فصل 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sally and Joanna

She was running along the street, running away from the terror, her heart nearly exploding with fear and horror. She couldn’t stop the tears which fell from her eyes, or the cries which poured from her mouth. She tried to look around her as she ran, but all she could see were the two little girls, dead in the hot dust. She stopped and wiped her eyes. She tried to put the dead children out of her mind, but they just wouldn’t go away.

The streets were deserted in the warm evening air. Nobody seemed to be moving anywhere. The only sound was the occasional cry of a bird. It is a curious thing, Colin had told her, but you get a lot of birds in a war. She didn’t know where she was. Ever since she’d left the hotel she’d been running, running anywhere to get away from the soldier who had murdered the girls far below him, the soldier who had laughed, who had got her involved. Now she was out of breath. She pulled the scarf from round her neck and wiped her eyes again. She tried to dry the sweat that was running down her face. She bent down to get her breath back. She looked around her trying to work out where she was.

A huge explosion about six blocks away made her stand up straight again. She felt the ground shake and saw the flames and smoke rise above the buildings to her left. Then a bullet whizzed through the air, hitting the door of a house behind her. Oh, God. A sniper. Another sniper. Maybe it was the crazy American. Now he was going to kill her too. She didn’t want to die. Not yet.

She began to run again, away from the smoke of the explosion. Another bullet whizzed past her head. And another. Without thinking she turned down a side street, running away from the noise and the danger. Her mind was completely empty now. She’d stopped crying. She’d stopped thinking. All she knew was that she had to keep going.

She heard the sound of an engine behind her. It sounded like a motorbike, a small motorbike. She ran faster, but the motorbike, or whatever it was, was going faster than she was. It was getting closer and closer. She tried to get away, but she couldn’t. The motorbike was right behind her. Now it was passing her. It had passed her. She didn’t look at it. She stopped and tried to decide where to run next. In front of her someone was shouting. She waited for the bullet that would kill her. She didn’t care any more. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

The man in front of her was shouting louder. Gradually she realised that he’d changed to English.

‘You come,’ he was saying. ‘You come quick. You want die? Come quick.’ She raised her head. A thin white-haired man was sitting on an old moped, trying to get her to join him.

‘Quick,’ he kept saying, ‘quick before guns!’ He looked up at the buildings around them. ‘Quick!’ he shouted one more time, ‘or I go. Leave you.’

Katy woke up suddenly and rushed towards him. She sat behind him on the old moped and he roared off down the street.

‘Where you go?’ he called back to her.

She shouted the name of her hotel. He nodded without speaking and they continued at top speed. He drove from side to side across the street. She was sure she would fall off.

He turned back again. ‘Novinar?’ he shouted. ‘Journalist?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he replied, ‘very good,’ though what he thought was good she didn’t know. The engine roared. He raced across the dead frightened city. They didn’t speak again. And then suddenly they were outside her hotel with all its lights on, in the one part of the city that was safe. She got off the moped, but even before she could ask him who he was - or thank him for saving her life - he’d disappeared into the night.

She ran in through the hotel doors, past the reception desk, past the lifts and straight into the bar and there, thank God, was Colin.

When he saw her coming he jumped to his feet and ran to her. He put his arms around her and pulled her to him. ‘Katy!’ he said. ‘I thought you were… we thought you were

‘Colin,’ she cried, ‘Colin,’ repeating his name over and over again.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK. You’re safe now,’ he said.

‘Oh, God, Colin, what have I done?’ she said through her tears.

‘Calm down. What is it? What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘I’ve just done something terrible. Children. Two little children. He wanted me to choose, and I didn’t, and now they’re both dead.’ The words were pouring out of her mouth, and although she didn’t want to, she started to cry again. Colin bought her a brandy, and then another, and soon she’d calmed down enough to tell him what it was all about. About the ruined hotel, and the crazy American, and the two little children lying in the Sarajevo dirt.

‘Why on earth did you arrange to meet him? Why did you go with him?’ They were sitting at the bar. Some of the other journalists were listening. Colin was watching her with a worried look on his face. The moment he finished his cigarette, he lit another one.

‘I thought… I thought it would be something I could write about,’ Katy said.

‘It is,’ Colin said.

‘How? How can I?’ she cried. ‘I was a part of it. I was there. He made me a part of it. He’s crazy. He’s disgusting. What am I going to do?’

‘I did warn you, didn’t I?’ Colin didn’t sound angry. He sounded desperately sad.

‘Yes. And I didn’t listen because I wanted to do this job well. But now? Who cares about the job! Oh, God! I just keep making mistakes.’

‘No, you don’t. You just keep learning, that’s all. And if you have the courage, you can write about this and you can tell your readers how easy it is to be drawn in, to get involved, so that you become a part of a story you’re supposed to be telling them all about.’

‘I feel so stupid,’ Katy said.

‘I don’t think your readers will see it that way. You didn’t pull the trigger, did you?’ Colin argued.

‘Yes, but if I hadn’t gone with him…’ She couldn’t finish the thought.

‘But you did. It happened. In this terrible city it’s already the past. Now it’s the future that matters. Now you must start thinking about the future, what you can do about the future. You can’t be objective now, can you? You can’t be fair about this. You can’t put your soldier’s side of the argument, can you? There is no side now, no good reason for what you’ve just seen. Now you’ve only got one choice. You’ve got to tell people what’s really happening here. We all have to. Again and again. Until they believe us. Until the whole world gets so angry about what’s happening here that they wake up and do something about it. Until ordinary people get so cross that they hammer at the doors of all the leaders until finally, before it’s too late, the big powers - America, Russia, Europe - come in here and stop this awful killing. This is it, Katy. You’ve seen enough. Use your strength. Use your power. Mix that with the anger you’re feeling now and you can really achieve something.’ He was red in the face.

Katy got off her stool and turned to go. There was a mad look in her eyes. She headed for the door.

‘Katy,’ he called, ‘wait. There’s something I haven’t told you. There’s something you should know.’ But she didn’t hear him as she rushed out of the bar towards the lifts. Colin got up and started to follow her. Then he stopped and lowered his head. He ran his fingers through his hair. When he looked up there were tears in his eyes. He went back to the bar.

In her room Katy switched on the light and went straight to her computer and started it up without even bothering to lock the door behind her. She began to type, biting her lower lip as she concentrated on what she wanted to say.