Helen stopped. This was it. She stood alone on the asphalt and faced the ten-story blackened building. Gray cement towered on either side, chipped and pocked by years of abuse and war. The sound of water trickled faintly along the curb, sewer water by the musty smell. She took a hesitant step forward and then stopped again.
Thirty meters ahead a flag waved above a large door; a dirtied white flag with a black object on either side, but she couldn't make out the shapes at this distance. She took a breath to still a tremor that ran through her bones, and she walked forward.
You have to turn around, Helen. You've had your walk. It's time to go home and prepare the evening meal. Go and let Jan hold you. He'll do that, you know. He will hold you and he will love you.
Her feet ignored the plea and stepped forward.
If night had not fallen over the rest of Sarajevo yet, it had come here first. She wondered absently if this was how it felt to walk into your own grave. Other than the trickle of sewer water the night lay still. Perhaps she'd gotten it wrong.
A chill suddenly streaked down her spine. The markings on the flag were skulls, she saw. Black skulls waving in the breeze. A human form clothed in dark wool lay in the gutter to her right, evidently dead to the world. Helen stopped for the third time, blinking against the warning bells that rang in her head. Another body was propped in the far corner, barely visible.
Helen stood before the metal door and stared at the brown paint, peeling like scabs from a rusted surface. A throbbing beat came from deep within the building, barely audible, but somehow comforting.
You aren't walking any longer, Helen. Now you're going in. That wasn't the deal
.
She reached a trembling hand forward and pushed gently on the door.
Do you want to fly, baby?
The door swung in quickly, startling her. But it had not given on its ownâa man stood in the shadows looking at her with dark eyes. At first he said nothing, and then, “Who invited you?”
“A . . . Anton,” Helen said.
A faint smile crossed the man's face. “Yes, of course. Who else would find such a beautiful woman. You know what we do here?”
Helen's heart skipped a beat.
Do you want to fly? Or do you want to die? We do both here.
“Yes,” she said, but her voice held a tremor.
“Then follow me.” The man turned and walked into the building. Helen crossed the threshold, her mind screaming foul. But still her legs seemed to control her movements, as if they possessed a mind of their own. That was foolishness, of course; she was telling her legs to move because she wanted desperately to move forward. Into this dungeon.
The hall was very dim, dressed in the same peeling paint that covered the outer door. They passed several limp bodies, strung out on the floor. He led her into a stairwell where he stepped aside and pointed down a flight of steps. Helen glanced up the stairs that ascended to her right, but he stabbed his index finger into the darkness below.
“Down,” he said.
She swallowed and began her descent. The door banged behind her and she turned to see that the man had left her. She was alone, surrounded by silence. A dull consistent thump came from the wallsâthe sound of heavy pulsating music. Or the sound of her heart.
She lowered her foot to the next step, and then the next, until the steps ended in a landing before another door. She knew at a glance that the heart of the building lay here. Anton was here, beyond this fortified entry, sealed into thick concrete. A small window on the door grated open, exposed a pair of bloodshot eyes for a couple of seconds, and then snapped shut. The door swung in.
This is it, Helen. If you enter now you won't be able to make it back in time to peel the potatoes.
She stepped inside and stopped.
Helen stood in a tunnel roughly hewn from the rock beyond the building. Red and amber bulbs strung along the ceiling not three feet over her head cast an eerie light down the passage. Wet concrete ran underfoot, curving to the right twenty feet ahead. The dusty odor of mildew mixed with the smell of burning hair filled her nose. Her senses tingled with anticipation.
“Hello, Helen.”
She spun to her right where another smaller tunnel gaped in the shadows. The man who called himself Anton stepped from the dark, smiling with a square jaw. He wore a black robe over the white shirt now, like some kind of vampire. The orange light glinted off his round eyes.
“I did not expect you to come so quickly.” He reached a hand out to her. Behind him, tiny feet scurried along the tunnel. Rats. The tinkle of water was louder here too, she noted. That sewer water was making its way down somehow.
Helen hesitated and then took his hand.
