The Quiet Librarian

In a flashback, this chapter reveals that Hana was born as Nura Divjak in Tuzla, a city in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, in 1977. She lives with her Babo (her father), her mother, and her uncle Reuf on a parcel of mountainside land that the two men inherited from their father. Although they were born into the farming life, Babo prefers masonry, and Reuf is interested in politics. They keep cows and grow vegetables but do not farm. When Nura is five, her brother, Danis, is born. To her, life feels complete.

However, there is trouble on the horizon: The family purchases a television to watch the winter Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984, and they are now able to watch the news. They discover that the communist republic of Yugoslavia is breaking apart: Croatia and Slovenia are declaring independence, and Serbia is trying to stop them. Violence erupts, and Nura is terrified to see images of dead bodies on television. Reuf is excited for Bosnia to declare independence, too: He is not a communist and wants freedom. Bosnia is a Muslim country, and he wants Muslims to have more of a say in local politics. Babo is not so sure that it is a good idea for Bosnia to break free from Yugoslavia. He is sure that it will bring violence to the country. Reuf joins a local militia, hoping to defend Bosnia in case of a Serbian attack. Babo refuses to join. He does not resent communist leadership and is a Muslim in name only.

Back in the present, Hana recalls her long friendship with Amina. She thinks back to the birth of Amina’s daughter, Sara; the birth of Sara’s son, Dylan; and Sara’s death. She wonders what message Amina had been trying to send with her blue necklace when she died. She is sure that her death has something to do with the war, and she quietly looks herself up on the internet. She finds her old wanted poster: Nura Divjak, the “Night Mora,” is wanted for crimes against civilians. The reward is eight million dinars. She wonders if the person who killed Amina is also looking for her. She knows that Amina’s boyfriend, Zaim, was Bosnian, but Amina refused to ask him about his role in the war because she didn’t want to know. Hana is sure that she is in danger, too. She will have to dip into a well of strength that she has not accessed since the war, which was a time during which she was indeed capable of terrible acts.

In a flashback, this chapter shows the young Nura attending a small school in the village of Petrovo. Most of her classmates are Serbian, and she is a Bosnian Muslim, but those labels rarely enter her mind. She has two best friends, Jovana and Tanja, and she loves school and spending time with them. When she turns 14, Tanja gives Nura 10 blue marbles; they are a beautiful color that reminds the girls of the Adriatic Sea.

The girls seem inseparable, but when Bosnia declares independence, Jovana and Tanja stop speaking to her. They hurl vicious insults at her and forcibly hold her down to remove the friendship bracelet they previously gave her. Nura stops attending school and begins trapping rabbits for food. She gives the marbles, along with a slingshot, to her brother, Danis. He adores the gift. Babo and Reuf fell trees to hide the road to their mountain home, and the family stops going into town.

However, in time, Reuf decides to join the Bosnian army. Stories of mass killings of civilians and even systematic sexual assault against large groups of Bosnian women in the city of Foća have reached them, and Reuf feels that it is his duty to head to the small village of Srebrenica to help. It is currently besieged by Serbian forces, and he does not want it to share Foća’s fate.

In the present timeline, Hana calls Detective Claypool and arranges to meet. She arrives at the restaurant to find him dressed casually. She is impressed by how strong his arms look—they remind her of her father. He asks her to fill in some gaps in his knowledge, but she demands more information in return. He shares that Amina appeared to have uttered the word “bliss” as she was dying. Hana corrects him: She said “Iblis,” the Muslim equivalent of Satan.

Hana does not want to reveal too much to the detective, but she does ask him how much he knows about the war. She shares information about the Bosnian genocide and the Serbian army’s rape camps: hotels and compounds where Bosnian women were taken, en masse, to be systematically sexually assaulted by Serbian soldiers. They were also routinely beaten and tortured. The detective notes the presence of cigar burns on Amina’s back, and Hana remains silent. The detective asks if the word “Iblis” might refer to Amina’s rapist, and he wonders whether that man might be alive. Hana knows he is not since she herself killed him many years ago. However, she does not share this information with the detective.

He then asks if Amina was pregnant when she arrived in the United States and whether or not Hana knew her in Bosnia. Hana stiffens and reminds him that she already noted that she met Amina after Amina arrived in Minnesota. She adds that she does not know if Amina was pregnant before she immigrated. The detective then adds that Amina has named Hana as Dylan’s caretaker in the event of her death. Hana is shocked and does not know what to say.

A flashback shows Nura and Danis mucking the barn when Nura hears the noise of an approaching truck. In it, there are three soldiers screaming that they are looking for Reuf. She and Danis hide in the crawlspace under the house. She realizes that she knows two of the soldiers. They are her friends’ brothers and fathers, men with whom she has eaten family meals: Jovana’s father, Stanko Krunić, and Tanja’s brother Luka Savić. She recalls her father explaining that there is good and bad in everyone but that many people do not listen to the bad.

