Pretty Birds

by Scott Simon

  “Our bankers. They are so different?” Irena wondered as she rocked back on the heels of her Air Jordans.

  “Ours merely steal and seduce,” Tedic said. “That is practically virtuous right now. You know,” he added in the admonitory tone of a teacher, “you don’t look more wise and worldly by assuming that everyone is equally contemptible.”

  “I miss Father Pavlovic already,” said Irena saucily. “He treated me nice.”

  “He is a message boy for a missile battery,” Tedic answered more emphatically. “They shoot at civilians and hide behind the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Anyhow, I would not want to be in his cassock now, thanks to you. Fooled by a babe.”

  “We shoot at civilians, too,” said Irena. “Today we just borrowed their bullets to get at Mr. Banker and his friend.”

  “He didn’t run a shoe-repair shop on Rave Jankovic. He didn’t drive the Marshal Tito tram. The money and riches that Boskovic and his friends plundered opened the slaughter camps in Vukovar. Not shopping centers.”

  “The girl?”

  “His Polish girlfriend, Albinka. She was just along for the ride. Or the gold. She got caught in the wrong neighborhood when she got into banker Boskovic’s bed. I wish she had stayed away. You lie down with dogs, you may not get up. But we can’t let the life of an innocent trollop deter us from taking our best chance to bring down a fiend. Don’t you remember? They’ve been trying to kill us. I doubt that Madame ever rested her posh nails on his arm to say, ‘Give the Muslims a chance, my little pierogi.’ Or whatever stage names they used. I’m sorry she got caught between bastards. It’s what the Yanks call collateral damage.”

  Irena let the words grow between them. “That makes her only collaterally dead?” she asked finally.

  Tedic swirled Marlboro smoke through his mouth until it seeped out and hung in front of his face. “It makes us less than Gandhi,” he said. “We’ve had a few people run amok. I won’t deny it. I won’t pretend to be outraged. Maybe the Serbs will take us more seriously if they think we have a mad dog or two among us. But we don’t shoot tank shells at people waiting for food and water. We killed a bad man and a harmless, worthless girl. All on my head, not yours. Before you feel even a twinge of remorse, let me offer you what I tell myself.” Tedic stabbed the space between them with his right hand. “It was a pinprick against a bloodbath,” he declared.

  Death, Irena thought but kept to herself, by a thousand pinpricks.

  “Maybe I will go to hell for it,” Tedic continued in a strident voice. “But when they open the door, I’ll see the banker and the priest there. God willing, I’ll see Mladic, Milosevic, Arkan, and Karadzic there. And I’ll leap into those flames the way Pelé runs toward the goal.”

  WHEN IRENA ARRIVED home—after a long walk, which Tedic had made only a perfunctory attempt to discourage—she told her parents that she had made a delivery in Dobrinja that morning and gotten delayed by mortar fire. That characterization was technically, if outlandishly, correct. She told them about the pockmarked apartments in the housing blocks of Dobrinja. They look like biblical ruins, Irena said, until you notice people cooking and sleeping inside. They all laughed at her description of the bomb shelter, the bastion from nuclear destruction reduced to no useful purpose between opposing front lines.

  Irena was a little puzzled over her contentiousness with Tedic. The irritation that she felt was more acute and credible than any qualms she had tried to throw in his face. She decided that she had argued with Tedic mostly for the exercise. She was running out of subjects to argue about with her parents. They had learned one another’s jabs and feints so well over the past few months that their arguments held no challenge or surprise.

  Irena drank a beer with her parents and Aleksandra. Mrs. Zaric opened some cold beans, and they listened a little to the BBC. But after ten minutes there was nothing about Bosnia. The daily registry of blood and loss was becoming mundane, no longer news. It was just about as eventful as another bus crash in Bengal. Mr. Zaric lit one of his candles. The sun made a quick descent before seven. They had entered that time of year when the sun seemed to slip hastily into the hills. Shadows rolled up and disappeared as if they were being chased. Mortars whimpered like lonely dogs before they fell. In the quick, inky darkness, Irena sank into sleep amid the blankets on the floor. She usually slept well when she won.

  16.

