‘Oh Igor?’ Shannon said and the gang chuckled.
Around one of the artillery pieces, I noticed four men smoking while one did some sort of maintenance work. Here it was: my first look at the war and it looked like nothing at all. Like these guns would never really be fired, and if they were, it would all be quite clean and clear. You just loaded your guns up and sent the shells over as your message to explode forthrightly on the other lot.
We waited a long while. Eventually a catering worker looked out from a window. I caught his attention and he waved us down to a side fire exit. A message got passed through and soon we were being led along corridors, like those of a meeting centre, then up to the main courtyard of the castle. All around the cobbled, well-swept keep, catering supplies and other stuff was boxed up on pallets. We followed a young woman into a part of the castle where there were offices and meeting rooms. Babo, we learned, was in fact busy. But one of his guys was there to greet us in a large room at the top of a turret. Milan. He was too fat for any real soldiering, but nevertheless he wore XXL camouflage fatigues and a red unit badge with a picture of Popeye the sailor man on his shoulder. After greeting us, Milan moved away from his desk, dodging the great many pieces of paper spread across the floor, before lowering himself uncomfortably onto a squat leather settee and inviting us to sit.
The decoration of the place was as though Barratt Homes had been asked to make some improvements to a medieval castle. The windows were wide and high in brown metal frames, but the ceiling (polystyrene tiles) was a little too low for the room to feel grand. There were some prints of wild birds on the wall, a number of coffee tables with gilt frames supporting glass tops. The carpet was blue and new. All over it, walked-upon fibres rubbed up into wispy balls and the whole room had a fresh-carpet chemical-clean smell.
Penny licked her lips and her solemn eyes swept the room nervously. She was dressed all in black. A black polo neck and black jeans. I felt a thud of regret at ever having wished her anything other than pure simple success. The papers in her hand shook. I gave her a thumbs up, a wink. She nodded back to me, serious and ready. She explained to Milan she would give a quick overview of the play we had in mind and then fill in the detail. But after just the initial sketch of the ‘The Summer House’ – the two government officials of different ethnicities, the joint endeavour ruined by a bombardment – Babo’s stand-in interrupted to say he thought it sounded good, very good.
I smiled at Penny, who smiled back, wide and massively relieved.
‘Really?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
Penny smiled at me again and I shook a tiny happy fist at my side. But before we could squeeze any more praise out of him for Douglas Hurd’s idea, he moved on to the meat and drink of the meeting.
Yes, yes, it all sounded good. He liked the play a lot, great, yes. Take it to Bihac by all means, with Babo’s blessing. Maybe it will encourage in them peace? We could tell the world on our return that Babo had sent a peace play to Bihac to plead, argue, beseech. Milan explained that Babo had received certain requests and communications and in return had given certain undertakings, and was in theory willing to let us through with blessings. But, we would need protection and, though neither the town authorities (the forces of ‘the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia’) nor the UN could provide it, Babo knew there were mercenaries in the area. They might be willing to protect us – if we so wished – for a price. Milan could direct us to them if we would agree also to carry a message and some items through to a certain official in Bihac?
‘What sort of message. What items?’ Shannon wanted to know.
The answer was soothing but unspecific. Shannon looked to us and back to him in a way which didn’t rule out the idea in principle, and therefore quickly allowed it to become a fact. Milan explained that the mercenaries were camped out beyond the town near a river and, since the road was mined, the safest way to reach them and seek their help was via dinghy.
A few minutes later, we were standing in the courtyard like kids waiting for a PE lesson. From a kitchen outlet fan came the sharp tang of burnt garlic. We heard some shouting and utensil-banging from within, but when we looked at Juso for a translation he said it was just hungry soldiers, complaining about late breakfast. Soon enough two canoes were brought up – balanced one on each shoulder by a young soldier and Mohammed, his marionette legs looking like they might buckle under him. He offered to drive us back down the hill, with the canoes roped to the top of a Zastava.
Mohammed freewheeled down from the castle to save fuel. The car hissed past pasture meadows, all the windows down, filling the car with the rush of clean air and the sound of birdsong and the first individual chirrups of grasshoppers. From the curving road we looked down on Velika and beyond to the fat bowl of good country all around, safe and green in the summer sun.
