by Scott Simon
9.
IRENA TOOK THE letter that her mother had written over to the central synagogue early the next morning. There was little light in the dark interior, but Irena could see three large corkboards wheeled over in front of a wall, each stippled with sheets and envelopes. She was looking for a place to put the letter for Nermina’s family when an envelope caught her eye.
THE FAMILY OF DALILA, MILAN, AND IRENA ZARIC
PRETTY BIRD TOO!
LAST KNOWN ADDRESS: LENIN STREET IN GRBAVICA
It was Tomaslav’s hand, and Irena opened the envelope in the dim room, her hands quavering. The note was written on white stationery.
20–5
Dearest Mother, Father, Irena,
And dear, dear Pretty Bird!
I have sent you so many letters. I have no idea if any have reached you. I don’t know where you are. I pray you are alive. The news says the central synagogue near Grandma’s apartment is keeping mail for the whole city. So I went to the central synagogue here. The rabbi said he would find out how to post this letter there, where I hope you see it.
I AM FINE!!! Azra is fine. Please tell her parents, if you know where they are. We are in London, but we are no longer together. No problem—one of those things, not worth talking about now. We left Vienna a month ago, when our visas ran out and the rooming house said we had to leave. We heard that the Bosnia office in London was granting emergency visas due to war. So on the last days of our visas, we came here.
Azra and I are working as waiters in a restaurant that is near many theaters. We dress like monks. We serve mussels and fried potatoes. I wear a brown monk’s hood all day, and feel very pious. Azra wears the same hood with very tight, short pants. Many customers say they want to convert to her church. The owner is an Indian Briton who says he likes Yugoslavs because they work hard and don’t steal. I tell him that he doesn’t know Yugoslavs. He lets us work two shifts a day, which gives me two meals. I sometimes stay late to have a beer—they have about a hundred different kinds, not even Irena would know them all—and the bartender usually sneaks us some bread and salad. So we eat well. My English is getting good. Watch this:
Can I tell you about our specials? Marinière means with garlic, white wine, and parsley. Can I get you another Leffe?
I AM FINE. PLEASE DO NOT WORRY. I don’t know how much money I am earning, because I don’t know how to figure out pounds. It is enough to pay a weekly wage to sleep on a sofa in an apartment in Blackheath, at the end of a train line. My visa is good for another eight months. I have met a man in the restaurant from Banja Luka who is trying to organize a group of us to get to Chicago, where we can get in with a group to join a Bosnian army. Why did we start a country and forget to have an army? What a supreme miscalculation! Anyway, I am saving money to make that trip.
I am not inclined to be a soldier. You raised us in a Yellow Submarine. But we see the news here each night—villages burned, Muslim men, thin as skeletons, herded into camps, our beautiful Sarajevo being brought down brick by brick and bone by bone. I cannot be happy staying away.
If you get this letter, please write to me in care of Rabbi Siegel at the Central Synagogue on Great Portland St., London W1. I love you all and miss you all. I ache to know that you are safe. I tell people from all over the world about my beautiful mother, my wise father, my talented sister, and our brilliant and amusing bird.
Love,
Tomaslav
Chirrrrp! to Pretty Bird!
IRENA SAT ON the edge of a table. By the close, she could feel wobbliness in her knees and see it in the last few lines of Tomaslav’s letter. She thought he must have been exhausted from writing so many letters without knowing whether they would be read; she could see the exhaustion in the last lines of his handwriting.
A man was setting out folding chairs as more people arrived, and she asked him for paper and an envelope.
He made a face. “We’re not a stationery store,” he said.
“We were chased out of Grbavica,” Irena had learned to explain. “My mother has just had to write old friends”—here she brandished the note about Nermina—“on some packing slips to tell them that their daughter is dead. Now I’ve just read a letter from my brother, and we have to write him back. He’s in danger.”
“Danger? Outside? The danger is here,” said the man.
“That’s what I mean,” said Irena. She added quickly, “Please. I’m not sure I can explain. It’s important.” The man went back into an office and returned with two plain sheets of paper and a synagogue envelope.