  ONE MORNING MEL told Irena there was a storeroom in the basement that needed sweeping. She found a spare, dark room, dank with mist from the yeast simmering just above. There was a small wooden table flaking apart and listing slightly on the rough concrete floor, and two plain chairs. The back of one had been poked out, perhaps for wood to burn, with winter coming. The floor was filthy with grit, and gummy underfoot. Irena’s shoes stuck when she tried to lift her feet. She thought that she must look like an astronaut trying to take steps on the moon.

  The room’s only window had bars, a grille, and a screen. Light from the brewery’s main floor strained through, just enough for Irena to see a small pile of papers feathered out on a brick ledge. The newspaper pages had begun to brown. Irena was determined not to look at them any more than she would look at a bad old report card, but she riffled through a few pages on the top; they began to shred in her hands. A few layers below, she felt something firmer, and dug down.

  It was a VOX. Michael Hutchence of INXS was on the cover, a gloved hand holding back his mane like a black lava flow. When she turned the page, a flow of white foam clung creamily over an amber-filled glass. “Boddingtons. The Cream of Manchester.” Oh, thought Irena, so that’s beer. I don’t see much of that, working in a brewery.

  Following the ad was a feature called “The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Jackson.” In the old days, Irena would have turned past such an article, or thumbed back the page to show Amela or Nermina later and say, “Can you believe this? The wit and wisdom of a man who gets a new nose every year? Westerners!” But over the past few months she had taken to reading virtually every word of the few magazines she was able to find. In fact, she read them over and over, as monks read their missals; the way that people in Sarajevo now dived for the last dried nubbins in a bean can.

  If Irena couldn’t find any particular sense in what she read, she attached her own. She discovered that she could carry on entire conversations by quoting scraps of ads, articles, and captions.

  “My idea of your average person,” Michael Jackson told VOX, “is someone in a crowd trying to tear my clothes off.” And mine, thought Irena, has become an average person in the hills trying to shoot me. Michael told the magazine that he had been raised on a stage and wasn’t nervous there. “I feel like there are angels on all corners, protecting me,” he said. “I could sleep on stage.” Why not send those angels here, thought Irena, where they can really do some good?

  There was an ad for INXS on tour. Michael Hutchence was spreading his arms wide, like a crucifix. The ad said, “Live Baby Live.” English was eccentric, Irena decided. The same three words can be a description or an instruction. Dire Straits, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, and U2 were all touring. London, Liverpool, Paris, Dublin, and Berlin. VOX mused, VOX speculated, VOX asked aloud, “1992—The Greatest Year for Music Ever?” I guess that’s another way of looking at it, Irena thought.

  She read on a back page that if they ever had working telephones in Sarajevo again, she could dial a Naughty Joke line that rang somewhere in Britain. She could choose from Smutty Jokes, Loud Moans, or Saucy Confessions. She thumbed back to that page. She wanted to bring the magazine home to her mother and say, “Do you see what we’re missing, cooped up in this shooting gallery?”

  TEDIC ROUNDED A corner and came into the room as Irena was absently singing Phil Collins, swishing a broom over the tacky floor in time. “Kids out there don’t know how to react.” Swish. “The streets are getting tough and that’s a matter of fact.” Swish. Irena looked up at Tedic’s soundless shadow. He entered r
ooms, and lives, as soundlessly as a stray cat.

  “Please, don’t stop,” said Tedic. “I’d rather listen to you than to the Knight.”

  But Irena was discomfited. She revealed her singing reluctantly and shyly, like a mole on her breast, only to teammates and lovers.

  “Bouncing off the bricks helps,” she told Tedic. “Before the war, I used to sing in the basement of our building, and sing in the shower. I’d feel like—I don’t know, Madonna. Now it’s dangerous to sing in the bathroom. It’s like telling a sniper, ‘Over here.’ I don’t sing. I hear myself say ‘before the war’ a lot,” she added. “I sound like my grandmother.”

  “The one who died?” Tedic asked cautiously.

  “The first night. I think I told you.”

  “I think you did.”

  “Dying that night made her—more interesting,” said Irena. “People would say, ‘Your grandmother was killed. How terrible.’ Now everybody knows somebody who’s been killed. Getting killed—it’s boring.”

  “Certainly to the rest of the world,” said Tedic. He crossed in front of Irena, his black leather coat creaking. When he turned around to face her, he was smiling slyly.