*
Back at the flats, we made it upstairs to be greeted by the homely stink of dope. Throaty laughs made the four of us cracking the door open feel like outsiders. A few extra beanbags and kids’ chairs had been dragged into Penny’s flat and the living room had become the hub for a morning smoke-up. At first it looked like the room was full of people we didn’t know, but actually it was just the regular faces, Onomatopoeic Bob and Sara, Von, Cally and Christian, augmented by a Belgian guy from a United Nations High Commission for Refugees deputation and a young woman from the Spanish European Community Monitoring Mission. ‘The Europeans’ had heard about us on the town grapevine and had come to check us out.
‘You should hear what they’re saying about Babo!’ Sara announced as we entered, rather pleased to be the bearer of bad news.
But Shannon nodded that Mohammed was about to come up and join us and simply said, ‘Later. Us too.’ Sara looked chastised and when passed the joint suddenly declared that actually, she didn’t think it was cool getting high when people were dying, and left for a lie-down. Shannon followed her out, trying to massage her shoulders through her seersucker shirt, but Sara wrinkled from her touch.
The Europeans looked slightly alarmed by our arrival, like we might be the adults in the situation. It’s true we were full of brisk walking and morning air, and we had a plan. But soon Penny went from standing hands on hips and telling everybody about the castle and Babo and Milan, to taking a hit of the joint and sliding down onto the couch with Juso and Mohammed, and as we talked and laughed the room took on the feel of an ad hoc youth parliament.
Alazne, the Spanish woman, talked about the foolishness of our parents’ generation, the ones who had started the war and who refused to come in and stop it. She had a short button nose and long earlobes. Very long. In fact. Fuck. Were they stretching before my stoned eyes? To her the future was simple: ‘Little countries, little places. Little towns and restaurants and shops. Not so much the big ones.’ It all sounded fine and good. The future would be Bosnia and Euskadi and the Republic of Wales and Flanders and, why not – if they wanted – the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia? The economies of the future, Alazne explained, would be little artisan cheeses, transported to and fro, by big airships, leased out from co-ops. All perhaps to be flown by handsome, wholesome young women with perky breasts and ears like basset hounds.
‘Just a question, guys,’ Penny said. ‘But do you think the UN would escort us down to Bihac?’
‘For why?’ Alazne asked.
‘To take aid,’ Penny said.
‘Although we don’t have any aid. Any more,’ Onomatopoeic Bob mentioned.
‘Sure, but we are an aid mission,’ Penny said. ‘We were an aid mission.’
‘Uh-huh?’ the Belgian guy said.
‘But now we want to take a play,’ Penny said.
‘To promote the peace,’ I explained.
‘Er – you can ask, but the French – the French are the garrison here. They are busy. There’s a lot of fighting around the pocket.’
‘The pocket?’ Von said.
‘The Bihac pocket – it’s surrounded,�
� Christian explained.
‘Do you have UN authorisation to enter the pocket?’ the Belgian asked.
‘Yes,’ Bob said.
‘Sort of,’ Sara explained.
‘No,’ Christian elaborated.
The Belgian guy and Alazne looked at one another. Then Alazne said, ‘To be honest with you, I think, maybe but, really, no. I don’t think without aid and without crossing permissions or authorisations. No. You can ask for the help of the town but . . .’ She looked at Mohammed, who was apparently absorbed in using one of his fingernails to skim out little curlicues of detritus from the nails of the other hand. ‘Well, you can just see.’
‘Then I guess it’s the mercenaries,’ Penny said.
There was a boom in the distance, which I took to be a quarrying blast – I’d heard them often growing up. But the way Alazne looked up made me wonder. I didn’t want to be the gauche one, so I raised my eyebrows at Von.
‘Was that a fucking bomb?’ he asked.
‘Artillery. I think they’re doing bullshit. Range-finding. Almost practice, but I should go.’ Alazne stood. So did the Belgian, but as he did, he wobbled between the couch and a comfy seat. The colour dropped out of his thin face, his eyes fluttered and he shuddered back to the floor, just missing a litre bottle of Karlovac lager.