“Write the address in simple block letters,” he instructed. “Overseas, they cannot always read it. Don’t waste space. No jokes or funny titles, just name and address, or else the Blue Helmets will throw it out and shut us down. All of the mail will get picked up this week, sent to Israel, and sent out from there. Do you have money for postage?”
Irena was caught. “Maybe at home,” she said. “Maybe later.”
“Okay,” said the man. “Let’s make the first one free. I assume you don’t have a pen?” This made Irena laugh.
“Actually, I do.” She fished an International Playboy pen from her jeans pocket.
“I know that place,” the man said. “On Vase Miskina.” He began to smile. “I always wanted one of those pens.”
“In just a moment, then.” She arranged the sheets on the green linoleum floor, settled onto her knees, and began to write.
Dearest Tomaslav:
I am sure that Mother and Dad will write you back, but I wanted this just between us. WE ARE FINE. WE ARE ALIVE. We had to leave Grbavica quickly in the first days of April. It was nasty, but it is also a story that is not worth talking about now. We left so quickly, we could not get any of your things. Buy many clothes along Savile Row, although I would like to see you in the monk’s hood. I am sorry to hear that you and Azra are no longer together. Perhaps you will get back together. Perhaps Princess Diana will see you in a crowd and demand that you become her footman and love slave!
Grandma is dead. She was shot the first night of the war, just caught out on her staircase. So were several of her neighbors. Nermina Suljevic is dead, too. But mostly we don’t know who is dead and who is alive. Someone new dies each day.
Irena flipped the first page over.
There is NO NEED for you to go to Chicago to join a Bosnian army. PLEASE DON’T. PROMISE!!! Some men came to our apartment to take Daddy into the army, then brought him right back. Sometimes he is called out to dig trenches. He is doing his part for all of us. Better, if you want to join an army, you should join the French Foreign Legion. They know what they are doing. Maybe they will send you here, but you get to train in Marseilles, which is warm and beautiful. Anyway, I am sure—we all hope—that the war will be over LONG before you need to go into anyone’s army.
With all the urgent letters, this took up rather more space than Irena had expected. She went on to the second sheet.
2)
In any case, I am convinced that it was God’s plan for you to be caught outside of Sarajevo when this insanity began. Your life is much more important to everyone out there. We are safe and will survive. PROMISE, PLEASE. Write me back directly, I seem to be in charge of picking up the envelopes here.
Pretty Bird says, “Chirrrp! Whirrrr! Chugga-chugga! Tomaslav!”
Love,
Irena
She drew an arrow pointing to the back of the second sheet, and wrote:
ONLY GO TO CHICAGO TO SEE
TONI KUKOC PLAY!
TELL HIM THAT YOUR SISTER IRENA
IS THE ONLY GIRL FOR HIM!
Her bold letters reminded her of the names she had seen slashed on some of the buildings around town.
10.
SUMMER
1992
BUT PRETTY BIRD was beginning to falter.
The seed that he ate had been taken along with their other packed possessions back in Grbavica, and Irena’s grandmother had none stored away. Markets were clo
sed, smashed, or looted, and when Irena prowled around a couple of ruins she could find no birdseed, anyway. The Zarics knocked on the doors of apartments that were still inhabited—and, in fact, knocked in the doors or windows of a couple more, looking for birdseed—but found none. They tried to induce Pretty Bird to eat cracker crumbs, gnarls of gristle from canned meats, bugs, and cookie crumbs. But he would pick around them with disinterest, eating just enough to be sociable. Surely something more delectable would turn up; it always had.
“Let us just keep trying,” said Mr. Zaric. “Pretty Bird will have to eat something when he gets hungry.”
But within a month Pretty Bird was no longer making siren, whistle, grinder, kettle, or doorbell noises. He had stopped impersonating rifle fire, artillery shells, tank-tread grinding, and sniper shots. Irena had accepted the sight and smell of dead friends, relatives, and strangers. But Pretty Bird had always been the one in their lives whose fantastically incongruous bleats, burrs, bells, and whistles had reminded them that the world could sometimes be added up in different ways. Irena found that looking at her suddenly silent, irrepressible gray bird cast a gloom she had not expected among all the others.
