They half ran the first few yards but soon slowed to a walk. How could they run? Auntie and Nexima each carried a twin, Uncle Fadil was carrying the three-year-old Elez, and Mama was holding Vlora's hand, trying to urge her along. Meli didn't dare look over her shoulder. Suppose the masked men were chasing them? The horror that they might all be shot in the back made her turn, and when she did, she gasped aloud. Flames were leaping up to the early morning sky.
"Look!" she cried.
"The farm! They're burning our farm!" Uncle Fadil put his grandson on the ground and started to run toward the fire.
"Fadil!" Baba lowered the wheelbarrow and chased him down. He held tightly to his brother's arm. "You can't, brother. They'll kill you."
Uncle Fadil drooped like a dying plant. The brothers took one more look, then turned and came back to where the family was waiting. Huge tears were rolling down Uncle Fadil's sun-reddened face and catching in his mustache. The children stared at him. They couldn't help it; they had never seen a grown man cry before. Meli wanted to weep for him. Baba didn't even cry when Mehmet was missing.
"So." Uncle Fadil sniffed and wiped his face with the back of his big hand. "So. There's nothing to be done, is there? We must reconcile ourselves to it."
Meli could see that he was ashamed to be caught crying in front of them all. He picked up Elez and handed him to Baba, took the handles of the wheelbarrow, and began to push. Meli saw Granny twist around and kiss his arm, as though Uncle Fadil were still her little boy who needed comforting for a skinned knee.
***
Heading east, they were making their way against a tide of refugees heading west toward Albania. Maybe Mehmet was right. Maybe we are going in the wrong direction. But they went grimly on. Meli wiped her forehead with her sleeve. It was miserable walking in her layers of clothing, her wool sweater and her jacket. For the first several hours, the only stops they made were hasty ones to exchange burdens. As they passed neighboring farms, they could see other cars like the one that had come to the farm, and other masked men loading them up with the contents of the houses. Some of the houses they passed had apparently been emptied and now were burning.
"So there'll be no place to come home to when this is over," muttered Mehmet.
Once they spied an outhouse with no one nearby, and they hastily took advantage of it. The road was growing more and more crowded with Albanian Kosovars fleeing their homeland, but the Lleshis seemed to be the only people going toward the center of the country rather than away from it.
Everyone who was able took turns carrying the four small ones and pushing the wheelbarrow. Isuf and Adil, who seemed about to drop in their tracks, shook their heads manfully whenever Meli or Mehmet offered a piggyback ride. They stopped once for Nexima to feed the twins, but they were all too anxious to lie down, because the night sky was filled with the roar of planes overhead. Every time they heard the crash of bombs and saw the brilliant light of explosions, Mehmet gave a little cheer. "Hurray for Bill Clinton," he would say, not quite loudly enough for Baba to hear. Meli, standing beside him, was shaking at the sight of orange flames licking the dark sky. How could he be happy? People were losing their homes, perhaps dying in those flames.
It was nearly dawn when Isuf asked: "How much longer, Baba?"
"Not much longer, son. We must all be very brave and strong."
How, then, could Meli complain that she was tired? Little Adil wasn't even whining.
With the first streaks of light to the east, one of the babies began to cry. "We have to stop, Baba," Nexima said. "I must feed the babies again."
"We all need to rest," Auntie Burbuqe said.
The grass was wet with dew, but everyone sat down anyway. There was no use thinking about food for anyone but the babies. Meli tried to remind herself that she had had a good meal just the evening before—sausage, bread, cheese, yogurt—and there had been that sort of breakfast earlier in the day of cold soup ... She stopped herself. Her mouth was parched. There wasn't even any water to drink, not even a pot to draw water in. She thought of all the pots and pails she had filled with cool well water at Uncle Fadil's house.
Nexima finished nursing the twins. They should move on. They had to hurry. Suppose some Serb mili
tants find us here, just sitting on the grass? They'll kill us all, Meli thought, but she was too tired to stand up.
"There's a farm a bit farther down this road," Uncle Fadil was saying, "where I know the farmer. He's a good man. He'll let us have some water. He might even offer us something to eat. Besides, he owes me a favor. I loaned him my billy goat last year."
"If he still has a farm, he must be Serb," Mehmet said.
"Yes, but—"
"He won't remember he owes you anything," Mehmet said. "He's a good man, I say."
"A good Serb," Mehmet said sarcastically. Baba gave Mehmet his be quiet look.
Uncle Fadil stood up. They watched him as he walked ahead to the old stone farmhouse, barely visible now in the distance. Reluctantly, the rest of the family got up and began to walk in the same direction. Meli held her breath as Uncle Fadil knocked on the door. In a minute or two the door opened a crack, then closed again.
"I told you," Mehmet muttered.
But Uncle Fadil didn't move. A few more minutes passed, and the door opened again. This time a little wider, and they could see a hand, holding out a pot. Uncle Fadil took the pot, nodded, and said something they couldn't hear. The door closed once more.
"Meli," Uncle Fadil called out as he came quickly back to them, "take this to the well in back." As tired as she was, she ran to obey. The pot was old and battered, but it held water. She pumped until it was filled to the brim. It was so heavy the narrow metal handle cut into her palm, but she carried it carefully, unwilling to lose a precious drop, and walked back to where the family waited.
"She said we could keep the pot," Uncle Fadil said, proud as a child who's won a school prize.