Sarajevo Marlboro (10 page)

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.

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 things 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.

When I was digging a grave for Salem Bičakčija, who was killed in the road by a sniper, an American journalist came to interview me. Perhaps he'd heard that I lived in California for a while, and had seen the world, spoke languages and knew important people. But now I was working as a gravedigger again, so perhaps he thought that I might be able to explain to him what had happened to the people of Sarajevo.

So I'm digging away, and he's asking me lots of questions. He wants to know everything, he says.

“About the living or the dead?” I ask.

“Both,” he replies.

I point out that you can't talk about the living and the dead at the same time, because the dead have their lives behind them while the living don't know what's just around the corner, and in what way it could spoil or ruin their lives. In other words, it's much harder for the
living, or so I tell the American, because they have no idea where their grave will be – in the valley or on the slope – or if anybody will remember whether they walked happily or unhappily through the
dunjaluk.

The American asks me to explain what I mean by the
dunjaluk.
I give him a wry look, because I really don't know the English word for it. In the end I laugh and say, “It means something like ‘all over the world.'” For some people, of course, “all over the world” is just the distance between Marijindvor and BaščarÅ¡ija, and for others it's five continents and seven seas. You end up happy or you don't – and that's all.

The American nods his head. I can tell that he doesn't understand or even care what I'm saying, but I don't take offense. Why should I? I like to have a chat while I'm digging; it helps to pass the time.

He asks me if I'm sorry that I ended up in Sarajevo under siege after having been around the world three times. I tell him that I didn't
end up
here. I was born here – and God forbid that I'd ended up dead and buried anywhere else. Who on earth would remember me, or speak about me in respectful tones? Besides which, the graveyards in the rest of the world, and especially in America, are not like the ones in Sarajevo. Elsewhere they line the dead up in rows like soldiers in uniform, with identical headstones, as if their souls had been cast from a mould.

The American continues to nod his head. I say that he shouldn't hold it against me if I utter disparaging remarks about his country. But then the idiot asks me if I'm ready to die now in Sarajevo. I tell him that I've thought up hundreds of ways to stay alive, and I like all of
them. Each one reminds me of the joys and pleasures of my life, because nobody's happier than me when I escape a shell on my way here to dig graves in this beautiful spot for the unlucky ones. I know that the dead used to celebrate being alive too, and that they just happened to lose a life the way some people lose a pinball at the end of the game, having scored a hundred points a hundred times – you could have scored more, but . . . you didn't. Life is only valuable because you know you have it. Death always finds you unprepared, without tangible proof that you ever lived. Perhaps you weren't much good to yourself or to others. Isn't that why your wife and children cry at your funeral? Because they have a sense that you foolishly squandered your life, like a chicken that refuses to die even after you've chopped off its head.

The American asks me to describe the change in people's faces. I tell him that I can't, but I have noticed that somehow they look more beautiful and festive. So then he asks why people are killing one another if they're so damn festive. I understand that he is researching the subject for his article, except he can't write the piece because he already knows what it's going to say. I tell him that he shouldn't gaze into people's faces so intently if he doesn't understand what he sees. Perhaps he should just look at things the way I used to look at neon signs in America, in order to get a rough idea of the country.

I take a packet of cigarettes out of my pocket. “See this?” I begin. “D'you know why the packet is completely blank?” He shakes his head.
“It's because there isn't anywhere in Bosnia to print the brand names and logos. I bet you think we're poor and unhappy because we don't even have any writing on our cigarettes. That's what you think, isn't it? Know why? Because you haven't a clue where to look.”

I begin to unwrap the packet because I know that something is printed on the inside: it might be the label from a box of soap or a detail from a movie poster or part of an advertisement for shoes. I'm very curious to find out what's inside – I make a point of checking – and it's always a surprise. The American is curious too, but he has no idea what I'm doing. At last I undo the cigarette packet to reveal a Marlboro wrapper – the old brand from Sarajevo.
^*
The American is nonplussed but I swear under my breath. I don't know what else to say. Whatever I say, he'll just think, “Look at these mad people! They turn cigarette wrappers inside out, then tear them apart to see what cigarettes they've bought. If you want my opinion, the people here are just like their packs of cigarettes: everything is back to front – what they say and what they think and what they do.”

Later on, I regretted that I ever opened my big mouth to the American. Why didn't I just say that we are an unhappy and unarmed people who are being killed by Chetnik beasts, and that we've all gone crazy with bereavement and grief? He could have written that down, and I wouldn't have ended up looking ridiculous in his eyes or in my own.

In the United States people use elevators in graveyards. It says a lot about Americans. If the Serbs attacked Pittsburgh or some other city, the local people could just go and hide underground using the elevator. They wouldn't have to worry about the shelling or the fighting in the streets. When you look at the advertising billboards, fifty feet high, you don't have a clue what Sarajevo Marlboro is or isn't. Nor do you comprehend the sort of unhappiness that sent Rasim underground, or why he saved those Jews, or why he was in turn saved by Salamon Finci, or what happened to his face in the dough mixer at Edhem's bakery, Vrbanja Street, which can be seen from any graveyard.