# "Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 89"
The afternoon sun filtered through the lime trees of a Bosnian village, where stone houses with red-tiled roofs clustered around a centuries-old mosque and an Orthodox church, their spires rising like silent witnesses to coexistence. Su Yao's car wound along roads lined with cherry orchards, passing women in dark headscarves and colorful aprons selling embroidered tablecloths at roadside stalls, until it reached a community nestled in the foothills of the Dinaric Alps. In a courtyard shaded by a grape arbor, a group of women sat on wooden benches, their fingers moving with melancholic grace as they stitched silk threads into linen fabric. Their leader, a 68-year-old woman with silver hair braided under a white headscarf and hands stained with red dye named Amra, looked up as they approached, holding a finished *sevdah textile*—a cloth adorned with stylized tulips, crescent moons, and intertwined hearts in deep crimsons, forest greens, and ivory whites that seemed to hum with the longing of ancient ballads. "You've come for the *bosanska šiva*," she said, her Bosnian dialect laced with the cadence of *sevdah* songs, gesturing to piles of textiles laid out on a handwoven woolen rug.
The Bosniak people of Bosnia-Herzegovina have crafted *sevdah textiles* for over 500 years, a craft intertwined with their *sevdah* (a unique form of emotional expression, often translated as "longing") and multicultural history. The *bosanska šiva*—a hand-embroidered cloth—serves as both a vessel for love poems and a tapestry of coexistence: Its patterns incorporate Ottoman motifs.Slavic symbols, and Mediterranean influences, reflecting the region's layered past. Each stitch carries the weight of *sevdah*—tulips represent forbidden love, crescent moons denote spiritual longing, and interlocking crosses and stars symbolize the fragile harmony between faiths. Woven from linen grown in the Neretva Valley and silk traded along the Via Margaritifera, each textile requires up to eight months of work, with embroiderers stitching during winter evenings while singing *sevdah* songs to "infuse the cloth with *duša* (soul)." Dyes are made from plants and minerals of the Balkans: *krap* (madder root) for red, *orah* (walnut hulls) for brown, and *lignja* (sage) for green, with recipes guarded by *baba* (grandmother artisans) through oral tradition. The process begins with a silent prayer for peace and includes recitations of *sevdah* verses while working to "bind the thread to the pain and beauty of existence." Su Yao's team had traveled here to merge this emotional craft with their seaweed-metal blend, hoping to create a textile that honored Bosnian traditions while adding durability to the delicate fibers. But from the first conversation, it was clear that their understanding of "emotional resonance" and "innovation" was as different as the rigid mountains and the flowing Neretva River.
Amra's granddaughter, Emina, a 26-year-old who taught *sevdah* embroidery at a cultural center while studying ethnomusicology, He lifted a piece of fabric, which featured tear-filled eyes and broken chains - these elements were taken from a famous "Sedda" folk song, which tells the story of separation."This is for a *svadba* (wedding)," she said, her voice softening as she traced the stitches. "My grandmother dyed the silk during *bajram* (Eid) when memories run deepest—too many bright threads, and it mocks the sorrow in our songs; too few, and it loses the joy that balances it. You don't just make these textiles—you stitch the ache of longing into every thread."
Su Yao's team had brought computerized embroidery machines and synthetic thread blends, intending to mass-produce simplified *sevdah* patterns using their seaweed-metal blend for a "Balkan bohemian" home decor line. When Lin displayed a prototype with machine-stitched tulip motifs, the women froze, their bone needles clattering to the stone floor. Amra's son, Haris, a 45-year-old *imam* with a black beard and a Quran in a leather case, stood and placed his hand on the fabric. "You think machines can capture the *sevdah*—the longing that makes our people sing?" he said, his voice trembling with the rhythm of *gusle* (lute) music. "These textiles carry the tears of our grandmothers and the stories of our survival. Your metal has no tears, no stories—it's a bullet casing, not a love letter."
