Pretty Birds

by Scott Simon

Sir Sasha paused for a moment, and went on, “He intoned, ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.’ And the audience booed. He proceeded. ‘And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.’ The booing crashed across the stage in bloody waves. Yet our star went ahead.

  “ ‘Out, out, brief candle!’ he flashed. ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage. . . .’ But he had to halt. The booing was so bad, he couldn’t be heard. The star crossed to the footlights. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why you’re booing me. I didn’t write this shit!’ ”

  The new wave of applause made the candle flames flicker. Sir Sasha put a beery arm around Ken and Emma, whom Irena recognized as members of Tedic’s troupe, and explained that they wanted to sing a couple of songs inspired by the production the visitors were about to mount.

  Emma was slender, with hair the color of amber honey. Ken had a thin bristle of a mustache that curled around his mouth, musketeer style. Emma patted her hand over her throat, as if stifling a cough.

  “I will try to make our song heard,” she said daintily. “Sir Sasha is so hard to follow. We have reworked some lyrics for your consideration.” Ken and Emma softly began:

  When the Serbs take over your house

  And Boris aligns with Uncle Sam

  Then Slobo will guide the planet

  And they won’t give a damn!

  This is the dawning of the Age of Hilarious

  Isn’t it precarious?

  Precarious? Hilarious!

  Sasha Marx had been standing at a distance from Ken and Emma. But as their song took hold he came closer, so that the look of marvel on his face became visible as they moved into the chorus:

  Serbia is expanding

  Sniper shots and bombs abounding

  No more food, lights, or water

  Just hunger, blood, and slaughter

  Chaos and dissolution

  Fear and destitution

  Hilarious!

  Hilarious!

  The applause that broke in was dense as a drum roll. Sasha Marx stepped forward to press his lips with suction force against both performers. Emma said they had one more song. Sigourney and Jean-Claude were waved up to join them. Emma, who seemed to own the sweetest voice, struck up the first notes:

  Good morning snipers

  Your shots say hello

  Serbs shoot above us

  We huddle below

  Good morning snipers

  You lead us along

  My love and me as we sing

  Our early morning running song.

  All the singers joined in, and motioned for the audience to do the same. Irena looked over at Amela, and saw that she was singing:

  Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo

  Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo

  Doo-bee-doo-doo-waa

  Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo

  Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo

  Doo-bee-doo-doo-waa

  Ken and Emma rang out the last stanza:

  Run along

  Don’t guess wrong

  Run and hide the whole day long.

  By the time the ovation had died down, Tedic had sent Kevin before the crowd. He was a thin man with a mortician’s neat mustache and slender, expressive wrists. “A man goes to confession,” he said. “He hems and haws—he is embarrassed. Finally, he says through the small screen, ‘Father, forgive me. But I fucked a chicken.’

  “ ‘Fuck whatever you want,’ says the priest. ‘Just tell me. Where did you get the chicken?’ ”

  Ken returned, sandy-haired and blue-eyed, blinking a smile like the keys of a small spinet. “I, too, have a religious experience,” he declared. “Just yesterday I was walking along Vase Miskina to the water line when I saw”—he allowed his voice to dip here—“Jesus Christ.”

  Low hoots and whoops whistled around the room.

  “Unmistakably Jesus,” Ken asserted. “Himself. He looks just like his pictures. Long, sandy hair. Thin, scraggly beard. But if that wasn’t enough, he was carrying a cross. Now, I don’t believe in messiahs. Any more than I believe in Blue Helmets. But to be gracious I said, ‘Welcome to Sarajevo, my Lord Jesus. May I ask a question?’

  “ ‘Of course,’ Jesus said. ‘The loaves and fishes? Sleight of hand.’

  “ ‘No, my Lord.’

  “ ‘Water into wine?’ he asked. ‘Basic chemistry.’

  “ ‘No, my Lord,’ I said.

  “ ‘Rising from the dead?’

  “ ‘No, my Lord.’