  “I’m glad you’ve been able to join us,” he said. “It is essential that we keep this brewery open. We Muslims of Sarajevo love our beer. Especially during the long, dry fasts of Ramadan. It helps to reassure people that some of the world we knew before the war survives. And now,” Tedic declared, “I sound like my grandfather. We had some excitement for you the other day. I’m glad we could include you. I know that around here it’s sooo boring.” He drew the word out in friendly imitation. “At least you can keep up your studies,” he added, waving his hand at the VOX on the ledge.

  “I can quote some magazines better than I can quote Madonna lyrics, much less the Koran,” said Irena, stiffening into a mock pose. “Sky, January 1992: Clearasil Moisturizer keeps skin soft, supple, and spot-free. Tom and Nicole are really in love. J.T. in Manchester thinks he has a tiny penis. Jodie Foster eats organic food and wants to direct. Potbellied pigs are all the rage. Luke Perry has one.”

  “I wish I had a potbellied pig,” said Tedic. “Food for two weeks.”

  “Not if he were a pet,” said Irena. “At least my pet,” she added quickly.

  Tedic slipped into the seat that had no slats and leaned back on its two rear legs to look up at Irena. She held on to the broom as if it were a shield.

  “I wanted to have a conversation with you about your career plans,” he began. “I gather that you turn eighteen early next year.” Tedic chose to make it sound as if his knowledge was intuitive, not direct. “Quite a time and place for a birthday,” he remarked.

  “My mother says at least I will always remember it.”

  “I hope not,” said Tedic. “Any special plans?”

  “Only to see it,” said Irena. She went on. Reminding herself of the plans she had once imagined was pleasant. “I used to have it all figured before this began,” she said. “I’d walk into that big, circular bar of the Holiday Inn with friends and order a drink. Not beer. I’ve drunk beer since I was six. A drink. A martini, a Manhattan, a whiskey sour—names from movies. Something Sharon Stone would have. My father always said, ‘I’ll mix you anything at home.’ But that’s not like walking into the Holiday Inn and having a stranger in a red jacket call you ‘madam’ and mix you a drink.”

  It was a little after eleven in the morning. Tedic sank a hand into a recess of his coat and pulled out a gunmetal silver flask.

  “Can I get you something to drink, madam?” he asked.

  Irena smiled and sat down across from Tedic, bending the broom down in surrender.

  TEDIC THUMPED THE flask onto the table. He produced another pack of Marlboros with a flourish, too, which Irena took as a gesture of egalitarianism, however affected.

  “To your birthday,” he said. “Whenever it is.” He knew that it was January 21st. He unscrewed the cap; it squeaked like a baby mouse.

  “Next year,” she answered. She took hold of the flask, still warm from Tedic’s pocket, and tilted it back for a speculative sip. The sip bit back. The smell of some smoky fruit drifted into her nose.

  “Scotch whiskey,” Tedic volunteered. “A blend.”

  “Takes some getting used to,” said Irena. She reached for the cigarettes. Tedic lit both of their Marlboros from a single kitchen match.

  “To Toni Kukoc,” Irena proposed.

  Tedic tipped the flask in salute and let the match fall to the floor. “Let me slip into an old role,” he said. “Let me play teacher for a moment. What kills people in this city?”

  “Is this a test?” asked Irena.

  “Every day,” answered Tedic.

  Irena tapped a quarter inch of her cigarette ash onto the floor and squished it absently with her toe as she thought aloud for Tedic. “Bullets and bombs,” she said. “Hunger and cold. How many reasons do you want?”

  Tedic offered no answer. He merely looked at her through the haze of smoke that hung in the air between them.

  “Boredom,” she resumed. “Stupidity. Venereal disease,” she went on as the words came into her head. “Caused by boredom and stupidity. People stick their dicks anywhere because they are bored. They stick their heads out the window when they’re bored silly. Some Serb sniper sees them—and they’re bored dead.”

  When Irena looked at Tedic, he held her gaze as fixedly as if he had taken her chin into his hand. “How do we stop that?” he asked. His tone was deliberately casual; he wanted a casual answer, not a philosophical one.

  “If I knew that . . .” she began. Her voice trailed off as she considered another answer. “We stay down. We keep hiding,” she said.

  “We’ve been hiding,” Tedic pointed out. “It doesn’t stop.”