He chuckled and the sound of his voice carried down the hall. “I promise you that I will not disappoint you, my dear.” Anton kissed her hand with thick red lips. “Come.”
She walked forward on soles tingling numb. The sound of her own heart thumped with the faint music. He led her along the dimly lit passage to a door made of wood with heavy cross members. He gripped the wooden latch, winked at her, and shoved the door open. “After you, my dear.”
Helen stepped past the large man into a smoke-filled room. The sweet smell of hashish wafted through her nostrils. Here the yellow lights peered through a haze of the stuff, casting a soft glow about the room. The ceiling hung low, seemingly hewn from sheer rock and supported by a half dozen pillars. Bright red-and-yellow rugs covered the stone floor, nearly wall to wall. Thick white candles blazed on old wooden end tables. Tall earthen pots filled with purple and green feathers stood by each of the pillars; brass and silver plates adorned the walls, reflecting the myriad of flickering flames. It was a gothic kind of psychedelia.
A dozen bodies reclined on stuffed pillows and chairs, unmoving to fuzzy throbbing music, but fixated on her. Helen gazed at them and immediately felt a kinshipâtheir eyes swam with a language she knew well.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she twisted her head to meet Anton's black stare. He smiled thinly but did not speak. His eyes lowered to her arm and he traced it lightly with a thick finger. Something about the way those eyes sparkled sent a shiver down her spine and she shifted her gaze from him.
One of the figuresâa manârose and walked slowly toward her, grinning dumbly.
“What's your price?” Helen asked.
Anton chuckled softly. But he didn't answer.
The other man walked up to her and lifted a hand to her cheek. His finger felt hot.
You're in this now, Helen. You're home. Whether you like it or not, you are home
.
“You want to know what the price is?” the man said. A large scar ran across his right cheek and it bunched up in a knot when he smiled. “I am Kuzup. I am your price, princess.” He bit the tip of his tongue.
Anton seemed to find humor in the man's statement. “This one's beyond you, Kuzup. She's too rich for your blood.”
Helen smiled with them, but her skin tingled with fear. “And even if you could afford me, I'm not for sale,” she said.
They both laughed. “Down here we're all for sale,” Kuzup said.
A small prick flashed up Helen's arm and she jerked. Anton's big hand closed over her mouth from behind. “Shhhhh. Let it go, princess.”
He'd put a needle into her arm. His hand was not rough, only coaxing, and she let herself go.
“Shhh.” His hot breath washed over her ear. It smelled like medicine. “Do you feel it?”
The warmth ran through her body in comforting waves. “Yes,” she whispered. She didn't know what Anton had given her, but the drug quickened her pulse. This was good. She was into this.
I'm flying now, baby.
He released her and the room swam. Kuzup was giggling. Anton held a small syringe, which he tossed into a pot to his right.
Helen sauntered out onto the floor and eased herself onto a thick cushion. The music worked its way through her body like a massage. An obscure thought occurred to her, the thought that Jan would like this. Not seeing her with strangers like this, but feeling the euphoria that drifted through her bones now.
“How much?” she heard Kuzup asking.
“Are you made of gold? Because you'll need a mountain of it to match what I've been offered for this one.”
“Bah!”
Helen lost interest in their babbling. To her right, a woman lay on her back, staring wide at the ceiling. Mucus ran from her nose and for some reason Helen found some humor in the sight. The woman was beautiful, with golden hair and brown eyes, but she'd been reduced to a stiff board, gawking at the low-hung black stone. Did she know how absurd she looked, sweating on the floor?
And you, Helen? You're less foolish?
She rolled into a ball, feeling suddenly euphoric and sick at once. Like a self-conscious dog, lapping at some vomitâsuch a comforting treat, as long as no one knew. But he would be home soon, wouldn't he? Jan would be home to tell her about the blue car his uncle had sold him. They could take romantic trips to the countryside now.
A high-pitched cackle cut through Helen's thoughts. She saw a woman dressed in red with her arms entwined about Anton's neck. Her hair was long and black. She was kissing him on the nose, and then on the forehead and down his cheek, whispering words through pursed lips. The woman threw her head back and laughed at the ceiling. They both looked at Helen, pleased with themselves.