  “Then I tapped the cross he bore on his back and asked, ‘Where did you get all of this wood? I’d like to heat a cup of coffee.’ ”

  Laughter scuffed across the sharp cement floor and rubbed against Irena’s ears. Emma returned, eggshell blue eyes shining under her straw-blond hair. Her voice got soft as the flutter of a bird’s wings. The room was rapt. “You have all been here for a day or two,” she said. “Let me ask, have you noticed? What is the difference between Auschwitz and Sarajevo?

  There was an uncomfortable stirring. No one in the room wanted to hazard an answer.

  Emma ducked her head against her chest. “Auschwitz,” she avowed simply, “had gas.”

  Groans and guffaws took over the room.

  JACKIE WAS MAKING her way to Sir Sasha’s impromptu stage. She wore a clinging sleeveless black dress that made a slinky, sliding sound brushing against her backside, audible in the immaculate silence of people watching a woman with no right arm advance into their gaze. Sir Sasha Marx received her with a delicate bow. He touched his hand to her remaining forearm and brought her head against his shoulder for an intimate whisper. Jackie turned around and whisked a wisp of russet hair from over her arresting chestnut-velvet eyes; it fell back. She smoothed it in place with her one thumb.

  “The first thing that I want to say,” said Jackie, “is—sorry if I didn’t get a chance to shake your hand.”

  SHRIEKS PIERCED THE room. Sasha Marx’s great rump roast of a face opened with a roar. Jackie’s face held, grave, tender, and benignly bemused. People were appalled and enthralled—Jackie held them rapt.

  “Our visitors say, ‘You folks are so plucky,’ she went on. “Isn’t that how you put it? ’Plucky.’ Speaking for myself, I don’t know how to be plucky. We have just done what we have had to do. All of this hiding, running, scrounging. All of this bleeding and dying—we don’t come by it naturally. What’s natural for us is a cigarette in one hand, an espresso in the other. A beer on the café table, some leftist rags at our elbow, and the whole afternoon to argue about captivating inconsequentialities. Michael Jordan. The Princess of Wales. Madonna. Sir Sasha Marx. The Pet Shop Boys.

  “Well,” Jackie went on quietly in a hush so deep that Irena thought she could hear the sputter of candle flames. “It’s been about a year now. The way we add up our lives has changed. It’s not ‘Do you have a job? Do you have money?’ No one does. Cigarettes are more precious than money, anyway, because we live in three-minute scenes—that’s as much life as we can count on. A night like this—we should look around. Next year, next week, tomorrow—faces will be gone.”

  Irena felt Amela’s hand settle softly around her waist. She reached over with her own hand and rested it on Amela’s forearm.

  “Something called Sarajevo will survive. It will never be the city we knew. But there is still a chance for it to be open-minded, curious, frivolous, and free. Not a smelly, vanquished little capital for strutting bullies, bigots, and thugs.”

  There was flesh-colored gauze freshly wrapped where Jackie’s arm had been. Carefully, she twisted her right hip forward and stamped her foot slightly, so that the stump of her arm was visible throughout the room. “Just let us use our own arms to fight,” she declared, “and we will save our own city.”

  Those who were sitting on their haunches in the front of the room began to rise. Those who had been standing behind them, includ
ing Irena and Amela, sank to their knees under the weight of emotion. Sir Sasha gathered Jackie into his embrace, lifting her high against his chest. Then, sobbing, he took another step back so that Jackie could stand alone in the ringing adoration.

  At last Sir Sasha stepped up and slid his arm around her shoulders. In his free hand was a handkerchief, which he made a show of wringing out. “You know,” he said as the room began to settle, “we like to think that when barbarians storm the gates, and lesser peoples fall back from the fray, a distinctly British voice will ring out above the battle: ‘I say, old chap. You don’t really believe that we will permit this, do you?’

  “But we have nothing to teach Sarajevo about holding back barbarians. We have nothing to teach you about blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We poor players, strutting and fretting upon your stage, are ennobled to stand alongside you for a few minutes. When we return to our slumbering, green island, we will grab every passerby we can find. We will peal from every stage on which we appear, that the people of Sarajevo”—he offered a polite, beautifully restrained bow in Jackie’s direction—“have single-handedly held back the fist of tyranny. It is time to lend our hands!”

