![]() The fallen sons were going home, to houses and apartments in Vogosca or Illijas or Hadzici or Ilidza or Grbavica, Sarajevo neighborhoods Serbs had dominated for centuries-and had held during almost three years of war, protected by the artillery implanted on the mountains behind and by the snipers hidden in the apartments above. Scores were already there, hard at work, sliding earth-caked caskets into the backs of vans or pickup trucks, lashing them to the roofs of cars, or to the narrow beds of donkey carts. ![]() All now hoisted to their shoulders the fallen son and bore him slowly through the rows of crosses to the cemetery gates. He took up hammer and nails and mended as best he could the splintered wood, unrolled the plastic sheeting, wrapped it about the dirty box, and nailed it firm. As they wrestled free the coffins, nails pulled free and planks gave way, and through the earth-smeared wooden splinters a leg or hand or perhaps a discolored, still-familiar face confronted once more his father’s eyes.Ī father unrolled the dark wool blanket and tucked it gently about his son. They fought their way into the earth, until they felt steel scrape on wood. Then a gravedigger planted his feet and swung his pick, anchoring the point in the frozen soil the others pried free the rock-solid clods. When several burly men approached with picks and shovels the fathers tore off hunks of bread and all downed shots of brandy. They lit yellow candles and opened bottles of plum brandy, pouring libations to the dead. Passing through the gates, they traced their way slowly through the uneven rows of white wooden crosses and the mounds of black earth bordering the open graves until at last they halted, stared downward for a moment, and dropped to their knees, falling forward to kiss the white crosses that bore their sons’ names. In the bitter wind and cold of late December 1995, shortly before the coming of Orthodox Christmas, the Serb fathers of Sarajevo began trudging toward the graveyards.
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