“Well I don’t like him. He tried to thump me.”
“He wouldn’t have thumped you. We wouldn’t have let him.”
“He wanted to thump me.”
“Now that’s different. You were asking him nosy questions.”
“Do you thump people who ask you questions?”
“Depends on the questions.”
“Is it OK to thump people if they won’t answer your questions?”
Hal made a face: “In some circles, it is considered perfectly acceptable.” And we both started to laugh.
“What time is it?” “Only midnight,” I said.
“Would you like some more… Oh, there isn’t any.”
“Again.”
“Shall we get another…?” “Fine by me,” I said.
“You shouldn’t be so mean to Vince,” Hal said, as Tanja poured the wine. “You’re one of his best customers.”
“Ah, so you think he’s a black marketeer too!”
“I never said that!”
“But if he were…”
“You’d be one of his best customers!”
“Only because there’s nothing else. That’s what I don’t like. The black market bleeds people dry.”
“But you fuel the black market.”
“I’m not talking about me.”
“How can you talk about the black market and not talk about you. Everything you eat and drink has been smuggled in. People like you create the market.”
“I’m talking about the prices they charged before your general’s ceasefire. People were being bled dry.”
“As I said, people like you create the market. Supply and demand.”
“People like me don’t buy coffee and cabbages.”
“Your hotel does.”
“Stop it. You know I’m right. It’s wrong to make money out of other people’s misery.”
“Stuff has to come in and out. People won’t do it unless they’re paid. That’s reality.”
“That’s what Amir says.”
“Who’s Amir?” he asked. I don’t know why I didn’t tell him then about you, but I didn’t. I side-stepped with: “A friend of mine.”
“Local?” I nodded.
“Maybe he’s right.”
“I don’t know. It’s just wrong. Look at the shops. They’ve just started opening up again and the jewellers’ are full of engagement rings.” He looked puzzled, so I said: “They’re having to sell everything. An old lady I know,” it had been Mrs Selimovic, “tried to sell me her rings the other day. I couldn’t buy them, because I couldn’t afford them. But I didn’t want to beat her down.”
“Perhaps she’d have preferred it if you had given her less but she’d got something.”
“I couldn’t have lived with myself.”
“Not much good for her, is it? You not being able to live with yourself. Anyway, aren’t you making money out of other people’s misery?”
“Working for the Herald! No way!”
“Aren’t you well paid?”
“God no. The pay’s shit. The cameramen get a fortune, but us.
No way.”
“So why, then… why are you here?”
Well why indeed. I could never answer that question. “I suppose, because it’s just so unfair!” I almost wailed.
We chatted round and about. He asked me if I’d read journalism at university. “God no!” I replied, and told him I’d done history. He guessed Oxford, and I agreed, then he told me he’d read engineering at Bristol.
There was a silence, where both of us realised that we probably knew at least several people in common, we were the same age, same world… we could have conjured up their ghosts, but I didn’t want to. There are times when that’s useful, but we were having far too good a time, the two of us. Maybe he felt that too, because he certainly didn’t mention any names.
“Still doesn’t explain why you ended up here.”
I told him then about coming out on my own, the inter-railing and the hitching lifts. I told him about the promotion I’d just got: he was suitably impressed.
“Does that mean you’ll leave?” he asked, and I was flattered that he sounded a little disappointed.
“No. God, no!”
He looked surprised at how forceful I sounded. “Why not?”
“Because, because…” but for some reason, again, I didn’t mention you. “What’s happening here is so wrong! And it’s the most amazing story. If I have to be a journalist, where else would I be?”
“I don’t know. Why do you want to be this kind of journalist?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” This was like you saying I was only here for the war. “I don’t know,” I almost wailed again. “I just do. I don’t know why.”
“Well you don’t have to get upset about it. I was just asking.”
“Oh you can ask…” And I laughed to make it light. “As long as you don’t thump me if I don’t answer. I don’t know why.”
“I won’t thump you. I’m just fascinated why you do your job.”
“You’re fascinated! I’m fascinated by yours.”
“What, the SAS? Oh that’s easy. I just wanted to be James Bond.”
And we both roared with laughter. “It sounds pathetic,” he said,
“but it’s true.”
“I thought it was supposed to be secret.”
“What?”
“That you’re in the SAS. I thought I wasn’t supposed to know.”
“Oh shit, yes. I forgot.”
We were now laughing so much that our cackles had woken up Tanja, who’d been lying with her head in her hands in corner, where the maroon suits had been.
“OK. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Does that work?”
“We use it all the time.”
Crossing my heart, I caught sight of my watch.
“Oh shit! It’s quarter to two. I’d better get back. My boyfriend will kill me. Oh no, he won’t,” I’d remembered you were back in your flat.
“Your boyfriend!” said Hal. “You have a boyfriend here?” Well, you were out now, but it didn’t seem to matter so much.
“Where is he?”
“At home. It’s fine. I forgot.” But Hal didn’t seem interested in exactly where you were.
“Doesn’t he mind you being out with me?” he said.