‘Take care, my friend,’ Mohammed said. ‘You don’t want to make a Martinovic.’ Across the room, Juso bristled.
‘What’s that?’ Juso said, in fast like a blade. The Belgian took a sip of water and opened and closed his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mohammed said and flicked away a little ball of fingernail dirt with his thumb. I could feel the tension in the room and grinned benignly around, hoping to help it pass; but Von looked between Juso and Mohammed like a bad umpire and, spotting and enjoying the friction, said, ‘Aye aye? What’s that?’
‘I was joking about something,’ Mohammed said down to the carpet.
‘What though?’ Von asked.
‘Shall I make some tea? Who wants tea?’ I said, but stayed sitting there.
‘It’s a guy who was assaulted in Kosovo – it wasn’t so funny maybe,’ Juso explained and I thought I could feel the Serb in him bristle, however high above the conflict he felt he floated. His little eyes shrunk further – black peas receding far into his whiskery white-plasticine face.
‘Yes, well, maybe,’ Mohammed said. ‘We don’t know. No one knows.’
Our Belgian friend tried to stand up again, straightened himself and strode out of the room with the exaggerated poise of someone who feels they are in fact walking on the moon. In the kitchen, I heard water run for a very long time.
‘Doctors from Slovenia and Croatia and Macedonia as well as Serbia agreed he could not have got it there himself. OK?’ Juso said.
‘Sure, man. Brotherhood and unity.’ Mohammed waved peace fingers.
‘What happened, Juso?’ Von asked.
‘Look, it’s kind of how the war started. It’s bullshit of course, what’s happened afterwards, but the start of it was horrible,’ Juso said.
‘He was a Serb farmer,’ Mohammed told us. ‘Djorje Martinovic. It was maybe the first thing to piss off the Serbs. Before Milosevic, before anything, in ’84, ’85. The story is that he was – excuse me, ladies – fucked in the ass with a bottle, by Kosovars.’
‘That’s what happened,’ Juso said.
‘If you believe the revolving presidency of the executive council of government doctors.’ Mohammed smiled.
‘It doesn’t sound that funny?’ Onomatopoeic Bob said to Mohammed.
‘No, but there is the possibility, you see, that actually, that he wasn’t raped but that he was trying to –’ Mohammed made the jerk-off mime – ‘sitting on a bottle. This is very much a possibility and he made up the story because it is not such a cool thing, jerking off with a bottle up your ass.’
Suddenly Juso was standing up. The big body he ordinarily kept curled in on itself unfurled and he picked up the Karlovac bottle and prodded it at Mohammed. ‘How does a guy get that, the fucking wide end you see, up his ass? Ah? How does that happen?’
‘I don’t know, man.’
‘You think you could get a bottle up there? Yeah?’ Juso said and shook the bottle at me. My sphincter tightened; it did look very wide. ‘And anyway, why? Why would he? And how could you? Do that, to yourself?’
‘Well, as suggested, by the investigation, it could be that he put it on a stick and sat on it?’ Juso looked dubious but Mohammed continued. ‘I don’t know! Apparently he was a farmer, apparently they say he did this kind of thing? Apparently you can do it. Maybe he had lots of practice?’
‘Why would a Serb do that?’ Juso asked.
‘Why would anyone do that?’ Mohammed replied.
‘Look, all kinds of things – a guinea pig, whatever. Guys dressing up as babies. Ladyboys. Feet. In the earholes. Yeah, sure. But that, I don’t see it. No way,’ Juso said.
‘Sure, I don’t know. It’s just what they say.’
Juso put the bottle down on the coffee table.
‘It’s fine. It’s cool. Who knows. It’s just not so funny because Serbs have been impaled in Kosovo many times in history.’ With that, he crossed the floor, claimed again from the door that it was all cool, and went out, shouting to Shannon, and for our benefit, that he was going to examine the canoes and check the hulls were sound. Because soon we should leave, to see the soldiers, the mercenaries – our protectors for the journey south.
