Country of Red Azaleas

by Domnica Radulescu

  That night Marija and I slept in her room in the same bed. The forsythias were in bloom and it smelled like jasmine. The air that came through the half-open window felt fresh and hopeful. Who could start a war on a beautiful fragrant spring day? I thought as I was coming out of my inebriation. In the morning we had a vague memory of the American Sally and were surprised to each find her card in our pockets. That morning Marija made the strongest coffee I had ever tasted to jolt us out of our hangover and when she turned on the radio in her tiny kitchen we found out the war had started. Sarajevo was under siege. Two women had been killed by snipers in the street—the first victims of the war. Marija was beside herself, she cursed at everybody and even got short with me when I told her there was nothing she could do right now. That was not something Marija could stand hearing: that there was nothing she could do. She wished she were there in Sarajevo taking part in the peace march with the other tens of thousands of Bosnians; she worried about her parents and grandparents and her native Sarajevo and about the world in general. Marija was the only person I knew who literally suffered deeply about the world and its miseries, who screamed in pain whenever she heard of atrocities and violence across the globe. Then she would start a political group, a literary circle, a discussion session, write letters to the student newspapers and to every paper in town, start chains of letters to help victims of earthquakes or of genocides, Rwandan women or Palestinian children. Her writing flared in quick colorful but precise sentences that woke you up from whatever state of moral turpitude you might have found yourself in on that particular day. When the news on one radio station referred to the Serbian armies claiming their rights to the territories of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Marija and I stared at each other: She and I were now part of enemy ethnic groups. It was the first time ever in our lives that we thought of each other as part of two separate ethnic identities. We had never even considered our Serbianness or Bosnianness other than she was born in Sarajevo and I was born in Belgrade. Struggling with our excruciating hangovers that morning, putting on makeup in the tiny mirror hanging above the sink in the half bathroom of her apartment and trying to cover up the deathly-looking circles around our eyes, Marija and I burst into tears and held each other for a long time. Our makeup ran down our faces, making us look even scarier, and we vowed we would never let any ethnic, political, nationalistic, or ideological powers come between us. “You know what? I am Bosnian, too, Marija, and I will forever be Bosnian, for as long as your people, that is our people, are under attack,” I said between sobs. “We shouldn’t even think in terms of our people or their people, that is part of the problem. You know what?” she said wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m fucking American, that’s what I am.” We laughed and I said I was “fucking American, too,” and we would eventually join Sally in her Santa Barbara Pacific heaven one day. Only now there was work to be done, Marija said. She was going to Sarajevo soon, immediately after exams. She wanted to get her diploma and work as a journalist in Sarajevo. “I would move with you to Sarajevo in a minute, Marija,” I said breathlessly. “No, you can’t, you need to stay here and act against the war from the inside,” she said as if she was already planning an antiwar underground movement. Although that statement left me aghast with confusion, for I had no idea how I was supposed to work from the inside, I told her that yes, I would do just that, stay in Belgrade and engage in some kind of antiwar activism.

  That night and the nights that followed, Marija and I did the rounds of the best-known student hangout places, taverns and seedy cafés, distributed antiwar leaflets, and engaged in fierce debates with our compatriots over the state of our country, region, and people. As I watched Marija unfold in all her physical and intellectual brilliance I thought she could be the president of Serbia, Bosnia, of the whole world. Why did we just have fat, old, obtuse, fanatic, and not very smart presidents in that wretched world of ours, for centuries? I thought that even war was really fun next to Marija. So apparently did hundreds of Serbian, Croat, Bosnian men who swarmed around her and brought her one drink after another even when they totally disagreed with her political views. Milko accompanied us at some of those political drinking bouts around Belgrade and faithfully stood by us, until one evening when a stout Serbian patriot and soccer player called him a faggot and punched him in the face. He fell on the floor unconscious in a puddle of his own blood. Marija and I had to drag him out of the tavern at midnight, and had him transported to the nearest hospital. We stayed with Milko until we were certain he was all right and walked to my parents’ apartment.