A NEW MARKET of sorts was operating during the morning hours on an open block behind the old central market. People raided their apartments—or somebody else’s—for items they could trade. A man who had six sets of undershorts could set out two pairs and hope to barter them for ten razor blades. Or a man with twenty razor blades might decide to shave just twice a week, and trade ten of those blades for a half pound of sugar.
War had rewritten all values. Toasters, televisions, and washing machines were worthless in a place where there was no predictable electricity. Elaborate bed frames were valuable only if they could be hacked apart for firewood. But batteries could power radios and flashlights; they were more precious than brooches. Cigarettes curbed hunger and curtailed tedium. They brought more in trade than, say, cucumbers, which in a city that had no refrigeration would quickly go bad. Cucumbers were no longer produce but a perishable luxury. Cigarettes were no longer a nasty habit but hard currency.
Small-time criminals oversaw the market. Hard, blustery men in leather coats, they were as easy to spot as police officers used to be, as they prowled the ranks of people squatting on blankets, laying out razor blades, shoelaces, and sanitary napkins, like ranks of toy soldiers.
“Birdseed,” said Irena, daring to tug on one of their smooth black leather sleeves. “I’m looking for birdseed. Can you get any?”
The man needed half a minute to register that her request was no joke. “Caviar would be easier,” he said. “Cocaine I could point you to now. A lamb loin—maybe a day or two. But birdseed?” He turned away with disinterest.
One afternoon Irena pricked her finger with the point of a safety pin and smeared a splotch of blood over both of her cheekbones until her face had a healthy pink color. She found Yves, the Canadian soldier, sitting on the sandbags of another checkpoint; he scrambled down eagerly on seeing her.
“I am Irena.”
“I remember.”
“Do you have—”
“The other day, like I said, I’m sorry.”
“I am not here to be mad,” she said. “We have a bird who is very important to us. And he won’t eat. Do you have any birdseed?” Irena could feel her eyes moistening, and wondered what would happen if the blood on her cheeks became wet.
Yves paused. “No. I haven’t seen any birdseed. I haven’t heard about any birdseed.” He called back in French to a couple of other soldiers at the checkpoint. They laughed, wonderingly.
“I can get candy bars,” said Yves. “Batteries, Tampax, shoelaces. But no birdseed.” Yves chanced to put his hand against Irena’s arm. “What a place,” he said gently. “Not enough food and water, and people ask for birdseed.”
IRENA AWOKE BEFORE her parents the next morning, disturbed, she realized within moments, by the absence of flapping from Pretty Bird, who was slumped against the side of his cage. His red feathers were curled under his feet, as if they had gotten stuck there and he didn’t have the strength to move them. His eyes looked like worn tiny brown pellets. His beak appeared to be growing soft, like an old rubber toy.
“I think our supplies will be fine today,” said Mrs. Zaric. “You must use this day to take care of Pretty Bird.”
BEFORE THE WAR, the Zarics had taken Pretty Bird to a Dr. Kee Pekar, in a stone house behind some trees on a small hill in Kosevo. Irena could remember playing a game with Pretty Bird as they skipped up the steps and counted them off, Pretty Bird riding her shoulder and making his gargling noises.
This time Irena’s parents had persuaded her not to bring Pretty Bird along to the veterinarian’s office. They were certain that the patient’s presence was not necessary for the vet to conclude that Pretty Bird was starving, and they didn’t want to worry that their daughter would risk her safety by throwing her body over their moribund bird.
Irena, for her part, insisted on going alone. She feared what the doctor’s diagnosis and advice might be, and planned to filter her recommendation. If Dr. Pekar said, “There is no birdseed, your bird must be put to sleep,” Irena was prepared to tell her parents, “She said we must keep looking for seed.”
The Knight had begun his morning broadcast. As Irena headed over the embankment at Gundulica, she could hear tinny laughter and low-voiced patter: “The self-styled leaders of Bosnia! Don’t they remind you of madmen who tell their doctors in the asylum, ‘Hey, be nice, now. I’m Napoleon! I’m Hannibal! I’m Julius Caesar! I’ll tell the authorities about you!’ They run to the United Nations. They run to the United States. They wail, cry, and moan like children who’ve been pushed out of a soccer game. ‘Ooh, ooh, help me, Mommy, help me, Daddy, the Serbs are being mean!’ ”
It was the first time Irena had heard the Knight’s beery bad-boy chuckle. He was beguiling. He was mesmeric. His rants were crammed with tripe and nonsense, irregularly embellished with truths. Incomprehensible events had given his diatribes coherence.
