The sniper doesn’t fire, for reasons all his own, and, when the man reaches the other side, Dragan thinks the cameraman looks disappointed, because the sprinter lived and because he didn’t get a shot of his run. The disappointment irritates Dragan, makes him feel like a zoo animal.
A dog comes up behind the cameraman, startling him, and Dragan smiles. The dog is uninterested, though, and continues into the street. As it nears, Dragan wonders if it’s the same dog he saw earlier, with Emina. This dog has the same sense of purpose, and also appears as though it has somewhere to go. But he can’t remember exactly what the first dog looked like. It could be the same. They all look the same to him now.
The dog trots across the lanes of pavement towards Dragan. As he gets close to the body of the hatless man, Dragan wonders if the dog will try to eat the corpse. It must be hungry, he thinks. Everything that is neither politician nor gangster in this city is hungry. But the dog walks past the body without even stopping to sniff at it. It’s as though it wasn’t even there.
Dragan hears the clink of tags as the dog passes him, sees it’s wearing a collar, but it’s obvious from the condition of its fur that the dog lives on the streets. It doesn’t look up at Dragan or anyone else it passes, and he wonders if the dog has written mankind off altogether. Dragan wants to call out to the dog, give it something to eat, pet its fur, do something that will restore its faith in him. But he doesn’t have any food, and he knows the dog won’t come even if he calls it. As it turns the corner and disappears he feels a little like the way he felt when he stood watching his wife and son’s bus pull into the street and fade out of sight.
He knows that he has been that dog. Ever since the war started he has walked through the streets and tried to pay as little attention as possible to his surroundings. He saw nothing he didn’t have to see and did nothing he didn’t have to do.
The cameraman is having a problem with his equipment. He’s set his camera down on the ground and is rummaging through a large backpack. Dragan is relieved, but then the cameraman appears to find what he was looking for and moves back to the camera. Dragan knows that the camera will be filming soon, and he knows that he doesn’t want the body of the hatless man to be captured on film.
It’s not that he doesn’t want the world to know what’s happening here. He does, or at least he agrees with the argument that the world is more likely to intervene if it is forced to see the suffering of innocents. It’s just that the scene the cameraman will capture is in no way representative of what’s happened here today. It’s the aftermath.
A dead body won’t bother anyone. It will be a curiosity, but unless some viewer knew the hatless man it will mean nothing. There’s nothing in a dead body that suggests what it was like to be alive. No one will know if the man had unusually large feet, which his friends used to tease him about when he was a child. No one will know about the scar on his back he got from falling out of a tree, or that his favourite food was chocolate cake. They will not know that when he was eighteen he went on a trip with his friends from school, hitchhiked all the way to Spain, where he slept with a blonde girl whose last name he never even knew, and that he would think about this often over the next thirty years, always at the strangest times, while peeling an orange or sharpening the blade of a knife or walking up a hill in the rain.
Then there are the things one doesn’t mention about the dead. It will not be said that he had a quick temper, or that he sometimes cheated at his monthly card game. He was cheap. When drunk, he was cruel.
None of this will ever be said again, has simply vanished from existence. But these are the things that make a death something to be mourned. It’s not just a disappearance of flesh. This, in and of itself, is easily shrugged off. When the body of the hatless man is shown on the evening news to people all over the world, they will do exactly that. They may remark on the horror, but they will, most likely, think nothing of it at all, like a dog with somewhere else to be.
Dragan looks at the body of the hatless man. He doesn’t know his name, can’t picture his face. He doesn’t know anything about him at all. It’s all conjecture. But it doesn’t matter. This man is him. Or he could be. He lived in this city under siege, and he was shot crossing the street. They both did nothing when Emina needed help.
He won’t allow this man’s body to be filmed. He remembers what he told Emina about the cellist, why he thinks he plays. To stop something from happening. To prevent a worsening. To do what he can.
As he looks at the cameraman, however, Dragan realizes that he’s missed the point. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks of his city. All that matters is what he thinks. In the Sarajevo of his memory, it was completely unacceptable to have a dead man lying in the street. In the Sarajevo of today it’s normal. He has been living in neither, has tried to live in a city that no longer exists, refusing to participate in the one that does.
The sniper is still there. He can’t say how he knows this, but he does. Somewhere on the hills or the buildings of Grbavica he’s waiting, biding his time. A man just crossed without him shooting. It means nothing. It’s all a calculation. The longer he waits before shooting, the more people will venture back into the intersection. Dragan thinks it might be possible to draw a chart to express the best correlation between the number of potential targets and the time between shots. He wonders if the sniper has such a chart, perhaps on a small laminated card, tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket, or if it’s just something he knows by heart.
The hatless man is close, maybe fifteen metres from him. It should be a simple thing to run to him, grab his hands and drag him off the street. Twenty steps each way. Half a minute is all it should take. Possibly less.
He takes a deep breath and exhales. Then his feet are moving, and he’s back in the street. Once again time slows down, and each time his foot surges forward it seems like an eternity passes. He can hear his feet hitting the ground. The sound slaps and echoes loud in his ears. His mouth feels dry. When he’s three-quarters of the way to the body he remembers to keep his head low, and his shoulders ache as he ducks down, still running.
