Sarajevo Marlboro (6 page)

The months of separation had no effect other than to make Elena realize that she had left something invaluable behind her in Sarajevo. Zagreb was no longer the center of her world. It didn't matter to her whether she had become addicted to Sarajevo itself or to Zlaja. She always walked around her native city with a pebble in her shoe to remind her that life –
her
life anyway – was elsewhere, and that she couldn't go back to it.

At the end of the first year of the war in Sarajevo, Zlaja made the
long journey in search of Elena. He travelled by roads that were unfamiliar to him, over the Bosnian mountains, passing angry soldiers in different uniforms, until finally he reached Zagreb. He wasn't the only one, by any means. So little remained of the country that had nurtured Zlaja, the dreams and projects, the diverse Bosnian cultures, that even the most determined patriots became refugees, opting to save their own lives, for which, ironically, they discovered they had no use once in exile.

It was impossible to reconstruct the lost dreamworld in Zagreb. In the local cafés the big plans just sounded empty and artificial. Tall stories were interpreted as lies. Besides, you could never find anybody to lap up your wit and repartee, to shoot the bull. And even if the right kind of people did exist, they probably had their own way of telling stories, not to mention their own cafés to frequent. So what if their big ideas were akin to Zlaja's – he had fuck-all chance of meeting them.

Elena tried to persuade Zlaja that it was necessary to change his lifestyle. He responded by telling her stories that were pale imitations of his Sarajevo yarns, often lacking a climax or dwindling into nothingness like the bad copy of a fax message. He did attempt to change, however; for instance, he tried to think up a hyper-fantastic scheme as a way of reviving the old magic – but he failed to come up with anything. Soon he came to resemble the kind of no-hoper who achieves nothing by force of habit and is utterly devoid of spark or imagination.

Not long afterwards Zlaja developed an obsession with cookery, an
art at which he became as proficient as he had once been at spinning yarns. He immersed himself in
haute cuisine
with the single-minded passion of a person who has no other choice or interest in life. His dishes, like his stories in a former existence, were feasts of pure pleasure. Among his staple ingredients was the odd spoonful of a Bosnian metaphysics that was strongly opposed to the idea of nutrition or a healthy diet, being more interested in unadulterated hedonism.

Elena was happy that Zlaja enjoyed cooking. So that was it! At least he was able to derive meaning and a sense of purpose in the kitchen, and was no longer sinking inexorably into the depths of despair. One day, however, Zlaja decided to prepare a Bosnian hotpot. He told Elena that he couldn't possibly make such a dish in any of those teenyweeny pots that will still bear the legend “Made in Yugoslovia” a hundred years from now. To prepare a Bosnian hotpot you have to use a clay pot of a sort that obviously doesn't exist in the overtly Westernized city of Zagreb. The kind of pot Zlaja was talking about wasn't even on sale in the shops of Sarajevo, but you'd find one in every Bosnian household all the same.

For a long time Elena and Zlaja searched everywhere in Zagreb for a clay pot. In the end they found two pots – at opposite ends of the city – that were ideal for preparing the traditional dish. However, it was very hard to choose between them, and so they travelled back and forth on crowded trams up to a dozen times, expertly tapping the pots, shaking their heads and then leaving the shops empty-handed in
order to rethink the purchase. The dilemma of Buridan's Bosnians was impossible to resolve. Fortunately, the problem was solved by a third party, presumably another Bosnian, who bought the second pot – and so there was only one left.

Zlaja was very happy with his pot. He described the method of preparing the dish a thousand times, often hinting at its divine flavor. Once again, he had found something about which to fantasize.

But then the police raids started in Zagreb. Muslims without refugee papers were arrested, and there were many unconfirmed stories about their fate. Now Elena tried to persuade Zlaja to leave the city, as he had persuaded her to leave Sarajevo when the shelling had begun the previous April. It didn't take much to convince him. He packed his bag straight away and went to some refugee camp in the West. The pot was never used. I suppose it will remain in the kitchen like an empty flowerpot until somebody breaks it or some other Bosnian comes along.

