Sarajevo Marlboro Page 7

  “Tell me, Armin,” I asked him once. “How d’you know what kind of tattoo the innkeeper has on his shoulder when you’re in one trench and he’s in the other?”

  Armin laughed, “Boy Wonder, you’re not too swift!”

  Then he explained that he and the innkeeper have been locked in combat for over fifteen months. As a result, they know each other better than Flash Gordon and Dr. Zarkov. From a distance they have already studied each other in minute detail.

  “You know,” Armin said, “the innkeeper would probably be my best friend if I didn’t have to kill him. The Redcoats are people like us, don’t forget. Their only mistake was choosing to be Redcoats. Mind you, if it were any other way, life would be very boring, wouldn’t it? Instead of DC Comics, say, or Luno’s Big Book of Comic Strips, there’d be only blank notebooks in which you could write nonsense or draw love-hearts with Cupid’s arrows and silly things like that. You’ll understand when you grow up, Harun. Boy, does it piss me off that a fucking Redcoat has a tattoo of Zagor.”

  I continued to nod my head while Armin was speaking, because I knew that if I stopped for a moment or, even worse, tried to ask him any questions, like the one about his scars, he’d just snap at me and say, “You’re dumb, Boy Wonder,” and refuse to look at me again.

  But I know that Armin is lying when he says that he owns all the comic strips featuring Zagor, and that he knows the number of each adventure. Because when I said to him, “Chico the Seducer,” he replied, “Four hundred and thirty-seven.” He was wrong, of course, so I ran home to fetch Chico the Seducer, number 239, but when I got back he was nowhere to be seen.

  You never really get to know his movements. Most of the time he’s in Muče’s café, unless he’s gone to fetch water for his mother. But then you try to pin him down and he claims he was in the war zone fighting the Redcoats. In fact, I happen to know that he’s deeply ashamed to have lied about the scars he doesn’t have, and the comics he doesn’t possess, and the back issues he doesn’t know. I don’t say anything, however. Armin is still a fighter, and you should always be grateful to them. I am useful to him in terms of logistics – which is to say, I bring him lots of comics.

  Once I gave Armin an unused bullet, and he was really pleased. He put it in his shirt pocket and said, “Boy Wonder, I promise you I’ll take out Mitar Kalpoš with your bullet. I had him in my sights, you know, at least three times, but I wasn’t in the mood. Now I’m going to jump out of the trench straight in his line of fire, and as soon as he puts his finger on the trigger, I’ll kill him with your bullet. And I’ll tell everybody that Robin has once again saved Batman’s life. You know what your bullet means, don’t you, Boy Wonder? It means that the damn raving Redcoats will never capture Ontario or float down the Miljacka in a steamboat!”

  For a month now Armin has not returned from Mount Igman. I’m worried in case something’s happened to him. Perhaps he really did jump out of the trench, only to discover that he’d left my bullet in the pocket of his other shirt. The weather has improved during the last four weeks. Spring has finally arrived, and the snow has melted in the city. The line across Igman is moving upwards. Soon the white will be overrun by the green. I’m worried that Armin will not return before the snow melts on Igman. I have a feeling that if I ever see a completely green mountain, then he will never come back. The trick is in the line – and I know it. If the line disappears, the hundreds of invisible scars and the adventures of Batman and Robin will have meant almost nothing, but certainly no more than back issue 239 of my favorite comic, the one with Chico the Seducer, who only killed a Redcoat by accident.

  The Communist

  Ivo T. always was a communist – and he always will be. The year before the war, not long after the various nationalist parties won the elections, he led his wife and children on to the patch of grass in front of his apartment block, made a fire and began to roast a lamb on the spit. We couldn’t help watching from our window, but we weren’t amused. Ivo T. was dressed in a white shirt and a suit with a red carnation in his buttonhole. As he turned the spit, he made a point of holding his head high like Emperor Franz Josef. It was as though he’d forgotten that nobody celebrates May Day anymore. His wife and children perched on wooden stools, looking equally festive. But you could tell that they didn’t really know where to put themselves. Every passerby stared disapprovingly at the family, and a handful even made rude comments.

  Ivo T. pretended not to see or hear anything, but when he just couldn’t help noticing, he responded with the national sign language of Bosnia – an obscene gesture involving the forearm.

