Betrayal in the Family Album

The tablet hung on the kitchen wall above the fridge, where a calendar with pictures of Visoko had once been. Sabiha and Nedim had bought it for his mother for Bajram, so she would not have to wait for Sunday whenever she wanted to see her grandchildren. Ena, their daughter, had created a shared album and named it the Hodžić Family. Everything went into it: Ena's photos from her university in Sarajevo, Amar's from his football matches, tomatoes from Grandpa's garden, Aunt Šemsa's grandchildren in Stuttgart. Hajra watched the album the way people once watched a soap opera, with commentary and without a break. In the first months she called Sabiha every time she thought she had deleted something, until she understood that nothing in that album deleted itself.

That Sunday the table in the house in Moštre held sogan dolma, spinach pie, and a fresh cabbage salad, and through the open window you could see the Bosna, muddy from the rain that had fallen all Thursday. Nedim was half an hour late and sat down last, and he left his new phone in his jacket on the coat rack in the hallway. Ena had set it up for him on Saturday, because he had asked for everything to be the way it was on the old one. She had sat in her room with his phone the whole afternoon, and when she gave it back, she was unusually quiet. Sabiha thought she was tired. While Hajra ladled the soup, the tablet changed photos every eight seconds, and she announced them like a television presenter. "This is Amar at the match in Kakanj. This is Šemsa's little one. This is Halid with his tomatoes."

Then a hotel balcony appeared on the tablet, with the sea behind it. "This is one of Šemsa's people at the seaside," said Hajra. Sabiha noticed that Nedim's fork had stopped halfway. The next photo had been taken in a restaurant: Nedim at a table with a dark-haired woman who had rested her head on his shoulder. Behind them you could see the Old Bridge. In the corner was a date, the nineteenth of March. On that day, as far as Sabiha knew, Nedim had been in Banja Luka at a furniture fair.

"Why, that's Nedim," said Hajra, pleased that she had recognized him. Nobody answered. Halid set his spoon down in his bowl. Amar stopped chewing. Nedim said it was a colleague, Medina from the Tuzla branch, that they had been at a team-building retreat and that everybody there took pictures with everybody. As he was saying it, the tablet changed the photo. The same woman and him in a car, her kissing his cheek. Then her by the Neretva, wearing his watch. Then the two of them in front of a hotel in Mostar, her hand in the pocket of his jacket. Amar looked at his father, then at his mother, then at his father again, and Sabiha saw that her sixteen-year-old son was adding up, in that moment, what she had been adding up for months: the long meetings, the fairs, the phone that always lay face down on the table.

Nedim stood up so suddenly that he knocked over a glass of juice, and he ran out into the hallway for his phone. Through the door they heard him trying to unlock it. The phone was new, and Nedim did not know the code. "Ena, what's the code?" he shouted. Ena did not lift her eyes from her plate. "Mom's birthday," she said. They heard him typing. Once. Twice. "It says to try again in one minute," he said, in a voice Sabiha had never heard from him.

Halid got up and yanked the charger out of the socket, but the tablet was fully charged and kept running on its battery. In that minute it showed seven more photos. In the last one there was a cake, chocolate, with words piped in whipped cream: For my N. Sabiha recognized the tablecloth, checkered, red and white, from the café by the old tannery where Nedim liked to drink his coffee whenever he was in Visoko. She recognized the date too. It was her birthday. That evening she had sat with the children until eleven, with her own cake, because Nedim had called and said a truck had overturned near Jajce and the road was closed.

Hajra stood up. Of everything the tablet could do, she had learned only one thing: how to stop a photo when she liked it. She pressed the button. The cake stayed on the screen, with its words in whipped cream, above the fridge and above the whole family. "Sit down," Hajra said toward the hallway, calmly, the way she had when Nedim was ten years old. Nedim came in with the phone in his hand and did not sit down.

Sabiha wiped her mouth with a napkin and turned to her daughter. "How do you remove someone from the album?" she asked. Her hands were steady, and that surprised her more than anything. Ena got up, took the tablet off the wall, and set it down in front of her mother. She showed her the settings, then the members, fourteen names, from Šemsa to Amar. Next to each one was a small picture. Next to Nedim's was a photo from their wedding, which Ena had chosen herself, because she thought it was lovely.

The screen said: Remove member Nedim Hodžić from the Hodžić Family album? His photos will be removed. Sabiha pressed Yes. The cake disappeared. The hotel, the Neretva, the car, and the watch disappeared. For a moment the tablet went black, and then it started cycling through photos again as if nothing had happened: Amar with the ball, Šemsa's little one, Halid with his tomatoes.

Nedim finally unlocked the phone and stared at the tablet as if seeing it for the first time. "What did you do?" he asked. Nobody answered him. Halid picked up his spoon. "The soup will get cold," he said. Then, without raising his eyes, he added: "And you will wash the dishes today." Hajra put the tablet back on the wall. Nedim stood a little longer with the phone in his hand, and then he went over to the sink and turned on the water, although nobody had finished eating yet.

Sabiha left with the children before coffee. Hajra walked them to the gate and pushed a container of dolma, wrapped in a kitchen towel, into her hands. She said nothing. She only held her by the elbow for a long time, as if afraid she might fall. Nedim did not come out of the kitchen. Through the window they could hear the water running. Amar sat in front. Ena sat behind her mother and all the way to the highway looked out the window at the Bosna.

At the toll gate Sabiha looked at her in the rearview mirror. "Did you know?" she asked. "Since Saturday," said Ena. "On the old phone those photos were in a hidden folder. On the new one they aren't. As soon as the phone connected to Grandpa's internet, they started going into the album. Dad said he wanted everything the way it was on the old one." She paused. "I didn't want it to be the way it was on the old one." Sabiha said nothing. She paid the toll, took the receipt, and when the barrier rose, she switched on her turn signal and passed the truck that was crawling ahead of them toward Sarajevo.