My Name is Alijah

My mother calls me Alijah; twelve years of age. Once I was a child. But
there are no more children left here now. I still live in house number 39.
Radovan lived in the one next door; we used to play sometimes in his front
yard. But I don't go there anymore. It is a horrible place. Uncle Hassan
died there. My mother cried. She said Radovan's father had hit him with an
axe. I thought she was fooling me. I laughed. But then they came to our
house. They made a lot of noise. The door fell down. My sister's pots hit
the kitchen floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. I picked them up
but the men hit me. They called me bad names. 'You muslim bastard', they
said. No one had said that to me before. My father rushed to pick me up. I
think I was crying. I think I was scared. There was a loud bang and my
ears started hurting - the shrill ring would not go away. Blood. There was
blood coming out from my father's leg. My mother fell to the floor. I just
looked. I wanted to cry. If I didn't, I knew I would die. But the tears
would not roll down my cheeks. The lump in my throat grew and grew until I
thought it had become a giant thorn. It was cutting me from the inside. It
was. I knew it.

Sometimes mother sings about Kosava. But maybe it is not about Kosova.
Because I don't see any of what she sings about. And then again, maybe it
is just me. I can't see that well anyway. I knew they would go bad. I
told them not to hit my eyes. I told them they were bleeding. But they hit
my eyes again and again. I knew they would go bad. Aunty Zeyneb told my
mother it was good I couldn't see - she said what was around us was not
meant for a child's eyes. I did not like what she said. How many times do
I have to tell her. I am not a child.

We are now in Turkey. Kosova is far away from here. The war will end, my
father says. Very soon too. I asked my mother how we could be happy in
Kosova again. How could we? It is too hard. She said:

Wish you the joys of Spring?

Then plant a rose within your heart

For the rose that grows in grounds of soul

'tis blessed with buds of perrenial bloom


(Haafiz of Shiraz, Persian poet from the 12-13th century)



I nodded my head. "I will go home to Kosova. I will plant a rose. That is
a simple thing to do".