“But have you heard what the United Nations says?” he asked after a hush. “The head is an Ay-rab, after all. At least he has an excuse to be a Muslim. Although he’s not. Once most Ay-rabs get a little education, the first thing they are smart enough to do is stop being Muslim. Be a good Christian—drink and screw. So what’s wrong with our Muslims? But even Butt-rust Butt-rust Ghali says, ‘I can think of eight or nine places in the world that are worse than Bosnia right now.’ From what I see in the movies, he must include New York. God bless America. Shut up and buy Coke—that’s their policy. Their foreign minister says, ‘We don’t have a dog in this fight.’ Bow-wooow!” the Knight howled over the river. “Bow-wooow!” He panted and slurped with impressive authenticity.
“Well, we have real leaders over here,” the Knight went on. “Men and women you want to follow. Not mama’s boy whiners who go crying to America. Our leader, the masterful psychologist Radovan Karadzic, says, ‘Our army has surrounded Sarajevo. Our boys and girls and tanks are so thick, not even a bird can get past them!’ So, Muslims, go boo-hoo-hoo on America’s shoulder. They’ll put you on television. Lights, cameras, action! You’ll get to pose with Madonna, Robert Redford, and Sting. But don’t wait for help from America! Wait for America and you take the graves next to lots of Vietnamese and Iraqis and Kurds who died waiting.”
Irena was relieved when she could hear the Knight begin to ring in the Clash. Oh I’m so boooored with the U!S!A!
DR. PEKAR WAS IN; or, at any rate, at home, in her small apartment just above the office. Irena called up and the doctor stamped down the staircase, wearing a white coat for warmth in the chilly shadows beneath some of the last trees left standing in Sarajevo. Even scavengers were afraid to try to hack down trees on a hill that was so open to sniper fire. The doctor’s windows had been blown out, and breezes moved through quickly.
She smiled and squeezed Irena’s shoulders. “Of course I remember you,” she said
. “The charming bird who makes noises like a washing machine. Unless”—she drew back—“I have already said the wrong thing.”
“No,” said Irena. “Pretty Bird is why I’m here.”
Dr. Pekar was wearing large hoop earrings below her frizzy ringlets of sandy hair. Irena thought that she had soft brown eyes, almost amber, like a kitten’s. Irena told her about Pretty Bird’s problems.
By the third sentence, the doctor was nodding vigorously. “Parrots are particular,” she said. “African grays especially. As you know, it is hard to explain to them why they need to alter their diet.”
Irena could feel her eyes reddening again. “We have been through so much together.”
Dr. Pekar moved on quickly. “You’ve tried rice?”
“All the time.”
“Boiled? Hard? Soft? With milk?”
“Every way. He eats a few bites, then turns away.”
“Macaroni?”
“Spaghetti,” said Irena. “Same story. Broken into bits. It’s not easy, you know, to get the strands down to just an inch or so.”
“You have to wrap them in a cloth and smash them with a bottle,” the doctor explained. “Crackers?”
“Sure.”
“Crumbs of whatever?”
“Always. Every time we can have a meal. A few nibbles, maybe.”
Dr. Pekar’s ringlets shook against the hoops in her ears. “I hate to hear this,” she said. “Some birds—they are just too smart to be fooled. Maybe they outsmart themselves. You’ve gone on the black market?” she asked. “I’ve had some luck with cat food there.”
“No seed.”
“If I knew another family,” she said with growing gloom, “who might have a bird and some seed to spare. But Pretty Bird has always been our one and only here.” The two women looked at each other across the chilly room.
“LOOK, I DON’T keep a supply of seed,” said Dr. Pekar. “But let me check something.” She led Irena through the folds of a dark green curtain and into her office, where the wind had strewn papers and lifted up poster calendars of cats, dogs, and rabbits, winking cutely from photographic sets. Dr. Pekar ducked her sandy head down like a searchlight into a display window, which seemed to hold a couple of dog collars and a catnip mouse toy.