  Surprisingly my parents were genuinely happy to see us even at that ungodly hour of the night, and made no comment about our disheveled appearance, alcohol stench, and clothes stained with blood from Milko’s injuries. My mother quickly made the bed in my old room and asked if she needed to pump the inflatable bed or if we were fine sharing my bed. If only my mother had known we were sharing not just one bed but the same lover, I thought. Marija smiled and I knew she thought the same thing. Biljana came out of her room curious about what was going on and eager to tell us about the dance show she had been cast in at the high school—she was going to be Maria in West Side Story and twirled around the apartment singing “I feel pretty, oh so pretty.” Who said we weren’t Westernized in old mother Yugoslavia? Biljana was wearing as always bunches of ribbons in her hair and scarves not just around her neck but also on her thighs and waist; she was a flowing nymph with irrepressible red hair flying in all directions. Biljana and Marija always got into friendly arguments the second they saw each other in a way that seemed sisterly and familiar. Marija made fun of the overly romantic tale in West Side Story and Biljana came right back telling her that was overbearing feminist crap, it was a beautiful story, it was the Romeo and Juliet story after all, what was wrong with Marija, why was she always so bitter about everything that involved romantic love? Marija laughed and said joyously: “I just don’t believe in romantic love, it’s beautiful in the movies, but in reality it is overrated and hardly ever lasts, but I’m sure you are going to shine in your role as Maria. Could you get me a ticket to the show, Billjie?” While my mother was preparing one of her unpleasant-smelling meals for us in the kitchen, the three of us chatted and teased each other and felt like three sisters. For that short period the war that had just started seemed inexistent, impossible, and immaterial. Only our girlish chatter mattered.

  My father came into the room looking exhausted and unwell. Something heavy fell amid us like a thud: the news of the war. He had been asked to retire from his position as diplomat at the Greek embassy because he had expressed antiwar sentiments at work. Apparently the Serbians were interfering with the affairs of the Greeks and the latter gave in just to avoid any trouble. The news was shocking to me but apparently not so shocking for Marija. She was expecting all that. My mother came in with a questionable-looking mixture-pudding of sorts, and Marija and I tasted out of politeness and because we were curious to hear more. My mother, too, had been reprimanded at the glass factory where she worked as a chemist because she had expressed an indignant stance against the beginning of the war. “Who starts a war in the middle of Europe in this day and age, less than fifty years after the horrors of the last war? Can our people be such idiots?” asked my father, puzzled. His usual show of manliness and effervescent spirit were drained. I felt sorry for my parents and apparently so did Marija because she tried to comfort them for their recent blows and she praised their courage to stand up to the shows of nationalism and to the new war.

  “There isn’t going to be much dissent allowed,” said my father, “mark my words, we’ll be going backward, we’ll be thinking nostalgically of the Tito years and of Communism.” It was exactly what Marija had said to me earlier and now the gloom of it all fell on us with that same threatening thud again and again. We sat around the table in the heavy-smelling apartment at an ungodly hour of the morning as Biljana swirled around the room in a cavalcade of ribbons and scarves and humming the
tune of “I feel pretty.” We did our best to process my mother’s attempt at a rice pudding and the new political developments rushing at us from all directions. My father was wondering if Marija was going to leave for Sarajevo right away and my mother shushed him saying she would go when she felt the moment was right. “Maybe you should wait a bit longer, isn’t it dangerous with the siege that just started?” asked my father, showing genuine concern. “If my parents can take the danger, so can I,” she said abruptly. Who knew when she would be back again? Marija spoke as if she had already gone through several wars and was a pro at dealing with war situations. But the truth was that she was always a pro at dealing with a variety of mind-boggling circumstances from messy love affairs, to the politics of student organizations, to the beginning of a terrifying war. Yet there seemed to be another reason why Marija was delaying her departure, and the exams somehow didn’t seem strong enough. There was a mysterious shadow moving back and forth on her face. When I looked at her straight she seemed to have a forced smile, as if trying to say she was all right, don’t any of us worry about her. My mother mustered enough courage to ask the reason for our late-night appearance in bloody clothes. Marija and I stumbled in our explanations and then told my parents that a friend of ours from the department of philosophy got beaten up in a bar because of expressing antiwar sentiments.

