Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [70]
He had a terrible history, a fractured family, and little contact with the Bosnian community. His mother couldn't get along with anyone, even her own people. Neither Anton nor his mother had many attributes of resilience. Indeed, he had no ways to calm himself down.
Anton was born in a small town one hundred miles from Tuzla. He was fifteen now, seven when the war began in 1992. Of his life before the war, he said, "It was a good life, an ordinary life. I played soccer, watched television, and screwed around with my friends."
At first Anton was reluctant to talk about the war, but when he started he couldn't stop. He said, "I saw my father and grandfather shot in our living room."
Then the soldiers set fire to their home. He, his grandmother, and his mother ran for their lives. While on the run, Anton witnessed bombings and rapes. He saw corpses in the streets and he heard the screaming of injured people. Eventually the three made it to Germany. Even there, life was traumatic. In his neighborhood, the police often came around to warn them to stay inside, that thugs were beating up refugees. In some cities, refugees were killed by skinheads. They were in Germany three years, then, as Anton put it, "The Germans kicked out the Bosnians."
He and his mother decided to come to America, but his grandmother returned to Bosnia. She didn't think she could learn a new language. Anton said, "She wishes she were here with us. Life is very hard for her."
Anton smiled when he recalled that, in a stroke of luck, he and his mother accidentally had been assigned first-class seats on the flight from Munich to Chicago. In Nebraska they rented a small apartment. He said, "I like it small. I don't want us to be in different rooms all the time." His mother worked at a noodle factory and studied English at night. She and Anton kept to themselves.
Anton said, "We don't trust anybody." I asked him about his grades and he said, "It is hard to learn everything at once."
I gently asked Anton how he slept. He said, "I dream of my father and grandfather's death. I try to save them, but I can't." We talked about what calmed him. He said American movies made him feel better. He had bought a video of The Mask and he watched it over and over. He also liked Halloween, Scream, and I Know What You Did. Last Summer. He said, "It feels good to see someone else in trouble."
He had many complaints. He felt the ELL kids gave him a rough time and the American kids ignored him. He said, "I believe I am an American, but the American kids do not." He loved soccer, but had to work after school and couldn't play. He didn't like the Bosnian kids in Lincoln. His only praise was for his teachers—"They do everything they can for us"—and for his mother: "She won't let me eat American food. She cooks me good Bosnian food."
He didn't like how Americans waste food. He said, "Whenever I see someone throw away food, I wish I could give it to my grandmother."
I asked Anton how he would feel about seeing a therapist. At first he shouted, "No way," but by the end of our talk, he was willing to give it a try. Later, with the help of a translator, I gently broached the subject of therapy with his mother. She was so upset she threatened to pull Anton from school.
After all his loss and trauma, she couldn't bear to see him reinjured by what she feared was treatment for crazy people. These last few years she had fought to keep him alive and she wasn't going to let down her guard. Maybe after what had happened, she couldn't.
To Anton's mother, love meant protecting him from the outside world. She had lost her husband and father, her work, and her language, and she wasn't going to lose Anton. She had lost everything but the power to say no to an American who wanted to help.
I wondered what she had been like before the war. What had she been like when she had a nice house, a husband, and a flower garden? How do we evaluate a woman who has seen her husband and father killed, and who has walked past bombed villages with a hungry, traumatized son at