Free The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway Page B

neighbours, small baskets to ten different families.”
    “You were good to give her the salt,” Dragan says, and he means it.
    “I didn’t need it. She didn’t have to give me the cherries, either.” Emina shrugs. “Isn’t that how we’re supposed to behave? Isn’t that how we used to be?”
    “I don’t know,” Dragan says. “I can’t remember if we were like that, or just think we were. It seems impossible to remember what things were like.” And he suspects this is what the men on the hills want most. They would, of course, like to kill them all but, if they can’t, they would like to make them forget how they used to be, how civilized people act. He wonders how long it will take before they succeed.
    As long as he stands here waiting to cross, he knows, they’re winning. It’s time his day, his life, moved through this intersection and towards whatever end awaits him.
    “I think I’ll cross now,” he says to Emina.
    “Okay,” she says. “I’ll follow after you.”
    Dragan moves towards the intersection. His stomach hurts. When he’s one step away from being out in the open he takes a deep breath and runs. He tries to keep his head low, but after three steps he feels his back begin to ache and he straightens up. His lungs are raw, his legs like rubber. He can’t believe he isn’t yet even a quarter of the way across. He has never felt so old.
    He feels the shot an instant before he hears it. There is a sharp zip, a rush of air as a bullet snaps past his left ear, then the harsh blast of a gun. For an instant he wonders if he’s been shot. He knows that he’d be dead if he was. He heard the bullet, and that means the sniper missed. He’s surprised, confused and frightened. It’s not clear to him what he should do. For no more than two seconds he stands motionless, frozen. It seems like millennia.
    Then he runs, back the way he came. He doesn’t feel his lungs or his legs or his stomach. He becomes automatic, an animal, and he flees. His body is braced for the sniper’s next shot, the one that will finish him. The closer he gets to safety, the more he expects it. He can see Emina standing behind the boxcar. Her mouth hangs open, her face contorted, and he thinks he hears her calling his name.
    His shoulder slams into metal, and his legs give out. Emina grabs his arm as he tries not to fall, and the world around him blurs. People are asking him if he’s okay, and he thinks he is, but he can’t answer them. This is the first time Dragan has ever been shot at. He’s been in places where there has been shooting, and he’s been in areas where shells have fallen, but no one has ever marked him specifically for death before. A part of him can’t believe it’s happened, and a part can’t believe he’s survived.
    Slowly he recovers his senses. He’s still out of breath, panting like a dog, but he finds himself able to speak. When Emina asks him, for at least the tenth time, “Are you hurt?” he’s able to answer her.
    “I told you he wasn’t a very good shot,” he says.
    Emina looks at him, unsure. Something in him, he wishes he knew what, seems to reassure her. Her face relaxes, and her hand rubs his back. “Sarajevo roulette,” she says. “So much more complicated than Russian.”
    He laughs, not because it’s funny but because it’s true, and he stands there, Emina’s hand on his back, glad for the first time in a long while to be alive.

 
    Arrow
    S HE DRESSES IN SILENCE, PICKS UP HER RIFLE AND closes the door to the apartment. Her footsteps echo in the stairwell despite her efforts at stealth. It’s a quirk of the building’s design, she supposes, and considers whether an inability to muffle sound would be described as a positive or a negative acoustic quality. She decides it all depends on what you want out of a staircase. There are advantages to being able to hear who’s in the hallway.
    The sun has been up for half an hour, but the streets are mostly deserted. She