Reima's Taj Mahal

I would recite a litany of activities for Reima to do, heat up the milk, can you please buy a new bag of diapers, can you call the pediatrician's office to confirm an appointment for next week, and here is some extra cash to go to the museum, Reima was my son's nanny, she had taken care of Aedan since he was born, Reima would pick up my son and cuddle him as soon as we arrived, Aedan, in return, adored Reima.

Sometimes I would watch them together and draw a sharp breath, they looked at each other with such pure joy and unbridled delight that I felt overwhelmed with jealousy, instantly disliking someone who could draw such reaction from a child I had birthed.

Reima Ismic was a slim, dark-haired woman in her forties, with thin wrists and bony hands, she always wore a light colored scarf around her head, she was a Bosniak, a Bosnian Muslim, who had arrived in our neighborhood after living for a few years in Vienna and Belgrade, finally being granted asylum to United States and given a home as part of the refugee resettlement program.

In her neatly arranged apartment on the top floor of a New England home, were photographs, of her parents, friends from college, of neighbors, their house in the outskirts of Sarajevo, her sister and brother, her pet goat, these are old photographs, of happier times, she had said, when there was no war and Bosniaks believed that ethnic cleansing happened only in Africa.

One late winter evening I went to pick Aedan up from Reima's apartment, he had spent the day happily with her, Reima invited me for some salep, an aromatic black tea with cardamom, as we sat on the couch in her small living room drinking the warm tea and watch Aedan play, Reima asked me suddenly but politely, why don't you ask me about the war, everyone does.

I was taken aback.

I had known Reima for more than three years and we have had many conversations but never about the war, I had been afraid to broach the topic.

I didn't want you to think that all I want is to know about the war, I had replied, feeling relieved that the unspoken has been said, I do want to know what happened in Yugoslavia-

No one calls it that, Reima interrupted me.

Yugoslavia. I was one of the hundreds of young school children lined up one cold Delhi morning as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President of the Socialst Republic of Yugoslvaia, Marshall Joseph Tito, in a white ambassador car cavalcade, drove past on one of the imposing roads of Delhi leading up to Rashtrapati Bhawan, the President's House, we were given flags of India and Yugoslavia to wave enthusiastically, we watched Tito, with dark glasses and a stiff military uniform wave at us with no hint of a smile, I remember the solemn photograph of him next day in the newspaper, a few days later a black and white sign went up at the end of the thoroughfare near my school, it said Joseph Broz Tito Marg.

Yugoslavia. I remember incessant news reports about the civil war and genocide, as I studied for my college exams, on hindsight, slightly bored of hearing of another war, reports of genocide, mass rapes, forced camps and internments, the worst European war since World War II, the news anchors with glum faces pronounced, as Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks fought to establish their own geographies on the decrepit remains of Yugoslavia.

I knew Reima had been witness to the longest siege of a city in the history of modern military warfare, 48 months, I had seen fractured news images of Sarajevo, once lined with beautiful cathedrals and mosques, now made of streets with craters from bombings by the Serbian army and buildings hollowed with sniper attacks, thousands of shallow graves lined up the Olympic village where once the world's athletes came to celebrate unity and brotherhood.

I never knew how I could have asked Reima about the war, if she had been raped or kidnapped by Serbs, forced to have a child who could then be baptized rather than allowed to become a Muslim, whether she had scars on her body or knew days of hunger, if she still recalled the merciless nightly shelling of homes, businesses, children.

Next to the photographs on her mantelpiece, sat a small replica of the Taj Mahal, her father had been to India when she was very young and brought it back with him, this was the most exotic thing in our house, Reima said, the marble of Reima's Taj Mahal, once translucent and clear, has started to take on a yellowish tinge, as it travelled with her across continents, one of the four minarets, which surround the real Taj as it does in this replica, had broken off, my sister and I dreamt of going to see the Taj Mahal one day, Reima said quietly.

This Taj Mahal means a lot of to me, Reima said, as Aedan climbed up to sit on her lap, loudly munching on the biscuits she made for him, isn't Taj Mahal about a love story, she asked, I suspect she knew the answer.

Yes, I said, of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal, I fondly remember my own visits, spread over many years beginning when I was four until a few months earlier, to Taj Mahal, and each time, as I entered through the darwaza, gateway to the Taj Mahal, being mesmerized by its presence, what can be said, a Victorian British travelled had once written, you don't stand and behold the Taj, the Taj beholds you.

My sister Admira had this Taj Mahal in her bag when she was trying to escape Sarajevo, Reima said, I look up at the grainy photograph of Admira, the photograph of a woman in her twenties, with dark flowing hair like Reima's, captured in that moment with a smile which extended up to her hazel colored eyes, she and Bosko, never made it past the bridge, said Reima, she lets Aedan play with the Taj Mahal.

I winced.

Admira and Bosko, lovers, one Muslim and the other Bosnian Serb, trying to escape Sarajevo, their story made international headlines when snipers killed them trying to flee one afternoon across the Vrbanja bridge, their bodies lay on the bridge, also called the 'sniper's alley', for eight days, the horror of their deaths and the rotting of their flesh becoming the symbol of the war.

Admira packed with her so few things that morning, Reima said, two shirts, one trouser, a book, and this Taj Mahal, one of the Taj's minarets must have broken when she and Bosko fell next to each other, Bosko shot in the head, Admira in the neck, Reima said softly.

I don't mention to her that I have seen photographs of her sister's death, broadcast around the world, in many documentaries and news clips, how Admira had crawled over to Bosko's lifeless body and gently put an arm around him, before they both became footnotes of Europe's violent history.

Reima sighed.

After Admira died, I had a dream, I already had this dream a few months earlier but I didn't immediately recognize it. In the dream, I was on the mountain path, near my father's farm a few miles from our home in Sarajevo, it was covered in thick fog through which I could barely make out a faltering glow of light, which grew gradually brighter as it drew closer, eventually turning out to be a torch made of wiker and reeds, as in my previous dream. This time I was holding it, it was attracting a cloud of moths, invisible until they reached me, milling from all sides to dance about, captivated by that one splash of light in the mountains, some of the moths were enormous, some were extraordinarily shaped, even though I was edging forward like a sleepwalker, for some reason with this dream I knew the script, I knew there was a fall lying wait for me, and all my vigilance and precautions proved pointless, I couldn't avoid the inevitable: putting one foot wrong, I let go of the torch and clung to a tuft of wild grass by the side of the path to try to stop myself from crashing to the base of the cliff, the moths were invisible again now, humming around my ears, their wings flitting over my nose, and skimming past my lips, as if trying to get inside my mouth, at this moment I felt the deepest affection for Admira and Bosko, for leaving me at the edge of the cliff.

When I woke up from the dream, I opened my eyes and felt a new euphoria, I went for a long walk, as safely as I could, ducking past the buildings, next to the boarded up shops and cemeteries, I was driven by a tentative new energy, Reima said.

She took the Taj Mahal from Aedan, kissed him, and put it back next to Admira's photograph.