Christopher Merrill

The Folded Lie

A heavy fog shrouded the besieged city from the snipers and gunners in the surrounding hills—a blessing for Sarajevans under ordinary wartime circumstances because it provided cover to walk the streets in relative safety. But the Bosnian government had chosen this day to crack down on a pair of warlords who had outlived their usefulness in defending the city. Civilians and soldiers alike were ordered to stay inside, where the progress of this internal campaign could be monitored on battery-operated radios—there had been no gas, water, or electricity in Sarajevo for eighteen months. Rumors swirled of raids and running battles, of hostage-taking and rogue military units loose on the streets. From the window of the house in which I was staying, little could be seen, which inspired jokes about “the fog of war”—the difficulty, that is, of distinguishing fact from fiction. When the all-clear siren rang in the afternoon, I ventured out to be stopped almost immediately by a firefight. Seeking cover between two apartment buildings, with my back pressed against a wall and bullets flying by, I could not tell who was shooting at whom: an emblem of the problems involved in attempting to discern the truth in war.