“I hope not. I mean, I’m always having to do things for work that he can’t do.”
“So am I work?”
“No!” I said, thinking, yes, but a very nice part of work. “Hvala, Tanja, oh my God! You’d better be work. Look at the size of this!” The bill was 500DM. I was laughing again.
“Fucking hell! Are you sure that’s all right.”
“Positive. I promise you. But it’s just so funny!” Hal insisted on leaving a tip. He put 50DM on the table.
“That’s a lot,” I said.
“Ten per cent…”
“We’re not in Chelsea now…”
“But we could be, you and I, we could easily just be having dinner in a London restaurant,” he said, and helped me into my coat.
We walked up the windy stairs into the night. It was arctic. I shivered into my collar.
Hal seemed impervious. Maybe under his jersey his body, like his face, was covered in fur. We heard a machine gun rattle up on the hill.
“You don’t get that in Chelsea,” I said, and laughed. Then I shivered again. He put his arm round my shoulder.
“We have to cross here,” I said, as we reached Marshal Tito and used the crossing as an excuse to extract myself. “Idemo.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s go… It’s pretty basic. Didn’t they teach you anything before you came out here?”
“Not much. I didn’t have much notice. We have interpreters for the tricky stuff.”
“Ah. Interpreters… I hope they’re pretty.”
“Ours is a bloke – a depressed physicist call
ed Bogdan.” I’d been going to make a crack about Balkan interpreter syndrome; wherever we went, in Bosnia, we’d see some lonely and love-struck man, a UN official, an aid worker, or one of those observers – the ex-army EC bunch, or the UN military observers, all still serving soldiers, who got to spend all day in an armoured car driving round a war zone with a girl who spoke with Valida’s Bond-girl Slav accent, and who generally had the face to boot, and certainly the figure; as part of the deal of interpreting she got not only hard currency, but also hot showers (when there was water), cigarettes and food. Quite often she got rather more than that, but to be fair, it was very cold – and scary. But I didn’t say it. What I actually thought is, no wonder the UN caves in all the time, the general’s interpreter’s a Serb: Bogdan’s a Serb name.
“So who is this boyfriend? Is he another journalist?” said Hal as he loped along.
“Oh God, no,” I said quickly. “Journalists make terrible boyfriends. They’re always rushing off on a new story and screwing other people.”
“Do you do that?”
“What?”
He stopped us in the street, put his hand on my arm and looked down into my eyes. and said: “Rush off and screw other people.”
Suddenly, I felt the mood change, as though we had just come round a corner and into the wind. It must have changed before, but I was just oblivious to it. My surprise was almost a physical shock. I was so used to being in love with you; so used to everyone knowing that I was in love. I’d forgotten that getting a contact drunk was also drinking with a man; I was so locked into my love that I had forgotten that drinking with a man in Sarajevo could have any other possible outcome than just a conversation about our loony universe. For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to piss him off; he was a fantastic contact. And anyway, I was actually quite pleased: he seemed terribly nice and was really good-looking.
“I rush off,” I said slowly, “But I don’t screw other people.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Why not?”
I waited for a moment before I said: “Because I’m rather in love.”
“Really?”
I stared back, very levelly, into his handsome furry face and said, “Yeah. Really,” and started walking again. To my amazement, I felt a twinge of regret, swiftly followed by a virtuous glow.
Hal caught me up. “What’s he like then?” he said.
“Oh,” and I could see you suddenly in front of me. “Tall, good looking, dark, clever, funny. Nice.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Maybe he is. Maybe he is. Oh, God.” I stopped. Hal stopped too. Then he said, “You don’t sound convinced.”
“Oh no, I am,” I said, and started walking again. I didn’t want to rehearse with Hal this endless scene in my head.
Hal said nothing. I repeated: “I am.”
“So what’s the problem?” He was walking with me again.
“There isn’t a problem.”
“Well, there must be a problem.”
“Why?”
“Well for a start, you’re out with me.” Of course I couldn’t say, “But you’re work.” So I just said: “I didn’t realise that we were going to be so late.”
He went on, “And also, you keep saying that there isn’t a problem.”
“Well, there isn’t.”
“Yeah, right.”
I suppose no woman ever minds a man knowing another one wants to marry her, so I said: “He keeps asking me to marry him.”
“And you don’t want to?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“God, you sound like him!”
“How long have you been together?”
“Nearly a year.”
“That’s not long.”
“That’s what I think.”
“I thought all women wanted to get married and have babies,” said Hal. And I couldn’t stop myself before it burst out: “But not in Sarajevo!”
He laughed: “Fair enough. But maybe he just thought you wanted to get married.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s asked me before.”
“Ah.”
“And I just don’t know what to do.”
“Can’t you just have a good time?”
I thought about that, and then I said rather sadly: “I don’t think you can just have a good time if you’re in love.”
“And you are in love?”
“I am.”
We walked a few paces in silence then he said: “You journalists seem to have a good time here.”
