Night Victims

17

Bosnia Herzegovina, 1997

Lieutenant Amin Arrnovich lay on top of his sleeping bag in the warm night, his hands cupped over his ears. His sergeant, Kalisovek, would bark an order now and then whenever the firing stopped. And, except for brief moments, it seemed that it never stopped. The chatter and clatter of automatic weapons fire seemed almost constant. Short bursts, but so many of them.

There were no screams.

That’s what surprised and disturbed Arrnovich, that there was not a human voice, only the language of guns.

It wasn’t that the villagers didn’t deserve what they were getting. After all, six members of Arrnovich’s unit had been murdered during their sleep the night before only half a mile from here, their throats slit as they slept. There had been no screams then, Arrnovich told himself.

Command had warned of an American strike unit in the countryside, but there was no doubt in his mind it was men from the village who had killed his sleeping and defenseless soldiers. It would take men who knew the terrain to move with such stealth in the dark, then disappear completely. It had to have been the villagers. That was why men of combat age were nowhere to be found. Only women, children, and old men remained in the small village. Forty-three people. Arrnovich personally had carefully counted them. Mustn’t leave anyone out.

There must be no witnesses to what he’d been ordered to do.

This afternoon, when Arrnovich had reported to the major what had happened, the reply had been swift. The order had come down through the ranks almost immediately.

The order to do what was happening now beneath the tilted half-moon on this unseasonably warm night.

The villagers had been herded to where a tank with a bulldozer blade had gouged in the earth a five-foot-deep trench. They’d known what was going to happen. They’d also known the inevitability of it. There was no way to escape.

For a moment, one old man with a gray beard seemed to consider bolting for the nearby woods. He caught Arrnovich’s eye, then looked down at his worn-out boots and continued walking, his arm strapped tightly around the quaking shoulders of the young girl next to him. His daughter or granddaughter? Arrnovich hadn’t looked closely at the girl’s face. He didn’t want to remember her.

The shooting stopped.

The abrupt silence seemed to make the night suddenly cooler.

Arrnovich didn’t want to be seen like this, lying on his bag rather than facing what he himself had ordered. It was bad enough he’d chosen not to be present. Picking up his rifle and using it as a prop, he dragged himself to his feet.

The bulky form of his sergeant appeared in the night. “It’s finished, sir.”

Arrnovich knew the only way he could be sure his men would carry out the order was to have the villagers led into the trench. His troops would fire down at the huddled, frightened figures in the dark pit, killing not people, but mere deep shadows that stirred.

“Should we fill in the trench?” the sergeant asked. He was a large man with a burn-scarred face. His voice was so calm, after what he’d just done, what he’d seen.

“Wait until dawn,” Arrnovich told him, “when we can see what we’re doing.” But early, so aerial reconnaissance won’t be aloft yet and see and photograph what we’ve done here. “I’ll give the order when the time comes. Post guards near the trench till then, in case. .”

“Yes, sir. In case some of them are alive and try to crawl out.”

“Exactly, Sergeant.” You will someday make a better officer than I.

The sergeant told him good night, then withdrew.

Arrnovich didn’t worry about waking early enough to order the trench filled, then have brush spread over it so it couldn’t be spotted from the air. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. Tomorrow he’d have to count dead the people he’d counted alive today. He had to make sure every soul was accounted for.

Secrecy demanded it.

In the morning, when a thin layer of light was appearing in the dark sky above a distant line of trees, Arrnovich went to the trench. His eyelids seemed to be lined with sand, and there was a bitter taste in his dry mouth.

Nearby in the dimness loomed the huge form of the tank with the bulldozer blade mounted on it. It seemed to be looking on like some primal and innocent monster from the time of dinosaurs, the time before good and evil and guilt. The guards stood by silently while Arrnovich smoked a cigarette to cover the odor already wafting up from the tangle of corpses. He would wait until it was bright enough to see into the trench before conducting his final count.

In truth, it wasn’t as bad as he’d imagined. These were simply lifeless rag dolls, not the enemy, not real people. Not anymore. Dolls carelessly flung.

He moved to the very edge of the trench until the earth might have crumbled beneath his boots, risking falling in with the dolls. He made himself do that.

Then he began to count. It wasn’t easy because many of the dolls were intertwined. There was a female holding a younger figure that looked much like her. There was a doll with a gray beard that looked like the old man Arrnovich had cowed into submission with a glare last evening.

There was a wild-haired young woman who was shrouded in dark cloth, as if she’d tightly wound herself in a blanket to ward off the bullets.

Arrnovich counted. . Forty-three, forty-four.

Hadn’t there been forty-three yesterday?

He was sure there had been. He counted again, from another vantage point, even more carefully.

Forty-four.

All right, forty-four. So be it. In such carnage, what did it matter if there was one more corpse than anticipated? Certainly everyone left in the village was now in the trench. That was the important thing.

Arrnovich squinted up at the brightening sky. It was going to be a cloudy day, but still the NATO planes would soon appear.

He gave the order to fill in the trench, then lit another cigarette.

The roar and clatter of the tank’s engine filled the morning, and the behemoth lurched forward. Its steel blade sliced deep into the sloping pile of dirt. An acrid scent of burning diesel fuel hung in the air. The powerful engine roared louder as Arrnovich tucked his cigarette into the corner of his mouth; he breathed in smoke, breathed it out.

He watched the loose earth tumble into the trench, covering what he had done. It was all deep and dark now, dust into silent dust to become insignificant in the immensity of time.

After today, he would try never to think of it again.