X
Robert rang me at about four o’clock: was I still around? Phil was in town; could I meet them for dinner?
I saw them in the dusk as I crossed over the river, sitting on the terrace of a wonky little house. Phil, Robert and Valida, and a guy, with meaty shoulders. Phil was pouring himself some more wine as I arrived.
“Have a drink,” he said, when he’d finished hugging me; he looked less haggard than in London and the awkwardness of our last few meetings melted away. “Do you know Wayne?” Wayne, who looked, of course, vaguely familiar, was an Australian cameraman.
“Robert’s just been telling me the story of this restaurant…”
I gazed around. It was one of those old Bosnian houses, drooping wattle and daub, with fretted wood at its eaves, and much fretted wood inside.
“Start again for Molly,” Valida smiled as she sipped her glass of water. Robert beamed, got up, and kissed me hello. There was no shadow of the grief of our last conversation.
“When the Austrians were building the library they bought up all the houses that were in the way. This house was over there then,” Robert pointed to the ruined crenellations over the water. “All the owners agreed, except the guy who owned this house. However much they offered him, he refused. In the end, he insisted the Austrians move his house on rollers. He rebuilt the entire thing, bang across the river, so he could stare at the library. It’s called Inat
Kuca. It means ‘the spite house’.”
“Typical Bosnia,” said Valida, with pride.
Phil pulled a face when I asked him why he was here; it was the mass grave, the one near Zvornik. He took another drink.
“They pulled the spine of a child out while I was there today,” he said.
Valida looked away and Robert picked up her hand.
“Poor little thing,” I said.
“So why are you here?” Phil asked. “Are you going to do anything on the grave?”
“Definitely not.” I looked across at Robert; he met my glance but he didn’t speak.
“I’m sort of on holiday,” I said. I didn’t want to say anything to him now.
Phil opened his mouth but Robert beat him to it. “What shall we eat?” he handed over the menu.
“I think we should get another bottle,” said Phil.
“We can’t stay late,” said Robert. “Valida has college tomorrow.”
The dusk sank into night as we ate strange gristly stews, drank rough wine, and called up the ghost; the divorces, the successes, the suicides, the do-you-remembers; slightly constrained by Wayne who didn’t, as he’d spent his war in Vitez, in Central Bosnia instead. He needed Zach. They’d have had a good time.
At the end of dinner, we’d moved on to the future. Robert asked Phil about Jerusalem. After five minutes of burble about Palestinians and peace processes, Phil replied with: “And what about here?” grimacing, as though he couldn’t bear the answer he was about to hear. Robert looked across at Valida, before he replied: “I think they’re fine… People seem to be OK.”
I thought of your mother, drunk, her furniture gone; the boys and girls in Michele’s, stirring their lives in empty coffee cups; that woman who’d brought me coffee this morning by the empty Europa Hotel; almost everyone I knew had left.
“Lots of people don’t seem to have jobs,” I said. “And Amir’s mother…”
“I think we ought to go,” said Robert, shooting a glance at Valida; “Valida’s got an essay crisis. Let’s get the bill,” he stood up.
“Forget the bill,” said Phil. “This is on the Beeb.”
We watched them walk over the bridge, in the moonlight, hand in hand. “That’s a happy Sarajevo story,” said Phil… there was an embarrassed pause, before he said: “It’s very early. What do you think?”
“I think we should go and get another drink.”
He relaxed. “Where’s good?”
“God knows. I’ve only been back a few days.”
We walked fifty paces or so in silence, before he said: “Let’s go to Jez. Let’s eat subterranean tonight – well, drink, anyway.” He squeezed my arm and smiled.
We got rid of Wayne at the cathedral and picked our way through our memories to Jez. We found the doorway, by the back of the Orthodox Church. The steps were no longer bathed in candlelight, and the smell of pee had gone. We walked down, between walls strewn with weapons and poster-sized prints of a man in fatigues, holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, with a huge grin on his face.
“Do you think that’s the owner?” said Phil.
“The happiest days of his life.”
“Oh dear. I know one shouldn’t say that, but they were fun… let’s sit there! Look, the corner…where we always used to sit!” He moved to the table by the fireplace, but we could have sat anywhere. The restaurant was empty save for ghosts.
“Shall we get another bottle? Do you think the menu’s changed? I should think the last time I was here was with you. Have you been back here yet?”
“No. I was waiting for the right moment.”
“Do you remember those Sass blokes we used to take out here? What happened to them?”
Hal – I’d completely forgotten about him. I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said.
I had been worried Phil might not need to talk to me as much as I needed to talk to him; he’d had Sierra Leone; he’d had Kosovo. Perhaps he didn’t still feel the way I felt. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. We sat and soaked ourselves in our war… we did the reminiscences, the analyses, and where it all went wrong. We wrung it out, and then we lay on our backs and licked the drops.
“Do you ever feel guilty about it being so much fun?” I said.
“I didn’t come to have fun. That was a side effect, because the people were so nice.”
“The Sarajevans?”
“Well, yes, the Sarajevans, but also the other hacks.” We both drank a bit more.
