On lazy Sunday mornings I loved to spy through the window as Grandma Marija tucked a stray, red lock of hair under her wide-brimmed feather hat and buttoned up her coat. She’d open the gate across the street and walk down the Volijak hill towards the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In those tricky socialist years when few openly confessed to being religious, Grandma Marija flaunted her devotion. Grandma Marija attended services every day even though the church was at the other end of town. Townspeople often saw her talking with the nuns from the nearby convent. She volunteered as the organist and organizer of after-work activities that only lonely Catholic widows attended. “She’s rushing off to church every day, she should stay there forever,” my mother’s family said. “Who knows what sins she’s trying to atone for by praying all day?” None of us had an answer. Even in our small town, where everyone poked their nose into everyone else’s business, Marija remained a mystery.

Even in our small town, where everyone poked their nose into everyone else’s business, Marija remained a mystery.

Marija was my father’s stepmother. By the time she met my grandpa Ante, a young widower with a small son, she was in her thirties. During her years of singlehood, large bouquets of flowers and scented letters were regularly delivered to Marija’s desk at the Elektrobosna factory. Nobody believed these were from a real admirer. “She’s sending that to herself. How sad,” her coworkers whispered. When she and Ante married, people were skeptical and worried for my grandpa. “Why didn’t she snag a man earlier? Something’s wrong with her,” they said. My mother told me Grandma Marija could never have real feelings for me because we weren’t blood relations. “Don’t feel bad if you can’t love her,” my mom said. “You weren’t born yet when she tried to ruin my marriage.”

Religion drove Grandma Marija’s opposition to my mother. She was furious that my father was bringing an Orthodox Serb into the family and launched an unsuccessful campaign to find him a more suitable Catholic girl. When her efforts to distract my father with other women failed, she took other drastic, long-term measures. She boycotted my parents’ wedding, and it took her years to allow my father to build a house on the family plot of land across from their home on the Volijak hill.

My parents tried to mend fences after I was born. We visited my grandparents on Christmas and Easter. These evenings seemed interminable to me. At the dinner table my mother would elbow me in silent reminder to praise Grandma Marija for her over-cooked cabbage rolls. When nobody was watching I pulled out red hair from the potato salad. I feigned happy surprise as I opened my Christmas gift only to find a pair of shoes in a size I’d outgrown years earlier. The wall clock in the living room had a wooden bird that chirped at half hour intervals. It did not move fast enough. A sense of guilt pervaded all these moments — maybe because I did not love Grandma Marija and felt tied to her mostly by duty.

Grandma Marija stopped going to church in 1993 when the structure burned down in a bombing raid. The church grounds where widows used to catch up on town gossip were now covered with shattered glass. With the core of her social life decimated, I wondered how Grandma Marija filled her days, if she had anyone to talk to. By then so many people had fled Bosnia. The streets were deserted. My parents had left a couple of weeks earlier. I’d begged and pleaded to stay a little longer while the ceasefire was in effect. Maybe things would stay calm. They’d reluctantly left me behind with my mother’s family to celebrate my fifteenth birthday. I was to join them after my birthday party. My parents had barely left when the fragile peace started to shatter. The ceasefire that had been dangled in front of us was forgotten. In the evenings we heard dispersed gunshots from the mountains where Serb soldiers were hiding out. Our electricity kept going out, leaving dishes half-cooked. The specter of war was becoming ever more urgent. On the telephone I could hardly understand my mother’s panicked voice ordering me to leave Bosnia. I promised to take the next bus out of town.

I wanted to say goodbye to Grandma Marija before I left. With my father gone, nobody was forcing me to the obligatory dinner at her home. I hadn’t seen her in weeks. She made it clear she’d never leave town. She wasn’t going anywhere, she said, no matter who tried to chase her away or intimidate her.

My relatives warned me against visiting her. “She was always different,” they said. “But you should see her now. We ran into her near Travnicka Kapija the other day. She looked like a real witch.”

I was undeterred. About a week before leaving town, I climbed up the Volijak hill to her house. As I opened Grandma Marija’s gate, the wooden entrance creaked against the pavement. I looked around. The garden facing the street used to be Grandpa Ante’s pet project. Whenever he was not out drinking, he trimmed the flowers and weeded the grass. He worked there even while intoxicated, singing old sevdalinkas while pruning the tulips. Once I saw him tangoing all by himself surrounded by the plants, his elephant ears and red nose visible from afar. I watched him tango with an imaginary partner and a blissful smile. “Join me!” he yelled out to passersby. Nobody did. Grandpa Ante died in 1992, only months after the war started. His absence was evident in the garden as I walked through it. Some of the rosebushes were broken. Tulips were growing outside their designated rows. Nobody had mowed the grass in a while. The grape leaves were no longer neatly tucked into the metal support structure. They were hanging wildly, and I had to bend to avoid them hitting my face. Gray bird feathers were strewn around – a testimony to the cat’s latest prey. When the fat Siemese cat noticed me, she sauntered towards me with a feather in her mouth. She meowed and brushed against my leg. I pushed her away and rang the bell. There was no response. I waited for a while, then climbed the stairs and opened the door. The cat followed behind.