“Oh,” I said. “We do. But you have to, don’t you, in a shit-hole like this…” I used to feel a bit guilty about how much fun it was. An old man I interviewed, on my second day, as he queued for water in the shelter of a block of flats behind the hotel, had said to me: “We can hear you, at night, in the Holiday Inn. Laughing and singing.” His words flooded me with guilt but after I took up with you, the guilt fl owed away. At least you were having a good time too.
“I’m having a good time,” he said. Then he paused, and added, a little wistfully, “Although it is terribly quiet.”
“I know,” I said. “It is terribly quiet. We used to have more fun.” We walked a few paces linked by mutual regret.
“Don’t worry, Gorazde is bound to heat things up. It’s going to blow,” I said.
“Don’t say that,” he said, but he was grinning.
Then he said: “Tonight was fun.”
“Yes,” I said and smiled up at him. “Tonight was fun.” I walked a few paces further before I said: “We’ve never really been able to do that before.”
“What?”
“Go out like that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there wasn’t anywhere until now!”
“So, let’s do it again.”
I smiled and said, quite truthfully: “That would be fun.”
“Yes it would.” He waited a moment: “You could bring the boyfriend.”
I said: “I don’t think I’ll do that.”
Another pause, and then he said: “Why not?”
I could see the street, with your parents’ apartment, on the other side of the park. I couldn’t really explain, that there was no way they would tell me anything if I had Amir sitting at the table. I mean, even the UN’s maps said “not to be shown to any members of the indigenous community,” on the corner. “He lives just here,” I said.
“Who, the boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Hal sounded utterly astonished.
“It’s where his parents live. He’s always lived here.”
“He’s a local? Oh my God,” and he roared with laughter. “Don’t tell me you’re shagging your interpreter!”
“It is not like that!”
“Of course it is.”
“No, it’s not. It really isn’t.”
“Come off it.” He grabbed my arm again.
“I mean it! It was different. He was my boyfriend before he was my interpreter. I mean, he could hardly speak English.” “Oh right, I see. So you couldn’t even talk to each other.” “He could speak some English,” I said with dignity.
“And now he speaks it better.”
“Yes.”
“And you speak Serbo-Croat.”
“Well, yes…” I started to laugh. “I mean, I know it sounds clichéd.
But it’s different.”
“Yeah, right.”
We’d reached the broad end of Marshal Tito, where the bad snipers used to be, and the sniper barricades still blocked off most of the street. I stopped him, while we still stood in the shadow of the mosque.
“Look at that. I love the stars here,” I said, to change the subject.
“War stars. No light pollution.”
“Best stars in the world,” and in their light, I could see his grin.
“I guess if the power comes back
, they’ll be ruined again.”
“Who needs electricity anyway?” he said. We stood there, by the little wall where the Sarajevans sat, waiting for the courage to run as the bullets pinged up the street, next to the photographers, waiting to record what happened when they ran. Behind us, the mosque gleamed dully in the moonlight.
“This is where we part, I guess,” I said. “You’ve got to go up there, and I’ve got to get home.”
“How will you get back?”
“I’ll walk,” I said. “It’s only a couple of hundred yards.”
“You can’t walk that on your own. It’s dangerous.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I laughed. “It’s nowhere near as dangerous as it used to be. Anyway, the back way was always pretty safe.” But in the moonlight, the shadows drew demons on the pavements.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
“Well, I won’t be. I’m not letting you go on your own.”
“You’ll just have to come back. We’ve just done the worst bit.”
“I’m not talking about that kind of dangerous. It’s two o’clock in the morning. You shouldn’t walk around on your own. This place is full of nuts.”
He was right. I knew he was right. It wasn’t just the restaurant scene that had changed with the ceasefire. Maybe the muggers didn’t come out when they risked being shot, or maybe, when one was scared of being shot, one didn’t worry about being raped.
It took us about another five minutes to make it to the hotel and neither of us spoke very much for a while, until Hal started to ask me about the things that we passed. I gave him a bit of the mini guided tour: the ruined house, the little street where the snipers could see you to the left, the playground where no children had played for two years, the baseball hoop gnarled in its twist on the tarmac.
“This must have been the road we drove, that first day,” he said.
“It was. I remember watching you leave. What were you doing out here anyway?” I didn’t say that I’d been really jealous of him and Andy, that they’d been in a pair.
He waited for a moment: “Andy, the other guy, was an UNMO, as you know.”
“Yes,” I remembered that. “But what were you doing?”
“Me?”
“Yes. You.”
Pause. “I was just looking around.” It seemed a perfectly valid answer to me. Bosnia was full of people who were looking around. Including me. It would have been lovely if he’d said, “Well, to be perfectly honest, we were planning to assassinate Karadzic, we had a hit squad lined up, but at the last minute – I mean, we were in position – the Queen rang me up on my mobile and vetoed the operation. But it’s on again for next Tuesday. Would you like to come and watch?” But he was never going to say that. All journalists fantasise that they’ll find someone who says that, but they never do; at least not till years afterwards, when time has dulled people’s secrets and they need to take them out, polish them shiny and look into them to see their youth.
The Girl in the Film Page 23