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He ignored her and kept right on beating until the door opened wide enough for a pistol to stick out through the crack. "What do you want?" a voice demanded in Serbian.
"I need your help," Baba said meekly, as though he really believed a Serb policeman would help an Albanian. "My son never returned home from school today."
"So? Can I help it if your boy has run away?"
Baba stuck his big hand in the crack and forced it open wider, ignoring the pistol in the officer's hand. Watching, Meli could hardly breathe. "I think one of your men has made a mistake. My son is only a schoolboy. He knows nothing of politics." It was a lie. Mehmet knew plenty about politics, but of course what her father meant was that Mehmet was not a part of the KLA.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Hashim Lleshi. I own a small grocery store on the west side of town. This is my daughter, Meli. My son, Mehmet, who is missing, is only thirteen. He—is he here? Do you have him in custody? By mistake? Perhaps you have confused him with someone else?"
"Come back in the morning if you have a question."
"But to make a child spend the night in jail ... He ... Do you have children?" Baba's voice was low and pleading now. It hurt Meli to hear him humiliate himself before this Serb, but she knew he was determined to do whatever it took to get Mehmet safely home.
"I said, come back in the morning!" The policeman poked her father with the pistol to force him out of the doorway. "And be glad I didn't arrest you."
"Come on, Baba," Meli whispered.
Reluctantly, her father backed away. Once again he became the old man Meli had seen coming up the street. "Pray for your brother, Meli," he said. They were the only words he spoke during the long walk home. She did pray, or tried to; they were not a family who practiced daily prayers. As they walked past the dark shadow of the mosque, she prayed that God would not hold their lack of piety against them. Surely he wouldn't. God was the all-merciful, wasn't he?
Baba and Meli went back to the station the next morning, but the result was the same. The Serbian police would not even say if Mehmet was in the jail or not.
***
In the weeks following Mehmet's disappearance, the family went through the motions of getting up in the morning, eating, working, and lying down to sleepless nights. Meli couldn't make herself go to school, and her parents didn't seem to have the energy to insist. Suppose something should happen while she was at school? It didn't make sense, but somehow she reckoned that since she had been the cause of her brother's disappearance, she had to be home to make him come back safely. Whenever she wasn't working in the store or helping Mama with housework, she was standing at the front window, straining to see Mehmet turning the corner, coming down the side street, walking through the gate, climbing the stairs. He was laughing as he took off his shoes and came into the apartment.
Sometimes she changed the picture in her mind. This time Mehmet was walking down the street, opening the door of the shop. She imagined the bell ringing to announce his entrance, and Baba rushing forward to embrace him....
Meli rehearsed these scenes day after day, time after time. Once, as she stood at the window, Mama came over and put her arm around her daughter's shoulders.
"It won't bring him home sooner," Mama said gently.
But it might. If only 1 stare long enough and hard enough, 1 can will him home. In part of her mind Meli knew this was foolishness, but she couldn't seem to help herself. It was guilt that drove her. If only she had behaved that day in school, Mehmet would be home now, teasing her, lording it over her.
Zana had called the very first day to ask why she hadn't come by, why she and Mehmet had missed school. "What's the matter, Meli? Are you both sick?"
"No, not exactly. It's ... it's ... I can't talk about it on the phone."
But even when Zana came to the apartment, Meli could only say, "Mehmet is missing. We don't know anything."
Zana had hugged her, but Meli hadn't been able to cry. She couldn't even say, It's all my fault! The words stuck like burrs in her dry throat.
***
Meli turned twelve in June. Mama made a little cake, but no one felt like celebrating. Still no word. And then one evening, when she wasn't even looking, Mehmet appeared. At first when Meli saw him in the doorway, she couldn't believe it was him. He was so thin. Besides, he had knocked on the kitchen door. When had Mehmet ever knocked on his own door?
"Mehmet?"
The ghost-like figure nodded. "Not a pelican," he said, stepping out of his shoes—or what was left of them.
Meli reached out and pulled her brother over the threshold. "Mama! Baba! It's Mehmet. He's come home!" She tried not to stare at his thin face as he bent to take off what was left of his once-shiny shoes, but she couldn't help herself.
Mama came running from the bedroom, nearly knocking Meli to the floor as she threw her arms around her son. "My Mehmet!" she cried. "Oh, my Mehmet." She led him to a chair and sat him down. "I have goulash," she said. "You must be hungry. Go get Baba, Meli. He must see his firstborn."
The family just stood and watched as Mehmet ate the goulash Mama heated up for him. The little boys pressed themselves against their brother's chair while Vlora jumped up and down with joy, but Meli and her parents were standing, staring at Mehmet as though he would disappear if they took their eyes from him. Occasionally, Baba would touch Mehmet's shoulder, as though making sure his son was still there. Their heads were crowded with questions, but no one knew what to ask or how to begin asking.
It was, as usual, Mehmet who spoke first. "The bastards beat me up and then took me out to the countryside and dumped me." He paused for a long time, looking down at his empty bowl. Nobody moved. "I guess they thought they'd killed me."
