Free Rose of Sarajevo by Ayse Kulin

known for ages. That’s how formidable the YNA is. Can you believe it?”
    “Journalists across the world always get the first whiff of news,” Nimeta said. “And Ivan hears about things before they even become news.”
    “Kučan has ordered the Territorial Defense forces not to surrender a single weapon to the YNA. The arms depots are now being guarded by the police.”
    “Well, they’re too late,” Ibo said, joining the conversation. “Janša’s already admitted that over half of the weapons in Slovenia had been turned over to the YNA by the time the defense ministry woke up to what was going on.”
    “How’d you find that out?” Nimeta asked.
    “Where do you think I was the other day, huh?”
    “You weren’t in Lubliyana, were you?” Sonya asked.
    “That’s right. While you sat here on your bottoms, I was chasing after intelligence. There’s something else I learned. You’ll love this.”
    “But we were the ones assigned this report, weren’t we?” Sonya asked.
    “Well, I’m a few steps ahead of you girls,” Ivan said. “Janša wants to set up his own Territorial Defense force, completely independent of the YNA. If it were up to him, he’d sever all ties with the federal army tomorrow. Kučan wants to be a bit more cautious. The lack of consensus between the president and the defense minister is making things difficult for the government.”
    “Those two haven’t been on good terms ever since Janša was imprisoned. Janša has always suspected Kučan of playing a role in that,” Nimeta said. “If Janša weren’t so widely admired and supported by the public, Kučan would never have appointed him defense minister.”
    And because Janša didn’t trust Milan Kučan, he had begun slowly procuring weapons and smuggling them into Slovenia without informing the president. The day would come when he had his own armed forces. That is, when the citizenry voted in a referendum to secede from Yugoslavia and declare independence.
    Nimeta followed the events in Croatia with her heart in her mouth. If war broke out, Stefan would be out on the battlefield, either as a conscript or a journalist. She hadn’t had any news of him for such a long time. She hadn’t called him even to learn about the political climate in Zagreb. The pace of life had accelerated so much, and the winds of war were blowing so hard, that nobody had time to lift his head from his work and listen to his heart. Nimeta was grateful for this. Despite her heavy workload, she’d been able to forge a stronger bond with her family. Burhan was home more; he almost never went to Knin anymore, and found plenty of time to spend with the children. When they gathered around the dinner table, they were once again the close-knit family they’d once been.
    Hana, however, wasn’t entirely happy with these family dinners. Unlike when she was younger, her family didn’t listen to her stories about school. Even her grandmother, who’d once seem transfixed by her every utterance, told her granddaughter to hush so that she could listen to Hana’s parents discuss the latest current events. This just happened in Slovenia; that just happened in Croati a . . . Bozo was the only one who paid her any attention. The cat too had been unable to get anyone’s attention and was forever weaving patterns between her feet.
    They were all seated around the dinner table again. For the first time in ages, her grandmother had made a persimmon dessert.
    “It’s unavoidable,” her father said. “There’s going to be a showdown between Croatia and Yugoslavia. When Kadijević wanted to seize all the weapons in the Croatian police’s possession, Croatia refused. Am I right, Nimeta?”
    “That was America’s doing, not the Croatians’,” Nimeta said. “When the deadline for turning over the weapons passed, Milošević put his army on high alert and was poised to seize all the police weapons in Croatia by force. It was the American ambassador who warned the