Summary

Section 2 begins with Arrow’s meeting with her unit commander. Nermin Filipović is only a few years older than Arrow, very handsome, unmarried, and has been a professional soldier for a long time. Arrow knows he was one of the “few career officers to break ranks and defend the city against his former colleagues,” which means that if “Sarajevo falls, if the men on the hills ever make it into the city, he will be one of the first people they execute” (56). Arrow and Nermin, though both stoic and serious fighters, have a clear respect and even affinity for one another. Nermin tells Arrow that he has a special assignment for her: to protect the cellist.

He takes her to see the cellist play before he explains that she will be his sole protector. She is touched by his music and accepts the...