  That night Marija and I stayed up in my bed talking about everything from the men we’d known to the state of the world, to our future with the war in it, to our careers, to our favorite movies, and fell asleep on memories of our childhood in Sarajevo and in Farah and Kemal’s sweet-smelling house. It felt like a farewell night but neither Marija nor I said anything about a parting of any kind. We delved into the delicious illusion that we would be together forever like one delves into the illusion created by a Hollywood movie on that magical silver screen. Even as personal destinies were crushed by wars and irrevocable separations, the characters in those movies that Marija and I had watched wide-eyed in our early teenage years all seemed unperturbed, glossy and immortal, elegant and witty under the worst and most painful circumstances. A quick glance as a plane was getting ready to leave, a faraway war whose din had made itself heard nearby, the brim of a hat turned just right for us to see the soulful teary eyes of the heroine, all perfectly contoured and timed. I thought Marija fell asleep before I did. I remembered thinking that she must have been so tired since her breathing was inaudible. Just something in the way her head shifted off the pillow and her hair fell on her face made me think she had fallen into a deep sleep. I almost felt like I could hear hoarse whispers from the dark dreams that Marija was struggling with. Before falling asleep I had a sharp pang of fear for her, not knowing what the future would bring in that war zone she prepared to launch herself into as soon as exams were over. I felt a need to protect her and to tell her she could always count on me. But the heavy and precipitated events of the day must have weighed on my psyche, too, and sleep lulled me before my own dreams of empty labyrinthine streets pushed their way into my subconscious. Danger lurked at every corner in my dreams but despite the sense that people with guns and grenades were swarming all around the vicinity, everything was maddeningly quiet. Milko appeared in the middle of the street wearing a white hospital gown and with a deep gash in his forehead. He was offering Marija and me a pot of azaleas. Marija told me not to take them because they were dangerous, they were evil dangerous flowers, not all that looked pretty and fuchsia was safe, she said. Still, I so much wanted the pot of azaleas and I did not listen to Marija. I took the pot of azaleas from Milko and in that same second everything blew up. We woke up to the sounds of snipers and explosions on the TV in my parents’ living room. The war was getting on and people and buildings were being blown to bloody shreds and it was not a dream and it was not a Hollywood movie.

  Several days after the ruthless beginning of the war in April 1992 I met Mark Lundberg, a suave American intellectual pursuing a combined journalism and English literature doctorate at Harvard who had a touch of Gary Cooper and Marlboro Man combined. Even before completing his doctoral dissertation he had landed a teaching job at a university in Washington, DC, and for now he was going back and forth between Boston and Washington, he said with a smile that tried to be shy and unassuming. He had come to Belgrade to gather material for a humanitarian journalistic project back home, and miraculously dropped into the middle of a seedy Belgrade tavern at the shocking start of a war of nationalistic aggression. The word humanitarian sounded sexy on his lips and I wanted to hear more. His commutes between the two formidable American cities sounded glamorous beyond my imagination.

  Marija and I spent hours every day in cafés and taverns, arguing, spreading antiwar leaflets, rousing heated debates between the arrogant majority of nationalists and the slim but fierce minority of pacifists. One evening Marija was surrounded by a crowd of men who drank every syllable that dripped off her luscious lips whether they agreed with her or not while I was handing out the pamphlets that she and I had worked on the previous night. I had already had a couple of drinks and for some reason in response to Marija’s sparkling mini lectures I started elaborating on the connections between patriarchy and nationalism, sexuality and wars of aggression. Something I had once read about nationalistic libido, a new concept for everyone including myself, erupted in my slightly inebriated head and I had to share it with everyone. A tall handsome man who looked American joined the group and I became bolder and offered to buy him a drink. “Vodka on the rocks for the American gentleman here,” I said to the bartender and handed the vodka glass to the handsome American with great aplomb. He smiled and asked: “How did you know I was American?” “It’s not very hard to guess, you know; your trusting smile I suppose,” I said and left the group of students with Marija in the center to join him at a table at the far end of the bar. Behind my back some of the guys in Marija’s group called me a traitor and “fraternizer with Western elements.” I heard that and turned back yelling halfway across the bar: “Really? Look at you boys—what are you wearing? Levi’s jeans. What are you listening to? Michael Jackson. And those of you who are not drinking vodka, what are you drinking? Is it not whiskey? Who’s the fraternizer?” I felt powerful and light, as if I could take on the world. I looked back at Marija and she was smiling like a proud mother. The American started talking and before I knew it, we were drinking shots of vodka together. Even though I was used to having vodka shots from the practice I had had with Marija during our college years, for some reason after the third shot in the company of the American tourist with a penchant for humanitarian activism, everything became blurry and confused. The sound of an accordion playing a heated Hora, Marija’s eyes moving from the crowd around her to me with the expression of a wildcat ready to pounce, the American brushing his long fingers against my cheeks and then kissing me on the mouth right there at the table in the corner of the tavern, antiwar leaflets spread on the floor and flying in the smoke-filled air, his invitation to join him at the studio apartment he was renting, my counteroffer that he join me at my studio apartment. It all ballooned into one never-ending night that stretched out into another day and another night, which all led to my moving into his apartment only a week later, which then stretched across the summer and into the fall when it ended with our wedding in an Orthodox church and my leaving for America as his bride.