Every day the Sarajevo he thinks he remembers slips away from him a little at a time, like water cupped in the palms of his hands, and when it’s gone he wonders what will be left. He isn’t sure what it will be like to live without remembering how life used to be, what it was like to live in a beautiful city. When the war first started he tried to fight the loss of the city, tried to keep what he could intact. When he looked at a building, he’d try to see it as it had once been, and when he looked at someone he knew, he tried to ignore the changes in their appearance and behaviour. But as time went on he began to see things as they now were, and then one day he knew that he was no longer fighting the city’s disappearance, even in his mind. What he saw around him was his only reality.
He has been on the streets for about an hour today, trying to make his way west from where he lives in the middle of town, just up the hill from the outdoor market. He’s trying to get to the city’s bakery, where he works. He has worked at the bakery for almost forty years, and were it not for the war he would likely be contemplating retirement. Dragan knows he’s extremely fortunate to have this job and the exemption from forced military service that comes with it, although even an exemption means little to the gangs of thugs searching for new conscripts. Nearly everyone in the city is now unemployed, and even though he rarely gets paid in cash, which is more or less useless anyway, he’s paid in bread to take home, and if he goes to the employee cafeteria he can eat for free, whether he’s working or not. So even though he isn’t working today, he’s on his way to the bakery to eat, because if he eats there he won’t have to eat at home.
Home is a three-room apartment in Mejtas?, north of the old town, shared with his younger sister and her family. Dragan used to live in what he considered a very nice apartment in the neighbourhood of Hrasno, just to the west of Grbavica. Now it’s on the front line of the fighting. The last time he saw it a grenade had completely destroyed the interior of the apartment, and he’s pretty sure that since then the entire building has collapsed. Either way, it wasn’t possible to stay there, and he knows he won’t ever go back.
Dragan managed to get his wife, Raza, and their eighteen-year-old son out of the city before the war started, and they are, he thinks, in Italy now. He hasn’t heard from them in three months and has no idea when he will get word from them again. A part of him doesn’t want to hear from them until the war is over. He has heard of women sending divorce papers from abroad, and he’s not sure he could handle that. He’s sixty-four, looks more like a grandfather than a father. While they never had the perfect marriage, it was a comfortable life for both of them, though she was six years younger than him and they’d had their son, Davor, late, when she was forty. They’d thought they couldn’t have children.
He hopes that, wherever they are, his wife and son are happy. He’s glad they don’t have to share his sister’s apartment. Dragan and his brother-in-law have never got along and, though neither will admit it, they would both prefer to spend much less time together than they do. But the bread Dragan brings home makes him indispensable, and the roof they put over his head traps him there.
The bakery isn’t far from his sister’s house, maybe three kilometres. Under normal conditions it would be about a forty-five-minute walk. Nowadays it takes an hour and a half if he hurries. Today he’s mainly out for the sake of being out, though, and he’s been taking his time. He’s kept his pace slow almost the whole way, with the exception of the part of the main road that intersects with Vrbanja Bridge, an especially dangerous spot. There he ran across the street as quickly as he could, trying not to think about whether he was in someone’s sights.
He’s on the main road, the one where the streetcars used to run. The south side of the street is piled high in places with barriers to shield cars and pedestrians from the hills to the south, though there are still plenty of places for a sniper to sneak a bullet through. He’s heard foreigners call this street Sniper Alley, and this makes him laugh, because it seems to him that every street in Sarajevo could have this name. Were the streets running along the banks of the Miljacka not worthy? What about every single part of Dobrinja or Mojmilo? It would be easier just to call every road in town Sniper Alley, and then, by some act of magnificence, if there was a street that was impenetrable to the men on the hills, to single that street out for a special name. But, of course, this is the road that takes the foreigners from the airport to the Holiday Inn, so it must seem particularly dangerous to them. Still, six lanes of pavement and a median for the trams hardly seems to Dragan like an alley.
He cuts north, leaving the main road, which, if he continues on it, will veer too close to enemy territory for his liking. This part of the street is heavily guarded by the defenders, but that has never stopped a sniper in the past and he has no illusions that it will stop one today.
He links up with another busy street, the preferred route for many people travelling the length of the city. As he reaches another main intersection, between Marshal Tito’s Barracks and the Energoinvest Tower, both almost entirely destroyed, Dragan prepares to run. This is one of the most dangerous intersections in the city. Only four hundred metres to the south is the Brotherhood and Unity Bridge, which separates the right bank of the city from occupied Grbavica.
To his left there are eight boxcars, piled two high, lining the street. To his right are the railroad tracks. On the far side of the street is the Energoinvest Tower. A few years ago it was one of the city’s largest high-rise office towers. Now it’s in ruins, shelled out of existence. Everything around him is a peculiar shade of grey. He’s not sure where it came from, if it was always there and the war has simply stripped away the colour that hid it, or if this grey is the colour of war. Either way, it gives the whole street a bleak feeling.