“I wish I’d had more Sarajevan friends,” I said.
“But you had Amir!”
“But I made him hang out with us. It’s partly why we broke up I think. I couldn’t bear it with his friends… I couldn’t relax.”
I had a drink. “I couldn’t bear talking to any Sarajevans in the end. They were all too sad.”
Drink. “When I first went to Beirut, the other correspondents asked me to have dinner with them,” said Phil. “I was shocked. I wanted to meet Lebanese students and find out what people were really thinking. I think I was even like that at the beginning of Sarajevo. But by 1994, the last fucking thing I wanted to do in the evening was have dinner with Sarajevans. I couldn’t switch off.”
“That’s the same for me. That was what seeing Amir’s friends was like. It was always work.” We had another drink.
“But Robert had friends here.” “Robert knew them before the war.” We had another drink.
“I don’t know how many friends Robert has here now. He wrote a book. If you write a book about here, everybody hates you. I should know.”
We had another drink.
“I seem to have an infinite capacity to feel guilt about this place,” I said.
“But we shouldn’t.”
We had another drink.
“I know. I think they hated us at the end,” I said.
“Yes, I think they did.” We had another drink.
“They didn’t hate us. They hated the world. We were the only foreigners they could take it out on,” said Phil.
We had another drink.
“They never forgave us for leaving them for Chechnya. In 1994,” he said. “Until then, they thought we felt like they did about Sarajevo. Then they realised that for us, they were just another war.” We had another drink.
“I don’t blame them for hating the world. The world doesn’t care.”
“They don’t care, do they? I had enough trouble getting the desk to send me to the biggest mass grave in Europe since World War II. Why is that?”
“It’s the same reason
men demonise their ex-wives. The West treated this place like shit, so they have to convince themselves they all deserved it.”
We had another drink.
“It’s more than that,” said Phil. “They don’t fucking understand.
And that freaked them out.”
“But it’s not that hard!”
“I’m not talking about morality. I’m talking office politics. The big boys all trained on Russia and the Middle East. Suddenly this huge story comes along – first war in Europe for forty-five years… blah blah… they couldn’t cope with their knowledge being worth next to nothing…”
“I thought you were one of the big boys. I thought you were a star…”
“You are kind… I can tell you… I really wasn’t then…” We had another drink.
“The Middle East does involve oil,” I said. “Which everyone puts in their cars.”
“The former Yugoslavia place haemorrhages people. You can’t walk through Shepherd’s Bush without seeing how all these wars, Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia, have affected life in Britain. It’s not just Café Rouge the Albanians run these days. Half the organised crime in Europe comes through here.” We had another drink.
“Oil is easy,” I said, “everyone knows we want it to be cheap.” We had another drink.
“Bosnia’s unlucky,” I said. “People are always horrid to unlucky people. They have to convince themselves unlucky people deserved it. Otherwise there’s no reason it needn’t happen to them.” We had another drink.
“The trouble is,” said Phil, “Tito’s Yugoslavia was such a lovely place to live.”
It was time for another bottle.
“What’s it like being back?” He grimaced again, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Not much fun. Rather lonely. I don’t know anyone any more.”
“So why are you here? Why don’t you just leave?”
He was wary at first when I mentioned your name. He’d had a lot of conversations with me about you in the past. He tried to stop me with “Molly…” But when I talked through him, he was gripped.
“Who told you?” he said. So I explained about Hal – at least not all about Hal, but that bit anyway.
Phil nodded, but the next thing he said was: “How on earth did you get to see Radic? He never spoke to anybody.”
“I think he’s lonelier now.”
“Does Robert know Amir was…?” even he couldn’t say the word murdered.
“Oh yes. Everybody knew. Everybody except me.” He had a drink.
“Well at least you can’t think it’s your fault now.”
It was after the next drink that he said: “So what are you going to do?”
“I want to find out why. But it’s very hard. Like Robert said, it’s not my war. But I can’t just leave. Maybe it’s better not to know why. Everyone says he must have done something… The way they’re all behaving… he must have done something… Maybe it’s better for Maria… for Nermina, to have a dead hero for a father than a dead criminal.”
“For Nermina?” Phil had another drink. “Have you seen Nermina?”
“No. I’ve never seen her. She and Aida are in Washington.”
“What, with Ed?”
“Ed?”
Phil looked shifty. “What, famous, old Ed?” He nodded.
“No. Why? Phil… Why on earth should Aida be with Ed?” Phil had another drink.
“I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
He had another drink.
“Phil? What else don’t I know?”
Long drink. Then Phil said, very slowly, “I don’t think that Nermina is Amir’s child.”
“What!” I felt sick; the tingles went up and down my limbs. “So whose child is she?”
Nothing. Phil just stared at me.
“Oh God, oh God, don’t tell me. Not… not… not… Ed?” He nodded.
“Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. That horrible old man. How could he? How could she? He was so bald and old and wrinkly! How could she! And how could Ed let her marry my Amir like that?
Fuck him. How could he? How could he ruin my life?”
“To be fair to Ed, I don’t think he knew.” “He fucking knows now, doesn’t he? The bastard.” Phil nodded. And had another drink.
