She felt for her own shoes among the pile of family shoes before the tent. The cooler nights demanded that they all sleep in their clothes, which was a good thing. It meant she could scout around and try to find her brother before the rest of the family knew he was missing. She was sure that if Mehmet had told their parents he was leaving, he wouldn't have sneaked out in the middle of the night.
Fortunately, there was enough moonlight for her to see her way around the makeshift shelters in the family encampment. Mehmet wouldn't be in one of those, she was sure. She took a deep breath and headed up through the trees toward the camp-fires of the KLA. She hadn't gone very far before she felt cold metal poking into her backbone. A flashlight shone in her face, blinding her. "It's only a little girl," a man's rough voice said, and then asked, "Where are you going in the middle of the night, child? Did you miss your way to the toilet?"
"I'm looking for my brother." She couldn't help the quaver in her voice, even though she told herself that the fighters wouldn't hurt her. Indeed, the gun was no longer on her back.
"How old is your brother?" the voice behind her asked.
"Thirteen."
"Oh," said the voice. "I thought you meant little brother. Don't worry. Your brother can take care of himself. Now go back to your tent like a good girl and don't go prowling around where you don't belong."
"His—his name is Mehmet Lleshi. If you see him, will you tell him his family ... his family is anxious about him?"
The flashlight was lowered, and the voice behind it said gently, "Really, there's no need to worry. Your brother is fine, I'm sure. Go on back now, child, and get some sleep."
It was useless to argue. She turned back toward the family encampment and crept into the tent. Isuf and Adil had rolled over against each other. She pushed them apart as gently as she could and lay down again between them.
"Meli?" Of course Mama would wake up.
"It's all right, Mama. I just went out to—to relieve myself." She heard her mother roll over, grunting a bit as she did so.
It was impossible to fall asleep again. She tried to keep from tossing and turning in the narrow wedge between her brothers. The night stretched on and on, until at last morning pierced the cracks around the tent flap and surrounded the canvas with its weak warmth.
Baba cleared his throat, got to his feet, and—hunched over so that he wouldn't brush the top of the tent—stepped carefully over Isuf, Meli, and Adil, pausing briefly at the empty spot that should have been Mehmet. Then he raised the flap and went outdoors. Meli got up and followed him out.
"Mehmet's gone," she said.
"So I see," he said.
"He took his blanket."
Baba nodded. "Tell your mother to start the fire and feed you. As soon as I gather the firewood, I'll go look for him."
Everyone wanted to know where Baba and Mehmet were, but Meli just told them that Baba had said they were not to wait with breakfast, that the two of them would be back soon. Mama gave her a questioning look, but Meli just shook her head.
It was a quiet meal, and because there was not much to eat, it was over quickly. Meli left the cleaning up to Mama and took the pot to the stream for water. They always needed more water, and if she was alone she wouldn't have to deal with any more unanswerable questions.
It was midmorning before Baba returned, a glum-faced Mehmet trailing several steps behind. At least Mehmet had enough respect for Baba not to defy him, Meli thought. That was a relief.
She didn't speak of his disappearance until later that afternoon, when she found Mehmet sitting under a chestnut tree at the far edge of the camp. He was ripping up little clumps of grass and pitching them down the hill. He didn't even glance at her when she sat down beside him. She had practiced in her head several things to say, but finally she simply blurted out, "I'm glad you re back."
"When I'm fifteen I'll join up, no matter what Baba says."
She hadn't practiced an answer to that, so she said nothing and comforted herself with the knowledge that it would be more than a year before her brother turned fifteen. Surely the war would be long over by then.
***
Meli slept hard that night, untroubled by the anxieties of
the night before, but when she left the tent in the morning, she saw only Mehmet coming from the trees carrying firewood. "Where's Baba?" she asked.
Mehmet shrugged. "I don't know. He was gone when I woke up. Mama said he left the message that I was to be in charge, so you re going to have to listen to me for a change." He sounded almost like her bossy older brother again. "It's past time to eat. Where's Mama? Why doesn't she have the fire made already?"
Meli went looking for their mother and found her trying, as cold as it was, to wash herself behind the tent. Mama was such a modest woman; it must be humiliating for her to have such little privacy. Indeed, when she saw Meli, she blushed and began hastily to pull her dress on over her undergarments.
"Excuse me, Mama, but I have to know where Baba's gone." It was too much to bear, first losing Mehmet, now her father.
"Shh. He's gone to fetch Uncle Fadil."