Song For a Massacre Survivor
by Elaine Monaghan
In journalism, we strive to breathe the same air as the humans we report on, to do our jobs best. But there is always a line that we must navigate between professionalism and empathy. To avoid sickness, during the pandemic, that line has included literal, physical distance. "Song For a Massacre Survivor" is about a moment that line disappeared for me while I was reporting in Kosovo. Meditating on Noli Me Tangere helped me finally find the words to describe it, and to reflect deeply on what it takes to heal.
Twenty-two years, thirteen days
And counting
I remember you.
I walked solemnly behind you
You crouched
Keeping watch over your beloved dead
Shot, or something unimaginably
Worse.
Body bag after body bag contained
Fourteen-week-old corpses
But not the stench.
Fifty-eight massacred
As if that tells the story.
Only the bastard murderers, and the forensic scientists
Know the secrets of the bags.
The men, the women, rounded up, killed
Children shot in the back of the head.
I remember you.
Quiet men sat on plastic seats like ride-on lawnmowers
Pulling carts with the beloved, the mourners, and
You.
The impossible procession processed
Up the hill
To the field
Cart after cart
Melodic wails wafted over fields with wildflowers
Echoed off the weeping mountains of Kosovo.
I wish I knew your name.
But I remember you.
I had buried my reporter’s notebook and pencil in my satchel.
It bumped against my hip
Step. Step. Step. Step.
I needed my arms to carry
All of you, and pieces of me.
In my mind, I joined the digging
Clod after clod
Foot after foot
Body after body.
I needed my hand to wipe away the salt
That blistering day
When the heat became too much
I crouched too, beside the dug rectangles
The bodies, the stench, the crunch of the earth.
My hand soft, the villagers’ hands
Callused even before they dug.
I silenced my training.
Keep your distance, draw a line
Stick with the pack
You are not one of these mourning
These beloved dead.
Bear witness to the unbearable
Write it down faithfully
Be true to the facts
Get the names, the numbers, the words, the quotes
The sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes.
But not the touch.
Do not touch.
Do not be touched.
Your job is not to help
to mourn.
Do not hold them back
Leave promptly.
Do not cross the line between you and
Them.
My confession.
I left the pack
joined the march
wore black
was strong enough not to cry
just like the villager said
in parting instruction, before the procession
as they sat in the dusty village square
clutched photographs of their beloved.
Children like birds on a telegraph wire.
“Tell me about him,” I asked Jeton, 11, of his brother, 15.
“Kreshnik liked to play football, and
I liked to play with him.”
He cried.
How did I not?
I needed no notes
called the desk
read the words in my head.
I knew the numbers but
I did not tell them of you because
I remember you, but
I did not know your name, could not ask for it.
It did not seem right.
But I knew you by your face
I knew you by your voice, because
I heard it that day before, when you told
The story of a massacre.
I knew it was you.
I knew it was you, when you
turned your head away
from the body bags, your
Beloved.
When you turned towards me, and saw me
I left the reporters’ lair
to walk behind you.
With you.
And you stretched out your hand
And I reached up mine.
Our hands joined.
“Thank you,” you said.
But all I did was to come and tell your story
to bear witness
to the unbearable.
So, saying nothing
I took my hand back and placed it on my heart.
And we walked together to bury your beloved
That blistering, unforgettable
Shattering
July day.
Elaine Monaghan is a writer, former foreign correspondent and professor of practice at The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. In her teaching, she focuses on data analysis, editing, ethics, reporting and writing. Follow her on Twitter.
Our project takes the words spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene in the garden after she discovers his empty tomb — noli me tangere (“touch me not”) — as a provocation for reflection on the COVID-19 pandemic, and on other pandemics, viral and social, that engulf us.