The soldiers approach Babo, demanding that he hand over Reuf. When Babo explains that Reuf is in Srebrenica, they begin to violently beat him. Danis runs from his place of safety and hits Luka in the face with his slingshot. In a rage, Luka fatally shoots him. Nura’s mother runs out screaming Danis’s name, and the third soldier drags her away. Horrified, Nura listens silently as her mother is raped and then killed. Babo is still alive, but Stanko begins kicking him, and soon he is also dead. Luka tells the others that there is also a daughter in the family. They look for Nura but do not find her. Then, they set fire to the house, and Nura is sure that she is about to die. Miraculously, she is able to escape, and when she makes it outside, the soldiers have left.

In the present, Hana notes how worn her sweater has become. Still, the item is wearable, and she appreciates that her cardigans make her look drab and uninteresting. She notes that being invisible is its own kind of camouflage. She puts on her running gear and heads outside. She lives in a farmhouse on 10 acres, and she runs in the surrounding area to keep a clear head.

She cannot fathom why Amina would have chosen her to be Dylan’s guardian. Dylan’s mother, Sara, was the child of Amina’s rapist, a Serbian soldier whom Amina characterized as “the devil.” Hana recalls firmly advocating for Amina to get an abortion when she found out she was pregnant, shortly after the two arrived in the United States. She worries now that if she takes Dylan in, he will be targeted by the same bounty hunter whom she assumes is after her. Still, she realizes that she cannot let the boy enter the foster care system. Her family, especially Danis, would have wanted her to take the child. She decides to agree to be Dylan’s guardian.

In a flashback, Nura contemplates the charred ruins of her family home. She notices burns on her arm and heads to Reuf’s house in search of supplies to clean her wounds. With difficulty and great pain, she cleans and bandages her burns. After a fitful night of sleep and a breakfast of crushed saltines and water, she returns to her home to bury her family. She locates the bodies of her parents and brother. Horrified by the brutal violence that they evidence, she struggles to bury them. The task takes all day and all the strength she has, but she finally accomplishes it. She lays them to rest in her mother’s tomato garden and returns to Reuf’s house. She has the blue marble given to her by Jovana that Danis shot at Luka. She decides to carry it with her as a token of bitter remembrance.

In the present timeline, Hana asks Detective Claypool if she can go to Amina’s apartment to pick up some of Dylan’s belongings. She knows that the boy will need clothing and toys, but she also wants to see the detective again. She wears attractive clothing for the trip: tight jeans and a flattering blouse. She does find Claypool attractive, but she is more interested in the information that he can give her.

At Amina’s apartment, she gathers Dylan’s belongings and contemplates the mess. The intruders tied Amina up with zip ties, and Hana is pained as she recalls that Amina had been restrained in this manner before. They also thoroughly rifled through her belongings, and Hana wonders what they were looking for. She finds a photograph of her and Amina, taken at Sara’s wedding. Behind it is a receipt for auto repair: Against Hana’s wishes, Amina paid for Zaim’s brakes to be fixed. Hana hides the receipt from Claypool. It is only a small lead, but it is all she has.

A flashback reveals Nura waking up hungry and nauseated. She begins to wish that she had died alongside her family but realizes that she cannot continue to think in this manner if she wants to move forward. It dawns on her that she knows the identities of the men who killed her family, and she resolves to kill them. If she perishes during this quest, she will at least have died in service of a worthy cause. She starts up her family’s battered old Yugo and heads in the direction of the noisy Serbian artillery fire.

In the present, Hana drives to the auto shop listed on the receipt. There, she pretends to be in distress and explains to the shop owner that she purchased a vehicle from the man whose receipt she has and that he failed to give her the vehicle’s title after taking her money. The mechanic is swayed by her acting, and although he does not have the name of the car’s owner, he provides her with his address.

Hana heads there and finds a small, run-down building. There are no cameras, and the front door is loose. She purchases a wig, a hat, and sunglasses at Goodwill and buys a knife at a pawn shop. She is certain that she can use the knife both to open the building’s front door and to threaten Zaim into revealing information.

In a flashback, Nura encounters a Serbian checkpoint and pretends to be her former friend Jovana, daughter of Stanko, the man who murdered her father. She tearfully tells the Serbian soldiers that Bosnian “traitors” murdered her family and that she needs to speak with her father. The men locate Stanko and bring him to her. As quickly as she can, she fatally stabs him in the neck and then bolts for the woods. Bullets fly, but she notices that there are now men in Bosnian military uniforms shooting at the Serbian soldiers from the surrounding forest. One of them, incredulous at what she’s done, pulls her aside and asks who she is. She explains that she just killed the man who murdered her father. He and the other soldiers usher her away quickly since the area is not safe.

In the present timeline, Hana pounds on Zaim’s door, but he does not answer. Eventually, the neighbor across the hall comes out of her apartment and asks if Hana is there to kill him. Summoning her acting skills, Hana laughs and tells the woman that she is Zaim’s friend. She learns that Zaim regularly seems to “screw over” his girlfriends. The neighbor reveals that she once overheard him yelling that he had killed men before and would kill again. She notes that other women, one with a Bosnian accent, have also come looking for him. She tells Hana that Zaim left three days ago and has not returned. Hana thanks the woman and, on her way out of the building, pries open Zaim’s mailbox to steal his mail.