  In nineteen sixty-something Ivo T. was chosen as president of the local council. Every day he came to work on his bike so that he wouldn’t stand out from the workers. His trouser legs always bore the traces of bicycle clips, and you could always see the imprint of the saddle on his bottom. On Sundays, however, he used to stick his wife and children in the Yugo 1300, and drive slowly up and down Princip Street or around Vitez so that everybody could see them. Of course he only bought the Yugo in order to help the country’s economy – unlike some, who bought Mercedes and thus helped the capitalists. But after only a month Ivo T. resigned from his council job. Nobody could understand why, although he claimed it was because he just couldn’t deal with those criminals.

  When Tito killed a prize bear in the woods near Bugojno, Ivo T. said, “It’s a pity for the bear, I guess, but it’s only a wild animal after all. As long as that’s where it ends.” Some people claimed that Ivo T. was against the state and against self-management, but he replied, “I knew the right path even when Tito broke with Stalin, let alone when it comes to a bear hunt.”

  The others bowed their heads and went home without saying a word.

  When Tito died Ivo T. locked himself in his room and drank a bottle of gin before dawn. He summoned his wife, Ruža, his son and daughter and gave them a pep talk along the lines of, “Now the old man has gone, there’ll be no more messing around. I expect you all to behave responsibly . . .”

  All the party officials stood to attention as the pall-bearers lowered Tito into his grave. Ivo T. also got to his feet. Tears ran down his face as the Internationale was being played.

  Ruža, however, was a God-fearing woman. In the run-up to Christmas she always did a bit of dusting, replaced the curtains, went to the hairdresser’s, and made sure the children looked neat while her husband looked on grumpily.

  He knew her game. Two or three days before Christmas he went up to her and gave her a talking to. “There’ll be no Christmas celebrations in this house,” he said. “I have already made my position clear, and I’m not going to be like some people. You know the type – on the one hand he’s a communist, but on the other his house looks like Zagreb Cathedral. If you want Christmas, take the kids and go to your mother’s or my mother’s or wherever. Celebrate as much as you like, but leave me out of it.”

  Ruža used to go with the children to her mother’s one year and to her in-laws’ the next. Without fail Ivo T. would appear at the relevant house several days later; it was as though he was just passing. He’d be dressed in his everyday clothes, and he’d sit down, have a drink and a bite, wish a merry Christmas to the family, and then announce, “Socialism guarantees the freedom to worship.”

  Ivo T. was friendly with everybody except thieves. Walking through Vitez, he would never fail to greet his acquaintances politely. He was equally fond of the Germans and the English and the Americans. In spite of capitalism. As a matter of fact, the only people he hated were the Japanese. Nobody knew why. One evening his children were watching a Japanese film on tv and he’d fallen asleep in his chair. (He always sat on the ordinary wooden chair, because he had a bad back and it hurt even more when he stretched out.) He was snoring away when a samurai suddenly yelled out and startled him from his sleep. He began to shout at the tv – it was “the Japanese this” and “the Japanese that.” The children managed to get their father to calm down, but his tirade ended
with a rather strange question. “Well, my old Darwin,” Ivo said, “if a man comes from an ape, where does a Japanese come from?” Then he returned to his chair and began to snore again. Later, everybody in Vitez laughed about Ivo and the samurai.

  It became fashionable in the workplace to think of yourself as a Yugoslav. But when Ivo T. was asked what he was, he replied, “I must say that I’m a Croat.”

  His colleagues were surprised, but he went on, “That’s what I was born and I can’t change it. If you don’t like me as a Croat, why would you like me as a Yugoslav?”

  Once again, they lowered their heads and left. That’s what the times were like.

  When his son was leaving to study in Zagreb, Ivo T. accompanied him as far as Zenica, embraced him, shoved 100 Deutschmarks into his pocket and said, “The people in Zagreb are just the same as people in Vitez. You have good ones and bad ones. The good ones will like you as long as you don’t forget where you come from.”