  THE HOME MINISTER searched the assembled, shining faces and found Tedic. He was standing darkly next to one of the brewing vats, and had just taken a long draw of his Marlboro. The Home Minister followed the glow up to Tedic’s eyes. When he was sure that Tedic had caught his gaze, the Minister nodded his head ever so slightly.

  TEDIC HAD A tape player plugged in, and soon Peter Gabriel, Madonna, Joni Mitchell, the Clash, Peter Tosh, and Sting joined the festivities.

  Irena took Amela over to meet Jackie. Jackie swirled smoke out of her lips and leaned in to throw her arm around Irena (who was reasonably sure that Amela didn’t hear her greeted as “Ingrid”) and kiss her, and then, because she was Irena’s friend, brush a more than reflexive kiss against Amela’s cheek, too.

  Molly seemed to have had a better briefing, and merely put his head against Irena’s and called her “little sister.” “I’m not sure Irena has told me about you,” he shouted down to Amela from his streetlight height.

  “I’m not sure she has mentioned you,” Amela returned.

  “Bitch,” Molly hissed. “She’s been saving you!”

  Molly was childless, womanless, and friendless. Yet somewhere along his surreptitious journey he had learned that teenage girls could be diverted and amused whenever a grown-up stooped to share a profanity. It was as if someone had leaked a code.

  Jean-Claude, whom Irena had barely met, made a point of meeting Amela. “Irena did not tell me she had such wonderful friends,” he shouted.

  “It should be assumed,” Amela answered with a smile.

  Sir Sasha had one of the few voices that could pierce the din. He upbraided one of his players with Falstaffian ferocity when he thought the man had poured himself too large a cup of a Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits.

  “Drink bloody beer, bloody wanker!” he sang out. “Not the bloody fifteen quid Burgundy! As if you had discriminating tastes. Leave the wine for our hosts!”

  ZORAN FOUND THEM shortly after midnight. The actors had slipped back to Mel’s loading dock to light fat, ashy joints rolled in newspapers as Tedic and Zule helped them onto brewery trucks for the ride back to the Holiday Inn.

  Zoran was holding his stomach and joggling his head. “In ordinary times,” he told the girls, “I would say I’m too fucking drunk to drive.”

  “What do you say now?” asked Irena.

  “I hope we don’t hit a fucking tank.”

  31.

  THE GIRLS HAD a few hours before dawn seeped across the city and Amela would have to make her way back home. Zoran drove them to Irena’s building and said he would sleep off the party in his taxi, below the windows, until Amela was ready to leave. There was moonlight enough to see their way up the outdoor staircase to the Zarics’ apartment on the third floor. Their rubber-soled shoes squished softly on the worn wooden stairs.

  “It’s nice out after all the smoke,” Amela said in a whisper. “It’s fresh and warm. Can we sit out here?”

  “Bad idea,” Irena said. “Just about here is where we found my grandmother.”

  “They can hit people here?”

  “Anywhere. Haven’t you heard of the Viper?”

  “Everyone has,” said Amela. “Every move you make, every step you take . . .”

  “He’s not just a song.”

  “I wonder,” said Amela.

  THE THIRD-FLOOR HALLWAY was dark. Irena patted a wall so that Amela could hear it and position herself against it to slip down to the floor.

  “Besides,” said Irena, “we can smoke in this hallway. Give me a second.”

  Amela heard the sound of a lock turning, and quiet shuffling. When Irena returned, she had two cans of Sarajevo Beer under an arm, and her head was cocked to the side so that she could balance something on her shoulder.

  “Pretty Bird,” said Amela.

  “He was so eager to see you.”

  Irena leaned forward for Pretty Bird to bump his beak against Amela’s nose. He was sleepy, and made only a slight burbling.

  Amela put his head into the well of her shoulder and blew gently across the top of his head. “I’ve missed him,” she said.

  “He gets that Amela look,” said Irena. “I can see it.” The hall blushed with light briefly as she lit their Marlboros off a single match.

