accepts the fact that he does not want to leave Sarajevo. Furthermore, he still has “hope that one day he will be able to walk openly down the street with his wife and son, sit in a restaurant and eat a meal, browse the windows of shops, free from the men with guns” (164).
Kenan has a similar situation. He arrives at the brewery to procure the necessary water, and experiences a terrifying shelling. After the danger passes, he realizes that there are three types of people: “those who ran away as soon as the shells fell, their instinct for self-preservation stronger than their sense of altruism or civic duty. Then there are those who didn’t run, who are covered in the blood of the wounded . . . Then there’s the third type, the group Kenan falls into. They stand, mouths gaping, and watch as others run or help” (144). Kenan knows he is in the third group though he wishes he was in the second. He continues with his task, but he berates himself for not helping a man back at the brewery who was looking for his dog. He knows “he simply doesn’t have what it takes to go back” and “Shame soaks through him. all he wants now is to go home and crawl into bed” (148). However, Kenan does not give up. He decides to cross a perilous bridge rather than waste hours in a detour, continues to haul Mrs. Ristovski’s bottles even though the temptation is great to leave them behind, and indulges his despair and fatigue briefly but keeps going. These actions are not public, grand, or memorable, but they are heroic nonetheless. Kenan is a regular man living through an insane situation, and these small acts and thoughts are powerful forms of resistance.
Arrow has a much more atypical journey than the two men, but she still struggles to come to terms with what she has to do, what she wants to do, and who she wants to be. After surviving the other sniper’s attack, she is able to pursue him undetected. What she sees surprises her—he is raptly listening to the music, unable to bring himself the kill the cellist as of yet. Arrow feels a deep sadness, a “heavy, slow kind of sad, the sort that does not bring you to tears but makes you feel like crying. It is, she thinks, the worst feeling there could be” (135). She realizes that first, “she does not want to kill this man, and . . . second . . . she must” (135). She ultimately fires and kills him, protecting the cellist and fulfilling her obligation. This is the hardest choice, and Galloway does not stoop to cliché by having, say, Arrow bond with the other sniper and convince him to spare the cellist’s life. There are hard choices to be made and sometimes the line between right and wrong is unclear. Arrow knows inaction is impossible, and she is doing the best she can under the circumstances to be able to confront herself once the war is over and be okay with who she is.