There are about twenty people waiting at the intersection to cross. Some step out and begin to run as though there’s a rain cloud over this part of the street and they don’t want to get any wetter than necessary. It almost seems routine to these people. Or at least that’s how it looks to Dragan. There are others who hover for a second and then run as fast as they can until they reach the other side. They make this brief frenetic dash and then keep walking as though nothing has happened.
Dragan is one of those who waits behind the protection of a concrete wall for a sign or a feeling that it’s okay to cross. He’s never quite sure what could possibly happen that might make a difference, but sooner or later he always feels that the time to cross has come. So far he’s still alive, so he figures that whatever it is he’s doing must be right.
Since the war began Dragan has seen three people killed by snipers. What surprised him the most was how quickly it all happens. One moment the people are walking or running through the street, and then they drop abruptly as though they were marionettes and their puppeteer has fainted. As they fall there’s a sharp crack of gunfire, and everyone in the area seeks cover. After a few minutes, though, things seem to go back to what they now call normal. The bodies are recovered, if possible, and the wounded are taken away. No one has any way of knowing if the sniper who fired is still there or if he has moved, but everyone behaves as though he has gone until the next time he fires, and then the cycle repeats itself. It doesn’t appear to Dragan to make much difference whether the shot hits or misses. It may have in the beginning, months and months ago, but not now. Now people are used to seeing other people being shot in the street.
Of the three people Dragan has seen killed, two were hit in the head and died immediately. One was hit in the chest and then, about a minute later, the neck. It was a much worse death. Dragan is afraid of dying, but what he’s afraid of more is the time that might come between being shot and dying. He isn’t sure how long it takes to die when you’re shot in the head, if it’s instantaneous or if your consciousness remains for a few seconds, and he’s sceptical of anyone who claims to know for certain. Either way, it’s a lot better than gulping air like a fish in the bottom of a boat, watching your own blood g
ush into the ground and thinking whatever thoughts people have when they see themselves ending.
He’s reached the intersection and can’t go any farther without exposing himself to the hills. There’s a small group of people milling at the edge of the street, none of them crossing, none of them turning back. They all watch as a man on the other side begins to cross. He hunches a bit as he runs, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Dragan recognizes this man. His name is Amil and he works, or used to work, at the news kiosk outside Dragan’s old building. Dragan hasn’t seen him since the war started, hasn’t even thought about him.
As Amil reaches the other side he stops running and puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The collar of his leather jacket is flipped up on one side, and his hair is shorter than Dragan remembers it being. Amil is only a few metres from him, and if he looks up he’ll see him. Dragan turns and faces the wall behind him, as though examining it, and waits until Amil passes. It doesn’t seem as though Amil noticed him.
When he’s gone Dragan thinks about what he’s just done and feels momentarily guilty. He always liked Amil, used to talk to him all the time. But that was before the war. If they were to speak now they would both be reminded only of how much has been lost, how things are no longer what they once were. And even though there’s nowhere in the city Dragan could look that wouldn’t tell him this same message, it’s somehow more painful to see it in another human being, someone you once knew.
He’s stopped talking to his friends, visits no one, avoids those who come to visit him. At work he says as little as possible. He can perhaps learn to bear the destruction of buildings, but the destruction of the living is too much for him. If people are going to be taken away from him, either through death or a transformation of their personality that makes them into strangers, then he’s better off without them.
Ahead of him, a couple have decided it’s time to cross. A man and a woman in their early thirties, he guesses. The woman is wearing a dress made of a floral fabric that reminds him of the curtains in the house he grew up in. They have been holding hands, and as they step into the street each lets go of the other’s hand and begins to move more quickly, not quite running. When they’re a third of the way across a bullet skids off the asphalt in front of the man, and Dragan hears the crisp smack of a rifle. The couple hesitate, not sure whether to turn back or keep going. Then the man makes a decision, and he grabs the woman’s arm and pulls her towards him. They’re running now, heading for the other side of the street. They’re nearly there when the sniper fires again, but either they’re lucky or the sniper makes a mistake, because their puppeteer remains standing and they reach the other side.
The people around him breathe easier, relieved, partly because the couple made it, and partly because they no longer have to wonder whether the intersection is being targeted today. There’s a strange sense of relief in knowing where the danger is. It’s much easier to deal with than an unfocused sense of doom, of being uncertain about where the men on the hills are shooting. At least now they know. For a few minutes no one ventures into the street, but Dragan knows that eventually someone will risk it, and then someone else, until everyone who was here when the sniper fired is gone, and those who arrive won’t even know about the couple’s narrow escape. The sniper will fire again, though, if not here then somewhere else, and if not him then someone else, and it will all happen again, like a herd of gazelle going back to the water hole after one of their own is eaten there.