  It’s hard to know whether the boy paid any attention to his father or not. He wanted to have a good time. He didn’t think about what he was leaving or the life that awaited him in Zagreb. That day a terrible storm broke over Vitez. The sky crashed down. There was talk of a pregnant woman who had been killed by lightning in Kruščica. Some people heard the child cry from inside its dead mother’s belly – but after a while it stopped. Others said the child should have been taken out of its mother while it was still alive. As it is they had to bury an unbaptized soul inside a baptized one. Old women later claimed that such a thing always causes bad luck. It was as if somebody had whispered in the good man’s ear, and persuaded him to remove his son from any misfortune.

  Vitez was not bombed during the early months of the war, but as time went by the Muslims and the Croats began to listen to the firebrands among their leaders. They began to look askance at each other and then to set fire to one another’s houses. Each community went its own way – some escaping to Zenica, others from Zenica to neighboring towns. They dug trenches for several weeks and then the chaos began. Wherever you went there was blood and shooting. There was nowhere else to look. They were cramped, and so were we, but everybody felt more or less comfortable until they had to leave their homes. We battled over each field, over plots of land to which none had given a second thought until then. Bosnia shrank like a scarf washed in boiling water.

  Ivo T. walked around Vitez like a shadow of his former self. There was nothing left of him. He’d shrivelled up and withdrawn into himself. When the church was hit by a shell, he stood in front of the doors with tears streaming down his cheeks. We were all upset, but we couldn’t understand how it was that he, who’d always been and who always would be a communist, felt even worse about the shelling than the priest did himself.

  “Don’t cry, Ivo,” I said. “We’ll fix it easily.” But he just kept repeating that nothing could be fixed any more.

  I thought, “What do you mean, you silly old man? Why can’t the church be fixed when the hole’s only half a yard by a yard?”

  But I didn’t say anything. I could see that the poor guy had lost the plot, and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and risk having him break down in front of me.

  Except he wasn’t finished. “How can we fix it, Rudo,” he asked, “if with my own eyes I can see the sky where my ancestors could see a bell tower?”

  Suddenly I began to choke. I embraced Ivo and hid my face in his coat. We must have stood there for ten minutes – two men leaning on four legs. If you’d separated us, I think we’d both have fallen down and been unable to get up again.

  An American came from Zagreb bringing a small parcel from Ivo’s son. Three boxes of cigarettes, a pound of coffee and two cans. That was all the guy could carry. Ivo T. took a couple of the cigarette boxes and went from door to door giving everyone a packet. He kept the third for himself.

  That night we all went over for coffee at Ivo’s house. In the middle of the conversation he yelled over to Ruža and asked her to bring the tape recorder. I thought, “What do you need a tape recorder for now when you’ve got machine-guns playing outside?” Ivo said he wanted to send a message back with the American to his son in Zagreb. He didn’t want to write because he felt the boy would take him more seriously if he could hear his voice.

  He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, took out a photo and began talking. “My son, evil people have done this to us. Neither your friends nor mine are to blame. Nor is the drunkard Avdo, who punctured the tires on our car a few years ago just because I parked in front of his garage. Nor should we blame the Muslim priest who told his people not to shake hands or kiss Catholics on the days when they slaughter their pigs. The only ones to blame are the evil people. Please don’t let me hear you say that you hate anybody – and God help you if I find out that you’ve sworn at anybody because of what is happening to us. Because I’ll break your legs. Whatever happens, remember what I said. Each ugly word will come back at you like a stone when you are most vulnerable. That’s all from me, study hard and send us something again when you can, but don’t spend too much money, and don’t drink too much, or walk around town late at night. Oh yes, and look after your girlfriend! That’s all from me, son. Love, Dad.”

  When he’d finished the recording, nobody said a word. We just sat around the table in silence while the bombing continued outside. When I drank my coffee I thought it tasted kind of salty, which came as a surprise because I hadn’t been crying. Who knows? Perhaps there are secret tear ducts inside a person. That night, in any case, we all cried like babies, even Domo, who had just returned from the front, where he used to spend day after day shooting at people on the other side. Apparently he didn’t sleep a wink that night because he was crying non-stop. The human heart is tender, I guess, especially if you strike it in the right place.