Cultural friction deepened over materials and rituals. Bosniak weavers harvest linen during the *harvest moon*, offering the first fibers to the river Neretva to "thank her for our lives." The fabric is washed in spring water said to cure heartache, where women leave coins as offerings to the water nymphs, and stretched on frames made from apple wood (which "holds the scent of temptation"). Dyes are prepared in copper pots over fires of plum wood, with each color mixed while reciting *sevdah* lyrics—red is dyed at dusk for "the pain of parting," green at dawn for "the hope of return." The seaweed-metal blend, despite its organic origins, was viewed as an intrusion. "Your thread comes from salt waters that never touched our rivers," Amra said, placing the sample on a *kilim* rug woven with floral motifs. "It will never carry the *duša* of our *sevdah*."
A practical crisis emerged when the metal threads reacted with the madder root dye, turning it a rusty orange and causing the linen fibers to weaken. "It angers the spirits of our ancestors," Emina said, holding up a ruined swatch where the tear motif had frayed. "Our textiles grow more meaningful with each generation, like a *sevdah* song passed from mother to daughter. This will decay like a forgotten melody, erasing our connection to our pain and joy."
Then disaster struck: heavy rains caused the Neretva River to flood, washing away the madder root and walnut groves used for dyeing and damaging the weavers' embroidery frames—some carved from wood salvaged from old mosques and churches. The stored silk threads, kept in a wooden chest with brass fittings, were soaked by floodwaters, and their supply of rare gold thread (traded from Serbia) was destroyed. With the *Sijam* (winter festival) approaching, when new textiles are given as gifts to honor resilience, the community faced a crisis of both culture and survival. Haris, leading a prayer service for flood victims in the village mosque, blamed the team for disturbing the natural balance. "You brought something cold from the sea to our land of rivers," he intoned, as rain pattered on the mosque's dome. "Now the river is angry, and she takes back her gifts."
That night, Su Yao sat with Amra in her stone house, where a cast-iron pot of *bosanski lonac* (meat and vegetable stew) simmered over a wood stove, filling the air with the scent of paprika and bay leaves. The walls were hung with *sevdah* textiles and framed photographs of family members lost in the war, and a small shelf held a Quran, a candle, and a *gusle* lute. "I'm sorry," Su Yao said, sipping *rakija* (fruit brandy) from a crystal cup. "We came here thinking we could honor your craft, but we've only shown we don't understand its soul."
Amra smiled, passing Su Yao a piece of *tufahija* (stuffed apple dessert). "The flood is not your fault," she said. "Our rivers have always tested us, like our *sevdah* tests our hearts. My grandmother used to say that even water-damaged thread can be dried, like a broken heart can be mended. But your thread—maybe it's a chance to show that our *sevdah* can speak to new audiences, without losing its pain and beauty. Young people buy cheap imports from Zagreb. We need to show them our stitches still sing our songs."
Su Yao nodded, hope rising like the moon over the Alps. "What if we start over? We'll help rebuild the dye gardens on higher ground, dry the soaked threads, and trade for new madder root from Herzegovina. We'll learn to embroider by hand, singing your *sevdah* songs. We won't copy your sacred motifs. Instead, we'll create new ones together—designs that merge your tulips with our ocean waves, honoring both your rivers and the sea. And we'll let Haris bless the metal thread with a prayer, so it carries the spirit of peace."
Emina, who had been listening from the doorway, stepped inside, her embroidered apron rustling like dry leaves. "You'd really learn to stitch the *tulip of Sarajevo* pattern? It takes 10,000 stitches for one flower—your fingers will bleed, your heart will ache from the *sevdah* in our songs."
"However long it takes," Su Yao said. "And we'll learn the stories behind each motif. Respect means feeling your longing."
Over the next five months, the team immersed themselves in Bosnian life. They helped build stone retaining walls around the dye gardens, their hands blistered from lifting rocks, and traveled with Haris to a mountain village to collect wild madder root, learning to identify plants by the *sevdah* songs associated with them. They sat on wooden benches, stitching until their eyes blurred, as the women sang *sevdah* ballads about love and loss that echoed through the valley. "Each stitch must be pulled with the same tension as a *gusle* string," Amra said, guiding Su Yao's needle. "Too loose, and the emotion fades; too tight, and the fabric breaks. Like *sevdah*—it must hurt a little to be beautiful."