  Amela lifted the tab on each beer with a pffft and handed one to Irena. “What is this shit?” she asked. “No Sancerre?”

  “I’ll check the cellar,” said Irena. “Madame.”

  They clanged beer cans together softly.

  “Amazing.”

  “Fucking amazing.”

  Pretty Bird was coming to. He took a stutter step and began to waddle in a small circle between them.

  “Living like this. Day to day. All day. I don’t know how you do it.” Amela had locked her arms around her knees and sat back against the wall.

  “You get used to it,” said Irena. “I suppose you can get used to anything. I bet people in Paris ride the bus past the Eiffel Tower twice a day and never look up from their crossword puzzles.”

  “Those jokes,” said Amela. “I couldn’t believe those jokes.”

  “We laugh at strange things now,” Irena explained. “Or else we wouldn’t laugh at all.”

  “Do the Blue Helmets help?”

  “Tedic—the bald guy. The old assistant coach. Tedic says that hell is a place where French and Egyptian soldiers are the army, the British are in charge of food, the Ukrainians are the police, and the United Nations is the government.”

  Amela tapped a gray ash into the palm of her left hand.

  Irena told her, “Flick it on the floor if you like. We’re the only ones on this floor, and it just blends in with the rest of the rubble.”

  Amela delicately overturned her palm full of ashes next to her on the floor. “I’ll get them later,” she said. “How do you—do you mind—get by?”

  “We’re fine,” said Irena. “Hardest on my father. Nothing to do, and everything to feel bad about. I guess my brother feels that way, too. My mother and I—we have a lot to do.”

  “Anything from your brother?” asked Amela. Irena drew on her cigarette as she smiled.

  “I thought you’d ask. Not for a while.”

  “Chicago still?”

  “Maybe,” said Irena. “Maybe Zagreb,” she added softly. “Some people are trying to get to Bihac, one hears.”

  “I have,” said Amela, and settled her eyes on the charred cameo of flame on the wall behind Irena’s head. “We have our complaints, but I would feel cloddish to say anything here. We eat, we work.”

  “Snipers a problem?” Irena asked carefully.

  “A little. People living along the front lines can get a bullet up their ass while they’re taking a shower.”

  “We don’t take showers,” Irena told her.

  “You see
why I don’t complain,” said Amela. “You can always come up with something better.”

  “Something worse?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  They mashed their cigarettes into the floor as they laughed, and lit up new ones.

  “Have any fun?” asked Irena.

  “The usual, I guess. Listen to music. Watch videos. I’m actually reading. Snipers aren’t such a problem where we live. People tend to stay in, anyway. There are a few clubs. Mobster hangouts, really. They have money, they get things. But their acquaintance can be dangerous. Besides, I don’t drink well when I’m not playing basketball and working it off.”

  “Ever see anyone?”

  “Our old friends?” Amela asked. She blew out a cloud of smoke—like a distress signal, Irena thought—before answering. “People have scattered.”

  Irena put her chin over her knees and made her voice breathless and husky. “I . . . meant . . . some-one.”

  “Oh. Boys,” said Amela shyly.

  “Or men.”

  “I haven’t seen Dino.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Irena. “Don’t fuck with me. I didn’t mean him. We’re both too old for him now.”

  Amela palmed down another load of ashes and ran her hand absently through her hair.

  “No,” she said quietly. “No one regular. You?”

  A speckling of bullet holes in the far end of the hallway was beginning to spark with morning light. Irena repositioned herself against the wall and crooked her legs to one side. “It’s difficult. It’s not like meeting boys on a spring holiday in Dubrovnik over here,” she said. “You must see plenty of boys in the army.”

  “Not my part of it,” said Amela. “You see almost no one. Some of the officers are slobs. They tell me that if I go off with them I can earn extra money, extra food. American cigarettes.”

  Irena shook out a fresh Marlboro. “What do you tell them?” she asked.

  “No!” said Amela, drawing in the first breath from Irena’s match. “And that if they ask me again I’ll shoot off their balls.”

  Irena rocked back and forth and slapped her hand with her cigarette against her knee. “You can do that?”