Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482) (6 page)

Far down the almost empty street, almost at the corner, a black-uniformed man named Wolf, member of the special unit, stood deep in the doorway of an apartment building. He was Enko's comrade, of course. They all went up the dark stairs to the landing by whose wall someone had written FPS, the initials of a softball club.— Sometimes I walk here, said Wolf. I never run.— He's a fighter for freedom, said Enko. You write that down.— They had weak ersatz tea in his flat, and the American had his interview, paying as agreed and a trifle more. Then Enko squealed the tires round a certain perilous corner, and after passing another red tram parked on the weedy tracks, a quarter of its windows shot out, they arrived at their appointment with the clean-faced, greyhaired, grey-bearded old rabbi, whose moustache was still mostly brown. He said: You see, that's the place where the massacres were. That's where it hit.

You see that hill over there? said Enko. That's where the Bosnian Dragons got killed.

Crowds were walking in the shadow of apartment towers, fairly leisurely, the American thought. But the rare cars went screeching and skidding. They drove partway up a hill of red-roofed white houses to the apartment porch where the little girl had been killed yesterday; then for the frontline irregulars the American bought a pack of cigars for twenty Deutschemarks and Enko was pleased. Now Amir was driving. Across from the police station, a blonde sat on a railing while a brunette stood smoking beside a reddish-blond boy; as they drove by, the American took notes on that woman in the shawl who held a pail, on those people carrying water and the people crowding around the bullet-measled car; there must be a main there; they were filling up with water. At the next intersection a man with a shopping bag walked slowly; people were lounging and standing, even if inside a sheltered porch; but when Amir stopped to ask directions, Enko yelled: Shit, keep moving!

Everywhere they stopped, the American felt something in the center of the back of his skull, a sweaty nakedness and tenderness.

Between apartment buildings, two ladies, one in black, stood beside a car which wore a dusty shroud; a little child sat in another car; children were playing ball; a girl in a yellow dress crept to cast one look over the edge of the balcony, and there was a smell of greasy garbage. The American wrote about people with bloody faces, brown faces, dark faces; he described children in worn clothes. One child, dirty in his worn jacket, led them across the courtyard to his mother, who was scraping away excrement. The American opened his notebook. She said: Before the war we lived like other people.

How about that advance? said Enko.

Enko parked outside a leather store and went in to buy a new holster. The establishment was small, without much merchandise, but perhaps it had always been that way.— He works from old stockpiles, Enko explained, paying in dollars—today's advance, it seemed.

He stopped at home. Amir sat smoking at the kitchen table. Enko's mother was in a queue to buy bread.

Enko's room was still untouched, a shockingly ordinary room, with two televisions that didn't count for much now that the electricity was gone, bookshelves adorned with statuettes, trophies, the
Opca Enciklopedia
and other sets of books from his student days, stacks of cassettes which he lacked the batteries to listen to, snapshots of girlfriends, a clock stopped at 9:04 and one of his pistols, a heavy old French Bendaye BP, solid black steel, flat, with a scaly black grip.

Enko was airing out his bulletproof vest. Men who couldn't afford to buy their own, and had to share them in shifts, increased their risk of traumatic death; because, as I have already told you, when a vest is damp, for instance with sweat, it stops bullets more poorly.

Enko asked Amir: Does he deserve to meet Bald Man?

Amir shrugged.

Well, Mr. Journalist, do you or don't you?

Sure.

The thing is, guy, Bald Man's got style. Someone like you, there's nothing you can give Bald Man. But Bald Man, he can give you everything.

Oh. Well, maybe I'd better not waste his time.

That's a fact.

By the way, what neighborhood has the most trouble getting water? I'd like to interview some—

Let's go. Amir, swing by Anesa's.

In the safe shade of an office building, couples walked calmly. They reached the intersection, looked down into the openness nervously, and quickened their steps until they'd crossed. The President sped by in a grey Audi. Now Amir floored the gas pedal, and the American felt that same meaningless bitter flood of fear behind his breastbone. They rounded the corner successfully, completed a sickeningly exposed straightaway on which nothing moved, made a hard right on three wheels, and then another car careened toward them, struck the curb, screeched and whirled out of control, wrecked. The driver and passengers got out slowly. Soldiers gathered. It didn't appear that anyone was injured. Perceiving this, Amir drove on, toward a sign which had been shot through half a dozen times, and then they pulled up at the portico of the almost unscorched apartment tower where Anesa lived; she was
part of Vesna's circle. Enko leaped out. The journalist sat in the back seat taking notes while Amir smoked a cigarette.

