The Kosovo War. Tito's Lost Children: A Tale of the Yugoslav Wars: Tito's Lost Children, #0

One

By the time I turned fourteen I had murdered in cold blood. I helped to burn entire villages to the ground. I watched my closest friend die before my eyes—twice—and witnessed the attempted ethnic cleansing of my people. Yet, if asked, I would have avoided telling you that the worst moment of my life was when I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder and pull me away from my father. That was the moment my nightmare began, the moment that defined me more than anything. Everything that came after was just the latest reluctant step down the long, endless path of reprisal and suffering that I guess is Kosovo’s lot.

I was twelve when it happened, on an afternoon like any other. Dad, Mom and my little brother Afrim were in the living room of our house in Likošane. We were getting ready to watch Dad’s team, Croatia’s Zagreb Dinamo, play Hajduk Split. He still rooted for them even though he moved here from Croatia to become a foreman at the Feronikel ore plant, where he met my mom.

A news bulletin was on TV before the game—on the channel that Mom said got broadcast from Tirana so we didn’t have to settle for Serb propaganda. The presenter gave the dateline as February twenty-eighth, 1998. Then a man with a balding head was on TV. He had glasses and a round face. He was always wearing a silk scarf around his neck, except in August. This was Ibrahim Rugova, the president of Kosovo. Because of the recent UÇK terror attacks against the Serbs, he was standing in front of a podium in Pristina talking about the continued importance of Albanian passive resistance.

Dad stood up from one of the two brown couches in the living room, agreeing with him. I’m sick and tired of those terrorists. What do they call themselves again? The Kosovo Liberation Army? What a joke. He fingered the woolen Zagreb Dinamo football club scarf that he had draped around his neck.

My mom sat on the other couch in the room. She looked over at Dad. Next to her on the floor, my little brother, Afrim, was playing with a toy truck. She rolled her eyes at Dad and spoke her native Albanian to him. Will you relax? You’re not even Albanian and you’re not a Serb, either. If we keep our heads down we should be fine. The Yugoslav Army will protect us.

My dad shook his head. No, things are about to turn bad here, Jehona. I can feel it. What happened in Croatia and Bosnia proves that the international community doesn’t care about what happens here. We’ve already seen how far Milošević is willing to go. He pointed to the coffee table, at the Croatian passports that he just got us. You, Drago and Afrim should come back to Croatia with me. That would be the smart thing to do. It’s not like there is anything left for us here.

My mother looked right at him. "We’ve already had that discussion, dear. Yes, there is still something here for us. If we left, then I’d have to leave my family. Besides, being in Kosovo spared us from the wars."

Dad laughed, almost a sad sound. Like I said, if the rumors about Maršal Tito’s successor and the extent of President Milošević’s plans for Bosnia are true, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Yugoslav Army had some secret plan to kick all of the non-Serbs out of Kosovo. They’re just looking for an excuse. The UÇK—that so-called liberation army—is giving them the perfect one. We need to get out before the trouble you Albanians are causing comes banging on our door.

My mom batted a hand through the air, enjoying the banter. Hah! Do I look like a terrorist to you? We’re just talking about a few radicals in the woods. You’re getting all excited over nothing. The Yugoslavs won’t do anything to us, only to the terrorists; we haven’t done anything. President Rugova is right. All we have to do is keep being patient and we Albanians will get justice.

My dad sighed. After the peace talks totally ignored Kosovo, I wouldn’t count on it.

The news bulletin ended. What looked like the beginning of a soccer match came on.

Mom leaned back on the couch as Afrim looked up at her, just now noticing the tension. Is something going to happen to us, Mom?

No, nothing, honey. Mom glanced back over at where my father was standing. Seriously, will you sit down and watch your match. You’re scaring your children.

Dad sat back down on the couch, heavily, like he somehow knew he wouldn’t be there long. It only took a minute for us to hear the rumbling outside. It was a sound I’d come to know well over the coming few days: explosives being set off. Then yelling, indistinct in the distance.

Mom? What’s that? Afrim asked.

I don’t know, honey. Everything will be fine. I promise, Mom said.

Dad got up from his soccer game. Afrim went back to playing with the toy truck on the floor. I tried to act like I wasn’t nervous, but I was getting old enough to know that something might be wrong.

Mom? Dad? What is going on? I asked. Dad opened the sliding glass door to the courtyard.

No one answered me. Just silence punctuated by the explosions and screaming outside. I stood in the living room, paralyzed. The soccer announcer droned on as if nothing was going to happen. No one paid attention to him, like he was lying. It dawned on me that something could really be out of whack.

A few more minutes went by. There was this loud bang. I looked toward where Dad was standing at the sliding glass door. A big armored car entered the middle of the courtyard; it bashed down the gates to the street. A bunch of men in riot gear got out. I knew their uniforms from TV. They were the uniforms of the Yugoslav Special Police. The ones Mom said were meant to protect us.

They didn’t. One of the policemen started to bash in the windows of our car, a relatively new Zastava Florida. The others started to ransack the patio furniture in the rest of the courtyard.