So what happened to Elena and Zlaja? No doubt it's already clear. Even so, it would be a pity if the unhappy end of a love affair were to stop other people dreaming or having fantasies. In fact, the cliché gives you a magical opportunity to escape from the real world and to enjoy with somebody else, who may be thousands of miles away, the kind of love story that always happens elsewhere, in Africa, say, or in another country where things still happen out of pure pleasure.

Ćipo had never met or spoken to his aunt, but one day she phoned to offer him the use of her apartment, so naturally he jumped at the chance. Five rooms is five rooms, after all – and not a broken window in sight, gas heating and a full pantry.Ćipo had never dreamed of such luxury. His father had emigrated to Canada years ago. Soon after that his mother disappeared into a bar on the road to Šabac. For the next ten years Ćipo just wandered from cellar to cellar, begging and unloading coal or carrying small parcels across the border to Ljubelj for a hundred Deutschmarks a trip.

At first he couldn't think of what to do with five rooms all to himself. He slept in a different one every night, cosily tucked up in a feather bed out of the way of any flying shrapnel. But sooner or later anybody
would bet bored in such a large flat. Only a loser would live alone with five rooms, he thought, and he began to think up ways of filling the empty corners and uninhabited spaces. To begin with, he brought home a stray mongrel who fouled the carpets and then died in the middle of the hallway. Then he adopted a cat, but the silly minx ran away after a day or two. Just as he was giving up hope of ever finding a suitable lodger, he bumped into Mujesira, a seventeen-year-old girl from Foča, who had come to Sarajevo – god knows how – after the rest of her family had been killed in a massacre.Ćipo showed her where to sleep, but warned her not to make small talk or to ask him questions, because he was very bad-tempered and had a short fuse. He also warned her never to go into his part of the flat. Not for any reason.

Mujesira wiped the dog shit off the carpet and rearranged the furniture in her room, giving the place a feminine touch. At least she helped to liven up Ćipo's dreary routine – or that's how it looked from the outside. And yet, for some reason, he refused to have anything to do with her. He never spoke to her, for instance, and at the end of a fortnight, when she just happened to ask him the most innocent of questions, he responded very angrily, with a look of hatred in his eyes. Mujesira put up with her landlord the way you put up with boorish men. She didn't ask for any explanation as other women might have done. She had no idea about Ćipo's background: where did he come from? Did he own the flat? Did he work? If not, how could he afford to
furnish the flat so beautifully and expensively? Late at night, when she was frightened or panicking, she couldn't help wondering whose side Ćipo was on. Was he one of us or one of them? Could he be a secret sniper or a spy? She couldn't understand why he guarded even the most trivial details about himself, or why he refused to let her know his real name: it certainly wasn't Ćipo, because such a name didn't exist among Serbs, Croats or Muslims. She hoped to inveigle her way into his affections by means of giving him coquettish smiles of performing little acts of kindness, but Ćipo didn't change at all. He was as bilious as ever.

“Am I in your way?” she asked one morning. “I've been here rather a long time. Perhaps it's time I should move out.”

Ćipo looked at her with contempt and spat sideways. Through clenched teeth he mumbled, “Where would you go, you sad thing?”

He didn't wait for her to answer before leaving the flat. Mujesira was stunned. She considered various explanations and devised a few sly womanly tricks in order to soften him up, with a view to discovering his true nature, or, at any rate, the one he shows off to his friends, if he had any, or the other men and women in his life. After all, she thought, he must have come from somewhere. He must have a mother and father, a wife and children. But when Ćipo returned to the flat in the afternoon, she didn't have the nerve to speak up. She was afraid that if she asked the wrong question Ćipo would go mental, and anything could happen then. Who knows? It was not inconceivable that
her world might fall apart again, quite unexpectedly and for no obvious reason, as it had done several months before in Foča.