Dragan reaches the body of the hatless man. The soles of his shoes stick and slip in his blood. He reaches down and grabs one of his hands, lifeless and still warm. The other one is difficult to get a grip on. He loses his balance and falls. Dragan’s nose is a centimetre from what remains of the head of the hatless man. A flap of skin hangs over the maw of his emptied skull like a bad toupée. For some reason, it doesn’t bother Dragan. He thinks it should, knows that normally such gore would horrify him. But it isn’t important. All that matters is getting the body off the street.
Something slams into the body in front of him with a flat thump. A rifle cracks. The sniper has fired, missed him by less than half a metre. Dragan grabs the hatless man’s other hand and tries to get to his feet. He can’t. The body is too heavy. He’s able to crouch and, in an awkward sort of crab-walk, pull the body backward towards the boxcar.
He knows the sniper will fire again, but he isn’t afraid. At this moment fear doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as bravery. There are no heroes, no villains, no cowards. There’s what he can do, and what he can’t. There’s right and wrong and nothing else. The world is binary. Shading will come later.
He doesn’t hear the bullet hit, but he does hear the gunshot. He doesn’t think he’s hurt but he isn’t certain. As he pulls the body of the hatless man the final few steps to safety he waits to feel some sort of pain, waits to feel the wetness of bleeding. It doesn’t come. He sits down on the ground, breathing hard, sweating. He looks across the street and sees the cameraman staring at him, his mouth open. His camera is in his hands, but not on his shoulder. It hasn’t captured him, or the body of the hatless man.
Good, he thinks. I will not live in a city where dead bodies lie abandoned in the streets, and you will not tell the world I do.
One of the two people on his side of the street moves towards him. The whistle of
descending shells makes the person change his mind. The shells fall on the other side of the boxcar, in what’s left of the abandoned army barracks. Dragan lies on his stomach, his hands over his head and his face pressed to the ground. He tries not to think about what will happen if a shell falls on his side of the barricade. The men on the hills are angry. Be angry with yourselves, Dragan thinks. You had your chance to kill me, and you’ll have another chance soon.
The defenders answer back with automatic gunfire, followed by several single shots, the calling cards of counter-snipers. These shots elicit more mortar fire from the men on the hills, and for a few minutes each side trades volleys until finally it’s quiet, or at least relatively quiet.
Dragan sits up, brushes the dirt from his face. He wonders if this war will ever end. He wonders what it will be like if it does. Will people forget? Should they? He doesn’t have any answers to these questions. But he’s happy to be thinking about them. When he gets to the bakery he will ask his co-workers what they think. They may be surprised. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in a long time.
He stands up, his knees and back stiff. He walks away from the body of the hatless man and picks up Emina’s coat. Beside it lies the man’s hat, which he picks up as well. He looks at each of them for a while. If he were to guess from the condition of the clothing, he’d think that it was Emina who was killed and the hatless man who lived. But things aren’t always the way they look. Especially here. If this city is to die, it won’t be because of the men on the hills, it will be because of the people in the valley. When they’re content to live with death, to become what the men on the hills want them to be, then Sarajevo will die. Dragan takes Emina’s coat, covers the man at his feet, and gives him back his hat.
FOUR
Kenan
ANOTHER DAY HAS JUST BEGUN. LIGHT STRAINS ITS way into the apartment, where it finds Kenan in his kitchen, his hand reaching for the plastic jug containing his family’s final quarter-litre of water. It’s been four days since he last went to the brewery for water. It’s almost always four days between trips, five if it rains. Today’s trip will be different, he knows. Today is the day the cellist will play for the twenty-second and final time.
The air is cold this morning. Kenan wonders if the weather is changing. He hopes they’ll have enough warm clothes to last the coming winter. Firewood will be a problem as well. He doesn’t know where it will come from or how he’ll get any. He’ll find a way, somehow.
Kenan pushes his chair back from the kitchen table and picks up an empty water bottle. He goes over every part of it, checking for cracks or holes. He repeats the process with each of his six bottles. On the fourth he finds a small crack, which worries him. It hasn’t gone all the way through, but it will, and there’s no way to tell when. He decides to switch it with one of his spares. Better not to risk it.
He hears a stirring in the sitting room, where Amila and their children sleep. He hopes he hasn’t woken them. It’s still early. There’s no reason for them to get up yet. Better they remain asleep. Who knows whether they might have to spend tonight in the shelter, where it’s almost impossible to get any rest.
As quietly as he can, he picks up the last of their water and makes his way to the bathroom. He turns on the switch for the light out of habit, but nothing happens. He lights a stub of candle beside the mirror and begins to shave. Someday, he thinks, he will shave again with hot water and a sharp razor. Every day will be full of small luxuries like this, and he will enjoy every single one of them. Until then, though, he’s used to shaving in the dark with cold water. It hardly bothers him anymore.
He rinses his face with the last of the water and leans in to blow out the candle. As he inhales there’s a familiar tinkling sound and the light bulb in the ceiling pops to life. A harsh yellow light fills the room, and his eyes adjust to its brightness. Kenan smiles.