“No wonder Maria had no photographs in the house. There were none, you know. When I mentioned Aida being in America, she said, ‘Best place for her.’ So she must know.” “Well… everybody knows,” said Phil.
“I bloody didn’t.” Phil took another drink.
“Did Aida know when she married Amir?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh God. No wonder the baby was so late. I thought it was late. Do you remember, when I came back, I thought it should have been born? Do you think Amir knew when he said all that to me at the party?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh God. Oh God.”
“I don’t think he can have,” Phil said quickly.
“Why not? Everyone else seems to have known.”
“Because if he had known, he would have told you. From what you’ve always said, he was trying to get you back.”
“He was…” Your desperate whispers on my cheek, your hand entwined at the nape of my neck. You had used everything you had that night. “No, he didn’t know. But everybody else has known for years, everything, except for me.”
Phil handed me a napkin as I started to cry; I seemed to have spent most of today in tears.
“I’m so sorry. I just assumed you knew,” he said as I wiped my eyes.
“How was I supposed to bloody know? I can’t believe I didn’t know. I don’t think I know anything anymore. I thought I knew Amir, and then I discover this… that he… I don’t know what he did… I thought I knew Sarajevo, and I come back here, I don’t know what any of the streets are called. I don’t even know what
Sniper Alley’s called.”
Phil had a drink, before he said: “Neither do I.” It was then I heard a voice chirrup: “Hi Molly.” I ground my tears out and turned in my chair.
“Oh hi!” Amy was standing there with Zach.
“Phil, this is…” but Phil and Zach were staring at each other.
“Matt… Bart…” Phil was floundering slightly, but goal in sight, nonetheless. “Weren’t you on the Convoy of Hope?” he said.
“Oh my God, Phil. Phil from the… BBC? It’s Zach!”
Phil leapt up. They did that half handshake, half hug thing that men do.
“How are you, man?”
“I’m really well. How are you?”
“Great. Things are great.”
“It’s been… it’s been… what, five years?”
“Six, over six.”
“Fuck. Well, it’s great. You look great.”
“So do you.” They stared at each other, and then Phil said, “So… what are you doing now?”
“What, right now, or with my life?”
“Well, that too, but right now…”
“Well, we were just leaving.”
“Stay, stay and have another drink.”
Amy coughed and said: “I think Alma would like us to leave.” “But it’s only quarter past eleven,” said Phil.
“Don’t worry, man. There are loads of other places now. Amy, this is Phil Kennedy…”
“Oh… wow, I have your book.”
We walked down the street under the stars, Phil and Zach side by side, and slightly ahead, and occasional phrases floated back.
“…the bearded ladies…”
“…Christ, just thinking about it…”
“…pitch forks…”
“Errgh… Still, you’re here now.”
“We’re here now.”
“Are you still here?”
“Nah, just back for a bit…”
“Me too…”
“What’s this… thing… they’re talking about?” Amy said to me. It was a convoy, I heard myself say; a Muslim charity, bringing food i
nto Central Bosnia, in ’93. It was ambushed by the Croats and the Muslim drivers were stabbed to death by old women with pitchforks.
Amy looked sick.
We turned into one of those deep Austrian streets, with café tables right down to the river. Phil stood stock still, between the banks of buildings.
“The bread queue massacre happened just here. Oh God. People sit out here.”
Zach’s bar was called Nostalgia. There was a man with a fez on the wall outside. Inside were black and white photographs of old Sarajevo and along one wall ran a panorama of Istanbul. Dire Straits was playing on the sound system. Under the window sat a man drinking a glass of wine and doing his accounts. He had the heavy gaze and heavy bulk of someone who had learnt to do things in the war you hoped he would never do anywhere near you; unless, of course, you were a psychotic cameraman. But he smiled when he saw Zach, and stood up and moved to the bar: “Welcome back,” he said.
“Hi Bogdan,” said Zach; above the bar, on the wall, was a picture of a younger, thinner Bogdan, with the fleur de lys on his arm, grinning against one of those gym-locker barricades, with the burn smeared façades of Sarajevo at his back. As I walked back to find the loo, I heard Amy say: “Bogdan! That’s Serb name… strange…”
“There are lots of Serbs in Sarajevo… at least there were,” said Phil. “Shall we get a bottle?”
I took a long time in the loo but I wanted to be alone. I wanted to talk to you about Nermina in my head. And I was tired, so tired. It felt like I’d been back two weeks, when in fact only three days ago, I was still in Split. When I returned, Zach and Phil were well entrenched, and Amy was sitting, slightly piqued, alone to one side. “Are you OK?” Phil said, as I sat down.
His hair had gone all wispy, and he was waving his arms. I said I was fine. “You don’t look very fine,” said Amy, staring at my reddened eyes.
I said, “Well, I am,” at the same time as Phil said, “Molly has a dilemma on her hands.”
“I like dilemmas,” said Amy. I said nothing. I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know, but then I wasn’t doing very well on my own.
“It’s complicated,” said Phil, when I didn’t speak.
The Girl in the Film Page 37