In the hallway Ćipo touched Mujesira by accident as he went past. She froze and almost stumbled, but he just turned and gave her the usual cold stare. One day, while he was out, she sneaked a look at his room. There was a large crucifix on the wall and a few other religious items. So that's it, she told herself, and for the next week or so she imagined that she knew everything there was to know about Ćipo. He was a Catholic, then. No wonder he hated her. Mind you, the Catholics are preferable to the Orthodox. At least they invite you into their house instead of killing you. So what if they give you nasty looks?

For a long time Ćipo thought about what to do with his Muslim lodger. She struck him as being very beautiful yet foreign. Before the war he would never have met such a doll in the underground cellars that he used to frequent. Yet here she was, in wartime, in his aunt's flat, like a gift from God, an open invitation to lead a better life. On the one hand, the situation was very promising; on the other, it was kind of disgusting. Somehow the girl from Foča had got under his skin, like an omen prophesying dire and painful calamity. He wanted to touch her, and yet he had begun to feel that even the slightest physical contact would expose him to irreparable loss and drive him over the edge into madness or suicide, or – worse still – into the Jewish cemetery to be gunned down by the Chetnik sniper.

Often, at bedtime, he would stare at the crucifix on the wall and
repeat over and over again, “I'm here, God, but I'm no use to myself or to her. Help us!” He liked to think his speech had the makings of a prayer.

Toward the end of summer a mortar fell right outside the front door and blew off Mujesira's legs. She was dying for two whole days. But even when the doctors gave up the fight to save her life,Ćipo kept repeating in a voice that echoed around the hospital courtyard, “Come back, my Muslim doll!” Everybody watched his despair. They speculated about his relationship with the dying girl, and pretty soon gave him the nickname “Muslim Doll.”

The tram drivers always rang the bell as they went around the corner by the Medical Institute. Perhaps it was just to warn anything that was coming the other way, or perhaps it was the memory of an earlier accident, or perhaps they were just superstitious. Nobody paid much attention to the ringing trams: the occupants of a neighboring block of apartments had stopped registering the noise long ago; it was like the ticking of a grandfather clock. Nor were the cats on the wall of the army warehouse roused from their summer naps. So the years went by and the sound of the tram bells continued to be heard over the flat land that stretched all the way to Marijindvor and the stop at the junction of Titova and Tvrtkova.

The noise didn't bother the regulars at the Kvarner, a tiny bar in
which a handful of relics induced cirrhosis of the liver by drinking large bottles of Sarajevsko or Nikšićko beer and Badel's brandy. One day, Meho the Paratrooper showed up in the Kvarner with an old pal from his days in military service, a retired boxer known as Mišo the Heart from the Slavija club in Banja Luka. As with any newcomer, the regulars welcomed Mišo the Heart with two unspoken questions: how much money does he have in his pocket, and will he disrupt the atmosphere of the Kvarner? Because real drinkers seldom get into fights or smash things up. They prefer silence, peace and contemplation. Any sudden movement can provoke hard drinkers. Even a curse uttered too loudly is enough to make them grab a bottle and start breaking the furniture. That's why the tabloid press always gives the wrong account of drunken punch-ups. All a drunk really wants to do is protect his constitutional right to have one more for the road.

About five minutes after MiÅ¡o the Heart walked into the Kvarner, the first tram went past the Medical Institute and rang its bell. Seconds out! Instinctively, MiÅ¡o put his fists up like a boxer right in front of Velija the Footballer, who, no less instinctively, grabbed hold of an ashtray and whacked the boxer in the face. Meho the Paratrooper jumped up to defend his old comrade. Mirso the Ballbearing fell off his chair in surprise. Lojze the Professor exclaimed, “Crucifix and cruciality!” Zoka the Barman dropped a glass.

Then MiÅ¡o stood up and grabbed Velija the Footballer by the arm. “Sorry, pal,” he mumbled. “It was an accident.”

Velija looked at MiÅ¡o doubtfully for a moment. “That's all right,” he said. “It can happen.”

To make things better, Meho the Paratrooper bought a round of drinks for everybody. However, before the drinks were poured, another tram came around the corner ringing its bell.

MiÅ¡o the Heart glanced anxiously at Meho the Paratrooper. “Hey – let's get out of here,” he said. “These trams really fuck me up.”