  You could write a story about Ivo T., but you’ll have to be careful what you leave in and what you take out! Whatever you do, don’t say that he always was and always will be a communist, and don’t mention that he wouldn’t let his wife enjoy Christmas. Skip the bit about Tito too, and perhaps don’t write that he was president of the local council, because we all know who became the presidents in the old system. Perhaps it would be more sensible to lie and to say that Ivo T. was a priest – except you can’t, now that I think about it, because priests aren’t allowed to marry or have children. Why don’t you just say he was a good guy? That’s all you need to write.

  The Gravedigger

  Know why you should never bury people in a valley? Because a graveyard needs to be located on a hill somewhere above town. Just imagine you’re climbing up the slope because you want to rest your eyes perhaps, or walk among the tombs flicking through the album of headstone photographs. Let’s say you meet a stranger idling through the deep grass and he expressed an interest in the life story of a person buried up there – well, there you have it! At least if you’re on a hillside, you don’t have to regurgitate the story. You can actually map out the life history of the deceased as it moved through the downtown area, from shop to bar toward the grave. You climb on Alifakovac and meet an Italian, say, who’d like to hear Rasim’s life story, so you recall that Rasim was born in Kovac – you point with your index finger so the visitor can see. He went to school over there by the bridge, you add, gesturing with your other hand. When he was seventeen he fell in love with the beautiful Mara who lived in Bjelave – look! You can see Bjelave from Alifakovac – but his father wouldn’t allow him to marry her, so he ran away from home and moved into Mara’s house. They hid on Ilidža for three months – Ilidža, by the way, is the mountain you can vaguely see in the fog. Sooner or later his father discovered where Rasim was living and begged him to return to Kovači. Rasim told his father that he would only return if Mara accompanied him. At last, it seems, the old man began to understand that the love affair was serious, and so he brought Rasim and Mara back to Kovači. Except she was not permitted to leave the house in case the neighbors saw her. Hoping to make thi
ngs up to her, Rasim used to take Mara at night to the rocks above the Jajce barracks. As soon as her eyes grew accustomed to the light she was able to see Bjelave from the rocks. Or perhaps she just imagined that she could see the town. Often she used to cry – and her bout of self-pity lasted for up to a year until Rasim’s father built a house for the young couple in Bistrik – over there, see? That’s Bistrik with the mosque and the brewery and the army camp. Soon after Rasim and Mara moved into the house, the couple were married – but just when you imagined that here was love’s young dream, Mara got ill and died suddenly. She was buried above Širokača – that’s Širokača in the distance, to the left. Her grave lies a few yards apart from the others, possibly because nobody knew whether Mara had in fact remained Mara, or had become Fatima. They couldn’t ask Rasim because he had been struck dumb with grief. He said that he blamed each of the local districts from Kovači to Širokača for her death, and in a fit of pique he sold the house and moved to Vrbanja – that’s Vrbanja, over there. His uncle owned a bakery in the town. At night Rasim used to bake bread. The days he spent mourning his dead bride. People used to say that old Edhem didn’t need to salt his bread, Rasim’s tears were enough.

  At the beginning of the Second World War, Rasim went to the Ustasha headquarters, which you can just see down there by the Miljacka river, before you get to Skenderija with those two white poplars, and signed up the Ustashas. Immediately promoted out of the ranks, he made a habit of walking around town with red eyes. Everybody was afraid of him, even though there was no evidence to suggest that he’d ever harmed anyone. But one of the first things the Partisans did when they entered the city was lock up Rasim in the bank cellar – over there! The leaders wanted to shoot him, but Salamon Finci, a merchant from Bjelave, suddenly appeared from nowhere and spent three days persuading some commissars that Rasim of the Ustasha had saved five Jewish families by sending them to Mostar and then on to the Italians. In the end the commissars believed old Finci and decided to sentence Rasim to three months, for the sake of appearances. He served his time – down there by the forest above Skenderija – and when he got out it was as if nothing had changed. By day he still mourned the death of his wife – and salted bread at night. One morning he was found dead with his head in the dough mixer. Apparently poor Rasim had been lying there for much of the night, with the result that his face had left a mould in the dough. His friends brought him back to his father’s house in Kovači and buried him just here beneath the patch of grass that you are standing on. In a way you can review his whole life, and pass judgement, merely by standing on this spot. Only thieves and children and people with something to hide are buried in valleys. There’s no trace of life in the valley – you can’t see anything from down there.