He blows out the candle and goes to the closet, where a small charger is connected to a car battery. If the power stays on all day he will be able to listen to the radio for the next two weeks. If it stays on overnight they can perhaps run a light for a few hours each night. He checks the charger, watches its green light glow. The battery is charging.
Amila emerges from her bed. He smiles at her and points to the light in the ceiling. She grins, raises her hands in celebration. If the children weren’t asleep, Kenan would put a CD on, something fast and cheerful, and they would shout and dance. Even though he doesn’t, knowing he can is enough.
“Do you think it will stay on for long?” she asks him as he gets up and goes back into the kitchen.
He nods. “Could be. I guess there’s no way to tell.”
Kenan begins to tie up his bottles, three to a side.
“Be careful,” she says, and he smiles.
“Of course. I always am.”
The light flickers, but doesn’t go out. Amila rolls her eyes. “Pick up one of the large boxes of chocolates while you’re out,” she says, “and two dozen eggs.”
“Yes, certainly. That’s a lot of eggs.”
“I’m going to bake a cake. A very large cake.”
“Ah. In that case I’ll buy some brandy as well.” He leans in and kisses her.
“Good idea. Nothing goes with cake like a good brandy.” She rests her hands in the small of his back, puts her head on his shoulder. “I’m tired,” she says, almost whispering.
“I know,” he says. “I’m tired too.”
They stand like this until Kenan begins to feel time weighing down on him, and he steps back, kisses her again and moves towards the door.
Once he’s in the hall, he sits down on the steps and presses his forehead to his knees. He doesn’t want to go out. He doesn’t want to have to walk through the streets of his city and look at the buildings and with every step be afraid that he’s about to be killed. But he has no choice. He knows that if he wants to be one of the people who rebuild the city, one of the people who have the right even to speak about how Sarajevo should repair itself, then he has to go outside and face the men on the hills. His family needs water, and he will get it for them. The city is full of people doing the same as he is, and they all find a way to continue with life. They’re not cowards, and they’re not heroes.
He has been to hear the cellist play every day since the shelling at the brewery. Each day at four o’clock he stands in the street with his back pressed against a wall and watches as the city is reassembled and its people awaken from hibernation. Today is the last day the cellist will play. Everyone who died in the street while waiting for bread will be accounted for. Kenan knows no one will play for the people who died at the brewery, or those who were shot crossing the street, or any of the other victims of countless attacks. It would take an army of cellists. But he’s heard what there was to hear. It was enough.
Kenan stands up and makes his way down the flight of stairs. On the ground floor he stops in front of Mrs. Ristovski’s door. He listens for sounds of life, wonders if she’s awake, if she knows the electricity has come back on. She’s usually the first to know such things.
He straightens himself, clears his throat and knocks on the door. He hears a shuffling inside, but the door doesn’t open. He knocks again, louder this time, and waits for Mrs. Ristovski to answer the door, to bring him her bottles so he can begin his long walk down the hill, through town, up the hill to the brewery and back again.
Dragan
THERE IS NO WAY TO TELL WHICH VERSION OF A LIE IS the truth. Is the real Sarajevo the one where people were happy, treated each other well, lived without conflict? Or is the real Sarajevo the one he sees today, where people are trying to kill each other, where bullets and bombs fly down from the hills and the buildings crumble to the ground? Dragan can only ask the question. He doesn’t think there’s any way to know for sure.
It’s past noon. He’s been at this intersection for over two hours now. It seems like days. Stuck in a sort of no man’s land, kept but not kept from going to the bakery, where a s
mall loaf of bread waits for him. He can cross whenever he likes. At no time has anyone come and said, no, Dragan, you can’t cross. It’s always been his decision.
He knows which lie he will tell himself. The city he lives in is full of people who will someday go back to treating each other like humans. The war will end, and when it’s looked back upon it will be with regret, not with fond memories of faded glory. In the meantime, he will continue to walk the streets. Streets that will not have dead and discarded bodies lying in them. He will behave now as he hopes everyone will someday behave. Because civilization isn’t a thing that you build and then there it is, you have it forever. It needs to be built constantly, recreated daily. It vanishes far more quickly than he ever would have thought possible. And if he wishes to live, he must do what he can to prevent the world he wants to live in from fading away. As long as there’s war, life is a preventative measure.
The cameraman has left, gone to a busier intersection. He needs people to take a chance and get shot, or shot at, or, if that doesn’t happen, at least look like they think they’re going to die. Eventually the cameraman will get what he wants. It’s only a matter of time.
Dragan makes up his mind. He’s going across. He’s not going to let the men on the hills stop him. These are his streets, and he’ll walk them as he sees fit. In a little less than four hours the cellist will play for the final time.
He adjusts his coat and shakes one foot, which has fallen partially asleep. The sky is beginning to cloud over, and there’s a slight chill in the air. He steps into the intersection. His shoes scuff on the pavement, and somewhere close by a car accelerates to a high pitch. A small bird flies overhead. Dragan is not running. He knows he should be, is aware that the sniper is likely still in his perch. He could be in his sights right now. All it would take is a squeeze of a trigger and he’d be dead.