TWO
Kenan
THE WALK DOWNHILL TOWARDS THE OLD TOWN would have begun Kenan’s day whether the war was on or not. Until recently he worked as a clerical assistant in an accounting firm, but the building is now destroyed, and in any case there’s no work to do. If he makes a great effort, however, if he controls what he sees and thinks, if he forgets about the water bottles he’s carrying, he can, for the first few blocks, fool himself into imagining that he’s on his way to work. Perhaps he’ll have lunch with one of his colleagues. Perhaps they’ll sit outside in Veliki Park with a coffee. He might tease his friend Goran, who is, inexplicably, a fan of the Chelsea Football Club, about a recent loss.
Soon, though, he will arrive at a switchback where the neighbourhood trash bins are located. They’re no longer visible beneath an ever-growing heap of refuse that is scoured daily for anything of the slightest value. As soon as he sees this he can no longer ignore the overturned cars or the buildings with their innards exposed. He can’t help hearing gunfire in the distance, and he remembers that Veliki Park is one of the most dangerous parts of the city. He hasn’t seen Goran in months, and suspects he’s dead.
He continues downhill. If he looks up he can see the mountains to the south. He wonders if the men on the hills can see him. He imagines it’s possible. Any decent pair of binoculars would reveal him, a thin, youngish man in a shabby brown coat, carrying two bouquets of plastic bottles. They could kill him now, he supposes. But then again, they could have killed him any one of a number of times already, and if they don’t kill him now they’ll have more opportunities in the future. He doesn’t know why some people die and others don’t. He doesn’t have any idea how the men on the hills make their choices, and he doesn’t think he wants to know. What would he think about it? Would he be flattered they didn’t choose him or offended he wasn’t a worthy target in their eyes?
Kenan is flanked on either side by four-and five-storey apartment buildings. None of them has escaped damage, though this neighbourhood has fared far better than many others in the city. Beside him is a green Volkswagen sedan that has been hit by a shell. It looks as if an enormous thumb has pressed into it, as though it were made of dough. The windshield has been blown out, and the driver’s side door has been ripped apart. Kenan thinks the car belongs to a man who lives on the second floor of the building across the street. It’s hard to tell. The man didn’t mention his car being destroyed the last time Kenan saw him, but that’s no longer the sort of thing one mentions.
On his left is the relief centre, housed on the ground floor of a post-war walk-up, in what used to be a grocery market. The doors are closed, but he approaches, hoping there might be some information about when the next relief convoy is expected. Often they post up notices about what goods will be available, so people know what kinds of bags and containers to bring with them. As he gets closer he sees there is no poster. It has been weeks since the last aid, maybe over a month.
He turns back to the street and sees a man he knows, a soldier. Ismet smiles, changes direction and comes towards him. They’re about the same age, and have been friends for over a decade. When the war started, Ismet was one of the first to join the army. He worked as a taxi driver before the war, but his car was destroyed, and now he walks nearly eight kilometres to the front lines in the north, by the television relay station. He usually spends four days at the front and then returns home for four days, to be with his wife and infant daughter. Sometimes, late at night, he comes to Kenan’s house and tells him about the fighting. He has told him of sharing a gun with another man, how they had twenty bullets, how it was their job to stop three tanks from advancing along a ridge. All the while they knew that if the tanks advanced there would be nothing they could do. Their bullets would be gone in an instant, and useless anyway. They spent the entire night in terror, flinching every time they heard a noise. When morning came, Ismet had never been so happy, nor had his friend. Later that day, as they slept in an improvised bunker slightly behind the lines, a shell landed a few metres from them, and Ismet’s friend was killed. Ismet told Kenan all this without any expression on his face, but when he reached the end he smiled and laughed a little. When Kenan asked him why, Ismet looked at him as though he hadn’t been listening. “We survived the night,” he said. “That was all we had wished for. We were given it and it made us happy. Whether we lived for another few hours or fifty more years didn’t matter.”
During moments like these Kenan wonders why he can’t bring himself to
join the army. So far he’s managed to avoid being drafted, has kept clear of the men who drive through the city rounding up unwilling conscripts. He’s safe while he has the water jugs, as no one is yet bold enough to interrupt this vital civilian mission. But he doesn’t know how long this will last, how long it will be before there’s a knock on his door and he ends up with a gun in his hands.
It’s true that he’s not a young man, though he’s young enough. It’s true that he’s in poor physical condition, has three children to look after and has no skills that are of use to an army. But they would take him. Men who are much older, have larger families and are less suited to combat have enlisted. But Kenan hasn’t. He knows the real reason.
He’s afraid of dying. He may very well die at any time, whether he’s in the army or not, but he feels that as a civilian his chances are lower, and if he’s killed it will be unjust, whereas for a soldier death is part of the job. If he ends up in the army, he knows that sooner or later he will have to kill someone. And as afraid as he is of dying, he’s more afraid of killing. He doesn’t think he could do it. He knows he wants to, sometimes, and that there are men on the other side who certainly deserve to die, but he doesn’t believe that he could perform the physical mechanics of it all. It takes courage to kill a man, and he doesn’t possess such courage. A man who can barely leave his family to collect water without falling down outside the door could not possibly do what Ismet does.