Enko returned.— That goddamned little cunt, he said. In case you were wondering, she's got plenty of water.

The American said nothing, since Enko looked to be in a rage. Amir started the engine and put the car in gear.

Now where we're going, said Enko, the Serbs cut off that well on July eighteenth. This place here, this is a low area, like the Holiday Inn, so these people can still get water from the reservoir. Why the fuck don't you say something?

That well that the Serbs use—

I already explained that. Who do you want to interview?

Anybody who has trouble with water.

All right. I know a fighter over there, and his mother, she's a sick old lady. That'd be just about perfect for you, wouldn't it? Maybe if you're lucky you can watch her get killed by some Chetnik. That would be a scoop, wouldn't it?

I need a drink, said Enko. You got your story, right?

Right.

The bar lay behind a courtyard five floors high, and hence protected from snipers. Jasmina had told him that it was organized by Bald Man to keep it safe—evidently a relative term, since he saw a few shrapnel-pocks and windowpanes nibbled away by explosions; one windowpane was blasted into a hole the shape of a flayed animal. Someone with a machine gun was standing in the half-silhouetted stairway.

It was midafternoon, the canned music (Bosnian rock and roll) loud but not deafening. The singer's voice reminded him of the golden shimmers in Anesa's purple sweater. At the next table, crew-cut men in bulletproof vests and camouflage sat smoking. Across the room, a dozen men and women in civilian clothes were getting drunk. A beautiful woman in camouflage from head to toe, her outfit completed by an impractically thin black bulletproof vest with a Bosnian army insignia on it, sat smoking, sipping juice and tapping the toe of her combat boot to the
music. A man with a pistol at his hip, likewise smoking, gazed at her urgently; his hand gripped her knee. No one appeared to be listening for the shells.

Enko and the American ordered American whiskey. Amir had a Turkish coffee.

The song ended.— No, said one of the civilians, she was killed by a sixty-millimeter shell, just after her children had left the table.— The next song began.

A soldier said something to Enko, who laughed and told the American: He found a Serbian flag at his neighbor's house; he's gonna use it for target practice.

The American smiled, because Enko and Amir were both watching him.

This guy is an amazing fighter, said Enko, evidently deciding to trust the American for a few more minutes.— I'll tell you what he did. He killed a Chetnik who was wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest. Got him right in the forehead!

Ask him if he wants a drink, said the American wearily. And if he cares to tell his story . . .

If he accepts a drink from you, you're lucky.

Well, let's hope for the best.

He says he'll take the drink.

And a drink for everyone at his table. Tell them I wish them all the best.

They want to know when the Americans will finally show some guts and intervene.

Tell them I'm also wondering that. Amir, are you sure you don't want anything else?

No. Because I am driving.

Amir, said Enko, you babysit him. I've got some business.

The American took out his notebook and began to write. Although the music did not entirely obscure the echoing chitter of machine guns elsewhere, he felt safe here, like a child who pulls the blanket over his head.

He wished that one of these women would sleep with him, although he would rather sleep with Vesna, whose front window was newly cracked and taped. The men at the other table bought him another whiskey and
Amir another coffee. He was happy then. When he was older and had forgotten most of his interviews, it was such meaningless kindnesses that he remembered.

We're going right now, said Enko, so Amir and the American followed him to the car, where a fighter stood watching a crate, which they loaded into the back seat, and without explanations Amir slipped in beside it and lit a cigarette, so the American rode up front as Enko, who took more chances in his driving than Amir, brought them down a main street, past a windowfront crazily taped and shattered, a Serbian machine gun barking like a dog, and many people running as beautifully as a flight of dark birds, although no explosion had sounded by the time they rolled past a queue for something unknown around the corner from another apartment block with a shell-hole punched right through both ends. More slowly they rolled down a quiet narrow street of people walking calmly past bullet-holes, sitting under trees. Enko's jaw tightened as he turned the next corner, already accelerating; so the car screeched into another lifeless place, then through a scorched place without any glass in any windows, the roof of one house still on but jagged like a kinked bicycle chain, and the American's chest ached with useless fear. After another corner they went sedately down a sheltered straightaway, stopping to hand over the crate to three military police who sat playing cards in what used to be a photocopier repair station. They slapped Enko on the back and poured everyone a shot of
loža.
A policeman lit Amir's cigarette with his own. Laughing, Enko wrote
Sieg Heil
and
Wehrmacht
on the wall. They returned to the car.