They learned to dye silk in copper pots over plum wood fires, their clothes stained red and brown as Emina taught them to add *honey* to the madder dye to "make the color last like our memories." "You have to stir the dye while singing *'Emina'*—the oldest *sevdah* song," she said, her voice rising in the haunting melody. "Without song, the color lacks soul." They practiced the *chain stitch* that creates the *sevdah* textile's distinctive texture, their progress slow but steady as Amra's 90-year-old sister, Fatima, who remembered the Ottoman era, corrected their work with a sharp eye. "The tulips must bend like they're crying," she said, her gnarled fingers adjusting a thread. "Straight flowers have no *sevdah*."
To solve the reaction between the metal threads and madder dye, Lin experimented with coating the metal in a solution of *beeswax* and *pine resin*, a mixture Bosnians use to preserve wooden *gusle* lutes. The wax sealed the metal, preventing discoloration, while the resin added a subtle fragrance that Haris declared "smells like peace" after the blessing. "It's like giving the thread a Bosnian soul," she said, showing Amra a swatch where the red now blazed against the metal's shimmer.
Fiona, inspired by the way Bosnia's rivers flow to the Adriatic, designed a new pattern called "Tears and Tides," merging tulip motifs with wave patterns in seaweed-metal thread. The tulips' petals gradually transform into ocean waves, symbolizing how *sevdah*'s longing connects to the universal human experience. "It honors your songs and our sailors," she said, and Haris nodded, pressing the fabric to his chest in a gesture of acceptance. "The best *sevdah* honors both separation and connection," he said. "This cloth understands our hearts."
As the dye gardens sprouted new growth and the village rebuilt, the community held a *Sijam* celebration, with *sevdah* singers performing and children carrying candles through the snow. They unveiled their first collaborative textile at the village square, where it hung between the mosque and church catching the winter sunlight. The fabric featured the "Tears and Tides" pattern, its linen and silk fibers strengthened by seaweed-metal thread that glowed like starlight on water, and traditional motifs of crescent moons and crosses intertwined that seemed to pulse with the rhythm of *sevdah*.
Amra draped the textile over Su Yao's shoulders, as the community sang a *sevdah* song in harmony. "This cloth has two sorrows, two joys," she said, her voice trembling with emotion. "One from our Bosnia, one from your sea. But both speak the language of longing."
As the team's car drove away from the village, Emina ran alongside, waving a small package. Su Yao rolled down the window, and she tossed it in: a scrap of linen dyed red with madder, stitched with a tiny tulip and wave in seaweed-metal, wrapped in grape leaves. "To remember us by," read a note in Bosnian and English. "Remember that rivers and sea both carry our tears—and our songs—like your thread and our silk."
Su Yao clutched the package as the Bosnian hills faded into the distance, the setting sun painting the snow-capped Alps in hues of pink and violet. She thought of the hours spent stitching under the grape arbor, the *sevdah* songs that seemed to carry the weight of centuries, the way the metal thread had finally learned to hold the fabric's emotion. The Bosnians had taught her that tradition isn't about preserving pain—it's about carrying forward the beauty that emerges from struggle, letting old patterns evolve while staying rooted in the authenticity of human feeling.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the Madagascar team: photos of Tsiry holding their collaborative *lamba* at a rain festival. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added new tulips—Bosnian rivers and your sea, woven as one."
Somewhere in the distance, a *gusle* played a haunting melody that echoed across the valleys, a reminder of the music that connects all people who have known longing. Su Yao knew their journey was far from over. There were still countless stories of heartache and hope to honor, countless threads of human emotion to weave into the tapestry of their work. And as long as they approached each new place with humility—listening to the songs, honoring the weavers—the tapestry would only grow more heartfelt, a testament to the beauty of all things bound by thread and feeling.