Her gray eyes watched me. I could not decide if the glimmer I saw in them was curiosity or madness.

Grandma Marija was sprawled on a couch in her living room. She was watching a Mexican soap opera. She hadn’t heard the doorbell or noticed me standing behind her.

“Hello,” I said. She did not respond. I came closer and tapped her on the shoulder.

She jumped up, startled. “It’s you. You came to see me. Good.”

“I’m leaving town. I came to say goodbye.”

I could tell she was straining to hear me. She looked at my mouth. I repeated my words more loudly. I wondered if she was losing her hearing. Grandma Marija nodded absentmindedly. She stood up and straightened her black skirt. She touched her disheveled hair and smoothed it back. In the old days she’d always been meticulous about her makeup. She’d worn red lipstick. Her hair had been dyed red and styled into a curly bob. Her roots were completely gray now. Only the ends had some evidence of faded henna dye.

“You catch me unprepared. You should have warned me you were coming.”

“I’m sorry. I was just passing through.”

“Are you hungry? Now that Ante isn’t around anymore, I don’t cook. Why bother just for one person? But I experiment with some recipes here and there. There’s all that condensed milk in the Red Cross packets. I made chocolate with it,” she said and headed to the kitchen. The cat followed her and jumped up on the sink filled with dirty dishes. Grandma Marija pushed the cat aside. She cut a piece of chocolate from a large shapeless block.

“Try it.”

She handed me a piece. Her gray eyes watched me. I could not decide if the glimmer I saw in them was curiosity or madness. I took a bite. The chocolate was hard and bitter. Grandma Marija must have forgotten to add sugar to the recipe. I spit it into my hand when she turned away. As we walked back to the living room, I hid the rest of the chocolate in my jeans pocket.

“Tell that father of yours to send me money,” she shouted and plumped down on the sofa. “I live here all alone. Winter is coming. I’ll need to heat this place. Coal is expensive.”

She turned her attention back to the soap opera. Grandma Marija seemed to have forgotten all about me, and I felt strange standing there. I waited for her to acknowledge me again. She didn’t. I thought about touching her shoulder to remind her I was still in the room. I wondered if I was required to hug her before I left. She looked so dirty. Her body emitted a faint smell of decay. She seemed so engrossed in her soap opera that I felt bad disturbing her again. I slipped out without saying goodbye. Out on the street I took the chocolate out of my pocket and tossed it across the gate.

I tried not to think about Grandma Marija and her strange behavior. I did not bother to ask myself why she was there or where she was going.

A week later I packed my bags and walked to the bus station. The leaves were turning yellow and crunching underfoot. The sun was giving way to the rains and that fickle weather in late summer when a rainfall could easily surprise you when you’d already left home without an umbrella. I walked through the streets lined with ruined houses that were slowly disappearing into the green shrubbery. At the station I boarded the bus and looked at my teary relatives waving to me. My head was full of worry if I’d ever see them again. I fought back my tears. Only after I’d settled into my seat did I notice Grandma Marija. She was the last person to board. After a brief argument with the driver about the bus fare, she rushed past me and sat down in the back. Grandma Marija must have seen me because she glanced my way as she passed by. But she did not say anything. I wondered if I should go to her. Wasn’t it unnatural that we were on the same bus but so far apart, like strangers? The bus took off and she still did not acknowledge me. I didn’t go to her either. My seat felt so comfortable. Getting up to go to her seemed like such an ordeal. I determined to talk to her at the next rest stop. I still don’t understand why I acted that way. Maybe I was just avoiding another unnerving interaction with Grandma Marija. But I sometimes wonder if things might have turned out differently for Grandma Marija if I’d stood by her.

We continued on the road along that tricky and unpredictable river Vrbas. The road out of our town is hilly and filled with dangerous curves. The bus driver navigated them expertly and maintained a speed that, for someone unfamiliar with the road, could easily have proven deadly. I tried not to think about Grandma Marija and her strange behavior. I did not bother to ask myself why she was there or where she was going. The day was clear, and I watched the sunrays glittering on fir trees outside. I fell asleep soon after we took off. When I woke up, the bus was stopping at a Serb barricade. I looked through the window. A few idle soldiers were milling around and smoking on the roadside. Rifles hung loosely on their shoulders. Two soldiers walked into the bus and looked at our identification cards.