Chapter 21
IN THE EARLY afternoon Mohammed drove us down to a spot where we could launch the canoes. An oval shelf of pebble shouldered out of the river, which flowed as wide as a football pitch. We waded out to the pebbles and positioned the two canoes ready to go, their back halves scratching on the stones, their prows wobbling and alive in the current. The craft had come, apparently, from a former youth camp near Bihac and had Communist Pioneer logos stencilled on the hulls.
Juso, Sara, Shannon and Penny took their places in one – their combined weight pushing the boat into a gritty gutter, so that the rest of us had to shove hard to get it roaring with a plastic-on-gravel grind out into the water. Then we climbed into the other boat and shuffled off inelegantly, levering the craft forward with our hands. They were the high command vessel. We, the muscle, followed.
We only needed to paddle gently as the water narrowed to a tennis-court span and the fat current carried us along the green throat of the river. The riverbanks grew steeper and steeper so that eventually little clay-and-pebble metre-high cliffs ran to either side of us, topped with thick grasses, thin pale-leafed trees and woody plants.
In front of me, Von’s thick neck with its golden curls looked reassuring and solid in the sunlight. I had a sudden urge to kiss it. Perhaps making out to Penny that the object of my obsession was not her or even Shannon, but her brother – that could be a handy subversion. The complication might somehow make things simpler between us and in a night of weeping on about my lust for Von, I could more easily slip into bed with her? Also, maybe I’d like it? I urged myself on to imagine slipping a hand round Von’s waist, to the fat root of his dong. Maybe it would be nice with a bloke? Watching TV in bed and not trying so much? I urged a gay boner into shape, but nothing came off. Though, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how much I was cheering it on and how much holding it back.
We’d zoomed ahead of the others and now, behind us, Juso laughed at something Shannon said. Then I heard a big splash. At first I thought it was just horseplay – the slap of oar on water and splatter. But when Von flattened his paddle against the flow, we spun round to clock the action: Sara was trying to get out of the other canoe. Shannon was gripping her arm and the boat was listing violently. Juso and Penny yelled at her to sit back down.
‘I’ve had enough, OK? I’ve had e-fucking-nuff. I don’t want to be a cog in this machine. I don’t want to see all the little fucking looks, all right?’
Sara finally levered herself out. And as she ploppe
d into the water it became clear the bottom of the river was actually standable.
‘I am not blind,’ she said, waist-high in the water. ‘And I am not deaf and I know what’s going on.’
‘Sara?’ Shannon said. ‘What the fuck? Nothing is going on.’
‘It is going on.’
‘Nothing has happened.’
‘You’re doing your thing on him, Shannon, you fucking are.’
‘You sound really crazy, Sara, you know that? You need to have a breathe and think what this is about for you. You’re under a lot of pressure and I want you to think clearly about what is real, OK?’
As Sara waded off towards the riverbank the water rose, up to her armpits now, and though she stood easily, she stumbled as she moved, all creased brow and determination.
‘What do you think is going on? Sara? Seriously? Ah?’
‘You’re . . . making him like you,’ she said. It was a losing argument in every respect, except for the fact that it was true. Shannon could easily make you like her. By shining her strong beam on you so you were fully illuminated and your every move was made to feel silvery and fascinating. Like a secret dope plant, you grew big and vivid in her warmth, feeding on the artificially nutritious conditions.
‘I’m fucking – out of here,’ Sara said, dropping her feet away and starting to swim back to Velika against the current. She got nowhere – staying resolutely still next to Shannon’s canoe, until once again she stood. Shannon dipped her head to Sara’s ear and said something. Then Sara swam downstream towards us.
Like a hard-heart after the Titanic, I worried that her grabbing at our boat might capsize us, but she seemed happy to just float, her hand on our stern. She grimaced and shrugged when we asked if she was OK, then dipped her face down into the cold water to escape the world, before coming up with a flurry of thoughts. ‘When is he even getting to his mother’s? What do we know about him? Hasn’t he missed, somewhere along the line, her funeral? Maybe he cuts babies’ throats. Maybe that’s what he does for a living?’
Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals Page 16