My dad ran outside, my mom behind him, Afrim on her heels and grabbing something from the coffee table. Dad walked up to one of the policemen. He started insisting that we hadn’t done anything. Mom demanded to know why the police were acting like this. She started crying.

You’re harboring UÇK terrorists, one of the officers spat at her in Serbian, "šiptar filth." The others entered our house, wrecking everything inside it. One of them shattered the sliding glass door.

That is not the case at all, Mom wept. You’re welcome to search our property. Even if we were hiding terrorists, I don’t understand why you’re doing this. You are supposed to protect us.

"We know from the Serbs here that your family harbored Kaçak terrorists before World War Two. You šiptars and your Ustaše husband. You people never change. This is Serbia’s retribution."

The policeman brought up his gun, pointing it at my dad. Stay here, by Mom, I whispered to Afrim. Then, I ran out into the yard.

One of the policemen started yelling as I ran. Grenade!

My dad turned and saw me running out into the courtyard. He dove. I felt myself get almost crushed under something: his weight. There was a lot of screaming, wails of agony—Mom’s voice. Loud explosions kept shaking the ground. Then nothing, except for indistinct yelling outside the compound and the crackling of flames. I only heard it after the ringing in my ears stopped.

Part of my leg was hurt, burned and cut. I ignored it. I wondered why Dad didn’t get up. I tried to struggle out from under him. Finally I was able to look up. I saw Mom on the ground, bleeding and unmoving. Afrim was trying to squirm out from under her. The policemen who had been destroying our house were all lying on the ground, too. The armored car they were in was a mangled mess. The house was on fire.

I knelt beside Dad. His face was real messed up, all bloody and black in a bunch of places. He didn’t move when I shook him. Dad?

I thought that I should go for help, to Mom’s family across the street, but when I looked through our gate, the Yugoslav police had also torched their compound. I didn’t see any of Mom’s family around.

I stayed there with Dad, my back turned from the broken gate in the burning compound, like if I just stayed there long enough, things would go back to normal and all this would just end, like my childhood wasn’t over.

But it had ended. I heard some yelling in Albanian. I heard footsteps behind me.

Then it happened. I felt the hand clamp down on my shoulder. It started to pull me away from Mom and Dad, killing the last of the child inside me.

I realized that I was crying. I screamed at the force that was dragging me away from my parents. No, stop! We want to stay with them.

The hand kept pulling. I looked back to see its owner: a man with a beard and bullets looped around a broad chest. He was dressed in an army camouflage uniform and a white Albanian hat. Behind, another man in the same camouflage dragged Afrim away from Mom’s body. He only had a few scrapes. He let out a scream in terror, struggling as he got pulled away.

The hand kept pulling, unfeeling. I shrieked. Stop it! No! I want to stay here! I reached out for Dad. I was far enough away that the only thing that I could grab hold of was the scarf that he wore to cheer on his team. I grabbed at it like it was the last lifeline to my parents, like it would somehow bind me, keep me there with them.

It came loose, away from Dad’s neck, and I hung on to it as I got dragged back toward the gate. I started squirming, flailing as hard as I could, almost unable to speak.

Stop it! Don’t take me away. The awful grip on my shoulder didn’t let go.

The voice of the other man called out. Sir, the kid is right. We don’t have time for them. Besides, what will al-Qadir think? We’ve got to leave them and fall back to the Jashari family’s compound.

The man who was holding my shoulder rumbled. We will make the time. Make arrangements with our benefactor. Honor demands it. We thought that this compound had already been cleared. That just the Serb looters were left. We were wrong. I made these children orphans. I will take them in.

I screamed at him, struggling. You threw the grenades that killed my parents? UÇK terrorists? We’re not going anywhere with you!

The other man looked at my captor, dubious. Ekrim, are you sure?

Do not worry. I will handle them.

I leaned forward toward my dad’s body. "You killed my parents! We’d have been fine if it weren’t for you. We just want to stay home. We want our parents back."

I am afraid that is beyond my power. He kept hauling me away.

I struggled and clawed as hard as I could. No. Get away from me.

His other hand clamped on to my other shoulder and spun me around like I was made of nothing. I stopped, really looking at my captor for the first time. He kneeled down in front of me and spoke in a voice that tried to be calming.

"Hello. My name is Ekrim Avdi. I lead a unit of fighters affiliated with the Kosovo Liberation Army. I cannot apologize enough for what has happened, but no matter what, I give you my besa that I will do everything in my power to make it up to you and your brother. As of now, as far as I am concerned, you are my sons and I am your father. I need to get you out of here, to safety. Right now you are not making that easy. May I ask what you are called?"

I don’t want his besa. I want my parents back. He took them away. This is all his fault. I spit in the face of the man who ended my childhood. You’re not my dad. You killed him and my mom. I hate you.

Still holding onto me, my parents’ murderer sighs. He nervously glances down the road and opens the back door of the truck that I now notice parked next to our