“What kind of a name is Karolina? Is that a Serb or a Croat name,” the soldier asked as he examined my papers.

I did not reply. I strained my brain for a good answer. I was neither Serb nor Croat. I was a little bit of each. What kind of response would keep me out of trouble? I looked around for help. The other passengers turned their heads away, even though I could feel all their attention glued to my seat. Wasn’t anyone going to intervene? My silence stretched out. The bus driver came up to us. He put his hand on the soldier’s shoulder. “She’s just a teenager. Let her go. She’s fine,” he said. The man tilted his head and looked me up and down. It was the same look my grandpa had in the marketplace when he examined pigs to slaughter for the holiday feast. I slid further back into my seat. I wanted to become invisible. The soldier handed me back my papers and moved on.

Grandma Marija wasn’t as lucky. When the soldier got to her, I heard some scuffle in the back. I didn’t turn around to look. Like everyone else on the bus, I stared at the space ahead of me. I was terrified they’d remember me and come back for me. “What do you want my papers for? Let go of my arm,” Grandma Marija protested.

“Do what you’re told.”

“Don’t look through my things. You’re rude.”

Her purse fell to the ground. A bottle of medication slipped out and rolled under a nearby passenger seat. The soldier dragged her out of the bus. I hoped she’d be insane enough not to remember me or mention my name. She passed by my seat. She did not point me out. I breathed out a sigh of relief. They took her suitcase out of the luggage compartment. Through the window I watched her arguing with the soldiers on the roadside. Grandma Marija was still wearing the same black skirt and blouse I’d seen her in days earlier. There were large food stains on her clothes. The soldiers opened her luggage. They threw clothes and a set of silver knives and forks onto the pavement. They pointed at the silverware and asked Grandma Marija about it. I wondered if I was supposed to intervene. What was my duty? Should I run out and plead with the soldiers to leave her alone? What could I possibly do to sway things in our favor? I was a teenager of ambiguous ethnic loyalties and she was a semi-crazed old woman. My legs were glued to my seat. My mouth was frozen. I said nothing. I did not move. The other passengers turned their heads to the Vrbas river across the street, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening to Grandma Marija right in front of their noses. The bus was completely silent.

I tried to push these feelings aside… But a lingering sadness remained, and a vague sense of duty unfulfilled. Years later I have not shaken it off. My silence on the bus still haunts me.

After a while a soldier waved to our driver. The driver turned on the engine. We drove off. My confusion intensified. Why didn’t they let her board the bus again with the rest of us? What was going to happen to her now? I did not dare ask anyone. I watched Grandma Marija stay behind, the contents from her suitcase strewn around. The soldiers were sternly combing through the items. She looked so sad and forlorn. As we moved ahead, her white hair and wild, gray eyes became just a speck in the distance. At the next curving in the road she disappeared from view altogether.

That was the last time I saw Grandma Marija. Nobody found out what happened to her after the bus left. Grandma Marija eventually came back to our town and resumed her daily Mexican soap opera habit. People said she sometimes dressed up in her Sunday church suit and feather hat and shouted at people on the sidewalk. “The bishop is coming to grant me a special visit. He’s coming,” she’d announce from the balcony, looking out for the bishop with Grandpa Ante’s old binoculars. She did not go indoors even if the rains poured or the sharp fall winds blew. She stayed there soaked and freezing, until the neighbor came over and lured her indoors with false promises of new episodes of her favorite shows. After she returned to our town, Grandma Marija told some women in the neighborhood that she’d been raped by Serb soldiers. She would announce this unexpectedly, while the women were watching television or going for a walk and talking about something completely unrelated and ordinary. Nobody knew for sure if this claim was true or a lunatic manifestation of a madwoman. She died a few years later in a mental asylum.

When I lost sight of Grandma Marija on the bus that day, a massive wave of guilt and sorrow overcame me. I tried to push these feelings aside and think about my parents who were waiting for me across the border. But a lingering sadness remained, and a vague sense of duty unfulfilled. Years later I have not shaken it off. My silence on the bus still haunts me. Sometimes I look at an old photograph of me posing with Grandma Marija and Grandpa Ante in front of our town’s Center of Culture. The photo was taken many years ago, a snapshot of a saner time. In this picture the two of them had few wrinkles, the Center of Culture hadn’t been destroyed yet in a bombing raid, and I was just a happy little girl with pigtails, my conscience unburdened by the murky past.