“So she has come without a fight, our American beauty,” the woman said, loudly enough for Helen to hear. Then the woman turned to Anton and licked his right cheek with a wet tongue. He did not flinch. He only smiled and watched Helen. The lady in red was speaking to him, calling him names. Names that made no sense to Helen.
Except one name. She cooed it in a low voice.
Karadzic.
She called him Karadzic and that name rang a bell deep in Helen's mind. Perhaps an endearing term Janjic had called her once. Yes, Janjic Jovic, her lover.
Karadzic.
SHE WAS gone when Jan burst into the flat to announce his smart dealing over the car. He'd struck a deal with his uncle Ermin: no money for thirty days, and if the car still ran, he would pay one hundred a month for six months. It was a good trade, given the unavoidable fear that the rattling deathtrap might fly apart at any moment.
But Helen wasn't in the flat. His breast-beating would have to wait until she returned from the market. Darkness was falling outside, and she didn't often go down to the street after sunset. She hadn't cooked yet either.
Jan sat at the table and picked away at his typewriter. He was nearing the end of the book. One more chapter and it would be ready for the editor. Not that he had an editor. No publisher, no editor, not even a reader. But this time the book was for himâfor the writing. It was a purging of his mind, a cleansing of his soul. And it all came down to this last chapter. Ivena would have to live with the fact that his story was now done. Not his full life, of course, but this ravishing love story of his was now over. It had found its fulfillment back here in Bosnia.
He glanced at the pile of completed pages, stacked neatly beside the typewriter. The title smiled across the cover page.
When Heaven Weeps.
It was a good name.
If there was a real caveat, it was in the simple realization that he didn't know what he would write in this last chapter. Up to this point the book had fairly written itself. It had rushed from his mind and his fingers had hardly kept pace.
Helen isn't back, Jan
.
Jan stood from the table and walked to the window. The market closed at eight, but the shoppers had thinned already.
Where are you, dear Helen?
He glanced at the watch on his hand. It was ten past seven.
And what if she's gone, Jan?
His pulse quickened at the thought. No. We are beyond that. And where would she go?
Father, please, I beg you for her safety. I beg you, don't allow harm to come to her.
It occurred to him that he was sweating despite the cool breeze. He spun from the window and rushed from the flat. He would go to the market and find her.
Jan entered the open-air market three minutes later, quelling memories that brought a mutter to his lips. He strode quickly through the street, craning for a view of her. Of her unmistakable blond hair.
Please, God, let me see her.
But he did not see her.
He approached Darko's vegetable kiosk, where the big man was busy filling boxes with squashes for the night.
“Darko, have you seen Helen?”
The man looked up. “No. Not tonight.”
“Earlier, then? At dusk?”
He shook his head. “Not today.”
“You are sure?”
“Not today, Janjic.”
Jan nodded and glanced around. “She was home three hours ago.”
“Don't worry, my friend. She will return. She is a beautiful woman. Beautiful women always seem to find distractions in Sarajevo, yes? But, don't worry, she is lost without you. I have seen it in her eyes.”
A distant voice snickered in Jan's mind.
And if she is beautiful, keep her away from him.
It was Molosov, and he was suddenly laughing. Heat washed down Jan's back. He fought off a surge of panic. He spun to Darko, whose grin softened under his glare.
“You know Molosov?” he demanded.
“Molosov? It's a common name.”
“A big man,” Jan said impatiently. “Brown hair. From the east side of Novi Grad. He was here yesterday. He said he had a friend in the market.”
“No.”
Jan slammed his palm on the merchant's table and grunted. Darko looked at him with surprise. Jan dipped his head apologetically and ran from the kiosk.
Please, Father. Not again, please! I cannot take it.
He stopped at the next kiosk and questioned vigorously of Helen and Molosov to no avail. But that small voice in his head kept snickering. He ran through the market, fighting to retain control of his reason, desperate now to find either Helen or Molosov. Of course it was just a hunch, he kept telling himself. But the hunch burrowed like a tick in his skull.