  “Or we could just give up,” said Irena. “People do. Countries do. Or die. We can just keep hiding until we die. I suppose they’d have to stop then.”

  “You’ve never hidden or given up during a game in your life,” Tedic reminded Irena.

  “This isn’t a game.”

  “Exactly. So why talk of giving up now, when the contest finally counts for something real?”

  “I HAVE ANOTHER answer,” said Irena. She was warming to the dialogue as she would to a scrimmage. “We can fight back. For a while, at least.”

  “Let’s start fighting back,” Tedic suggested. “Then worry about how long we can last.”

  “But we’re surrounded,” Irena pointed out. “Cooped up like pigs in a slaughter pen. We hear the Serbs sharpening their axes in the hills. We squeal. The world goes on about its business.”

  Tedic let a ring of smoke settle over his head like a spotlight before speaking.

  “Madam, it’s even worse,” he said, smiling desolately. “The world rebukes us. ‘Stop killing each other,’ they say. Or they lecture, ‘It’s more awful in Africa.’ As if they care about Africa.”

  “Europe wants to help,” said Irena, but it sounded like an echo of one of the slogans she had read in a magazine.

  “They just don’t want us wiping our bloody feet in Europe’s foyer,” Tedic said.

  Tedic shook out two more Marlboros. Irena gathered that the conversation was moving into another arena.

  “Europeans are steeped in wisdom,” he observed tartly. “They have learned over this century how to wait for the Americans and the British.”

  Irena finally returned his forlorn smile. She took the second cigarette as an invitation to hoist her feet up on the table between them. “My family and I,” she said, “we fantasize about that. Clint Eastwood swaggering into town, shooting snipers out of windows. James Bond swooping down in his Union Jack parachute.”

  “They’re not about to make that sequel, dear,” Tedic said with a sigh. “No audience interest. Europeans say, ‘Sarajevo? Isn’t that where the Great War began? Those bastards have been killing each other for centuries.’ The Americans ask, ‘Sarajevo? Where the hell is that?’ ”r />
  “The Blue Helmets are here to protect us,” Irena pointed out.

  “To keep us from protecting ourselves,” Tedic shot back softly. “To defend themselves from the dangers of beleaguered rag-heads with guns in their hands. So when the Serbs shoot us, a French commander here radios his commandant in Zagreb. He passes it on, like a phone message, to a Dutch bureaucrat in Brussels. ‘Bosnians bleeding! Please return the call!’ He rings up some mid-level Uruguayan in New York, who says, ‘Not so fast—we have to call the Security Council.’ They take their seats just as our blood is drying and the Serb guns are back in hiding. ‘Give peace a chance!’ they reproach us. A chance to kill us. I swear,” Tedic went on in the same even tone. But his words grew measured and clipped, as if he were loading them one by one into a chamber. “If the United Nations had been around when the Persians attacked Thermopylae, they would have scolded the Greeks, ‘Stop throwing rocks! They blunt the spears of the Persians!’ ”

  IRENA LIT HER second Marlboro. She sat up in her chair, like a student who had suddenly noticed the immensity of Greenland. “But why not give up? Seriously,” she said. “Shouldn’t we at least ask ourselves? We’re outnumbered. We have no guns. We have no food. We have no water. We have no friends in the world. Why should every last one of us stay here and die? Isn’t it better to hold up our hands and walk out than to be butchered?”

  “Our hands up,” Tedic answered. “And our heads down.”

  “How many people should die just to keep our heads up?” Irena retorted. “We have to crawl across the streets like scared dogs just to try to stay alive.”

  For a moment, Irena thought she had stopped Tedic. He turned away from her and fastened his eyes on the middle distance, as if he couldn’t bear to face her. When he finally spoke, his softness had the chill of a grave.

  “And what would happen when we surrender? Have you played that out in your mind? Will they greet us with figs, cheese, and bottles of Chianti? Will they escort us all to our old apartments in a fleet of Mercedeses? Flowers in the foyer, stew on the stove? ‘Surprise, surprise, hope you like it.’ Or will they just send us off on tour coaches with box lunches, and take us straightaway into sheds and shit holes? Why don’t you ask the people of Vukovar, Visegrad, and Prijedor how the Serbs care for their guests who come out of basements, bowing and scraping, with their hands up?”