Could you drop me at Marko's? asked the American.

What, now you have business with him? returned Enko, possessive and suspicious.

Sure, and then he'll take me to Vesna's.

Well, you're on your own.

Are you free tomorrow?

What's the plan?

We could maybe interview some police—

Why the fuck didn't you say so when we were in there?

I didn't want to interrupt your business.

You hear that, Amir? He didn't want to interrupt our business.

That's right. I like his style.

Enko said nothing. Pleased and proud that Amir approved of him, the American continued as if he had not heard: They must have some pretty good stories.

Sure. There's this one guy, Senad, who . . .— Anyway, fuck it. We'll pick you up at Marko's tomorrow at ten. And I need an advance.

You're advanced for four days now.

That's my fucking business.

I can advance you half, but I might need some tonight if Marko and I go out.

You're not going anywhere.

I can advance you half.

Then give me those binoculars.

At the end. By the way, how's your mother?

Look. I want those binoculars.

I understand. And I'll see you tomorrow at ten.

Now that Enko was accustomed to him, and also craved the binoculars, the journalist had come into possession of what Americans call
leverage,
if he only cared to use it; but in fact everything already served his purpose, so why disturb the system and the self-complacency of Enko, who, besides, had introduced him to Vesna? As the night reddened from a faraway shell, fire rising up, sparks buzzing beautifully down, he scanned through his notebook for today's aphorisms from frontline heroes:
It is our personal opinion, not authorized,
and:
It is impossible to control all the people under arms. Our general statement is against any bad thing. But it is war; it is a dirty war.
He was in one of the black places whose burned smell would not leave his nostrils. Regarding Bald Man he felt indifferent, believing, as would a great writer or lazy journalist, that the situation of any native of this place who was enduring the siege (for instance, Vesna) should be capable of moving his readers. Like Enko, he imagined that he really knew something about others, and possibly he did. It never occurred to him to ask his superior colleagues at the Holiday Inn how famous or important Bald Man might be. No wonder he had never gotten ahead! In other words, he lacked the resources to visit the
Pale Serbs in an armored car, and no one invited him to videotape the liberation of Hill 849.

So why was he being offered an interview with the prince of princes? Possibly Enko had grown fond of him; more likely, Amir put in a good word; most plausible of all, Enko, being proud of his service with Bald Man, and needing to accomplish some business or other related to that demigod, found it convenient to bring the dependent American along.

Speeding down the steep red-roofed street, which reminded the American of a scene in some Italian hill town, Amir rounded the corner, while Enko issued admonishments as to how to behave in the presence of Bald Man. The machine guns had been speaking all morning. The American gripped the back of Enko's seat. They screeched into the courtyard. The square, ugly building, thoroughly bullet-pocked, was charred beneath one window, and the other windows were smashed in. A crowd of men in and out of uniform, evidently comrades, were standing outside. On the frontline he had met their like: wealthy in wounds, burns, nightmares and greenish-gold 7.62-millimeter casings. Enko raised his right arm in a cheerful salute; an old fighter slapped his shoulder. Leaning against the car, Amir lit a cigarette, narrowing his eyes; for an instant the American wondered who he really was. Unlike Enko, who remained mostly rigid in something resembling the loneliness of the frontline, Amir tended to be quite simply muted, watchful rather than aggressive; of course his apparent mildness was nothing more than opacity. Civilian men and women passed in and came out, and a little boy admired the palms of his hands. A window exploded far away. Enko entered the headquarters, the American following at a slight distance. Men in camo stood smoking. Enko approached a man who towered over him and in an extremely lordly way presented him with one of the American's hundred-dollar bills. Then they toasted each other with coffee mugs of brandy spirit, while the American waited awkwardly. A man in camo put his arm around a woman and then those two went down the hall slowly, smoking, tapping ash into a plant's pot which was already covered with cigarette butts.