Maglaj – pronounced Maglai – was nestled on either side of the river which had once flowed gently down the valley between the pine-covered hills rising to the west, north and east. Across the bridge, on the west side, was the new town with the shops and the school. On the east was the old quarter, its streets narrow and winding, the minaret of the mosque rising above the red-tiled roofs, and the cluster of more modern houses in the trees beyond.
She and Adin had come here eight years ago, after they both graduated from the University of Sarajevo, she in languages and he in chemistry. Until the conflict he had worked in the paper factory, just down the valley to the south of the new town, and she had taught in the school, on the northern edge. For three years they had dreamed of the day they would have a child, had almost despaired. Even now she remembered the morning the doctor had told her she was pregnant, even now she remembered how she had left school early and gone to the paper factory because she could not wait till evening for Adin to know.
The small-arms fire stopped, abruptly and without warning, and she froze, knew that the shelling was about to descend on them again, that she’d got it wrong. The rattle began again and she hurried on, her feet slipping on the ice which covered the bricks and the rubble, till she came to the last group of houses before the bridge.
The river was some seventy metres wide, and the bridge which spanned it rose slightly in the centre, so that from where she now stood she couldn’t see the other end. The people were huddled in a line in the shelter of the wall, thin and tired and cold like herself. Only one other with a child, and all carrying shiny tin pots with the lids firmly on.
She held the boy against her and stood at the end.
‘Sniper?’ she asked.
‘Sniper,’ the man at the front nodded. He was rocking backwards and forwards, as if gathering momentum, as if winding up his courage. As if the fraction of a second he would save when he launched himself from the cover of the building would save his life.
Don’t worry, she whispered to Jovan, soon we’ll have food.
Going in ten, the man told them.
Go with him, go with a group, and she might have cover. But go in a group and the sniper might take more notice. Go and she and the boy might die, don’t go and the boy would starve.
Going in five, the man in front muttered, perhaps to them all, perhaps just to himself.
Give the boy to someone else and offer to get their food for them, she thought. That way she might be killed but the boy would live. Except that if she made it across and couldn’t get back, if the snipers pinned them down or the artillery destroyed the bridge, then she might never see him again. Then she couldn’t protect him, feed him, make sure he at least survived.
Going in three, the man’s lips moved, no sound coming out. The morning was suddenly colder. Going in two.
It was almost time to move, Valeschov thought; he’d been in this position too long, any longer and the other side might spot him and send their own sniper to target him. In five minutes he’d pull back, skirt behind the trees to the other position, grab something warm on the way. The metal was almost frozen to the skin of his cheek and his finger was stiff with cold. He checked that the settings on the telescopic sight were as he had set them when he had zeroed the rifle two hours earlier, and settled again. No movement on the bridge for the past fifteen minutes anyway, so perhaps they weren’t crossing today. More likely they knew he was there, though, more likely they were gathered in a huddle in the shelter of the last building of the old town waiting for someone to be the first. He thought about pulling back his cuff and checking his watch, and decided it was too cold. Mid-morning, he knew anyway, feeding time at the refugee centre. Regular as clockwork. So someone would be breaking soon, because otherwise they wouldn’t eat.
Going in one, the man at the front said. The stubble on his face was grey and his coat was torn.
Go with him, she decided, but make sure she was to his left, use him as protection. Except that was why he was counting, because he was hoping someone would go with him, and if they did he would run to the left so that whoever went with him had to go to the right, between him and the sniper.
‘Now.’ He launched himself forward.
She was moving, the boy clasped tight to her left side and the pan in her right hand. She was past the others and alongside the man, then suddenly clear of the protection of the building, suddenly on the bridge.
To her right the man froze in fear.
Time for it, MacFarlane thought.
MacFarlane didn’t like it here. Okay, so the position gave them a good view across the bridge to Maglaj old town, and the building against which they’d parked was on the north side of the street and therefore protected them from incoming fire. But two, three times a day, sometimes more, it crucified MacFarlane to see the people crossing the bridge and being taken out by a sniper.
He pulled the parka tight against his light blue United Nations helmet, and checked the time. Eleven hundred hours, so everything should be quiet for the next four, except for the two or three shells they’d throw over round midday to keep everyone on their toes. The standard thirty artillery rounds this morning – he’d reported in as usual half an hour ago. Plus, he assumed, the usual thirty-five to forty this afternoon.
The jeep, parked in the lee of the houses, was white, with the letters UN distinctive on both sides as well as the bonnet, plus the words VOYNI PASMATRACI, Military Observer, on the front and back of the vehicle. There were four of them in the team: MacFarlane himself from Canada, Umbegi from Nigeria, Anderssen from Norway, and Belan from Belgium. They’d come in two days ago, when the various factions had agreed the ceasefire, been delayed slightly because the two sides had taken their time clearing the minefields from the road. Because Maglaj and Tesanj, fifteen kilometres away, were a so-called Muslim pocket isolated like an island in the Serb-held area to the north of the main front line. The sort of area the Serbs would seek to overrun prior to any final agreement.
And because there was a possibility of an agreement, there was another round of so-called peace negotiations under way in Vienna, and to give those negotiations a chance the two sides had declared a ceasefire. And as their contribution to the sham the United Nations was putting out its usual UN-speak. The situation in Maglaj remains at levels consistent with previous days. Except Maglaj was still under fire, but that was par for the course.
Perhaps the politicians were right, though. Perhaps another clutch of dead this morning didn’t matter any more, perhaps another handful of women and kids in the makeshift morgue this afternoon really was insignificant in the greater order of things.
Goddamn Bosnia.
In front of him the bridge stretched in a curve to the shattered remains of the old town; above him the sky cleared slightly. Christ it was cold, fifteen under and every sign of falling.
‘Cigarette?’ The Nigerian offered him a Winston.
‘Here goes.’ It was Anderssen, the Norwegian.
MacFarlane saw the figure on the bridge, the head first as the figure came up the slight curve, then the shoulders, then the body.
The woman was tucked low and running hard, the scarf round her head was coming loose and the food can was flapping in her right hand. Her feet were sliding slightly on the ice, so that she was off balance, and her left arm was clutched round something. ‘Christ.’ It was meant to be a thought but came out as an exclamation. ‘She’s carrying a kid.’ In her left arm, so that she was protecting it with her body. Sniper in position up to fifteen minutes ago, he remembered, please God may the bastard be taking a drink or moving position. Sometimes the men in the hills sprayed a machine gun arc across the bridge, sometimes a haphazard burst of rifle fire. Sometimes, if the man on duty was a pro, one single well-aimed shot. Then the figure would crumple and the bastard would wait