“Amy has a law degree from Harvard. She does complicated dilemmas,” said Zach.
So of course I told them about you. I’m a journalist. I don’t do suffering in silence. I’m too used to being paid by the word.
I didn’t tell them about the baby not being yours, or Aida, or the smell of burnt rubbish on the winter’s air, or you being in love with me, or me being in love with you and never forgiving myself for letting you go. I didn’t tell them I’d left you all alone. That didn’t matter to them. I just told them that I’d found out you’d been murdered and your family wanted me to let things lie.
Zach said, “Tricky,” at almost exactly the same time as Amy said:
“So where’s the dilemma?” We all gawped.
“Somebody killed him, right?” she went on.
“Well, yes.”
“And they’ve never been caught, right?”
“No.”
“No dilemma.”
“Why?” In the midst of my irritation, I felt a pang of wistfulness for her magnificent simplicity. “Killing people is wrong.” “What?” said Phil.
“Killing people is wrong. You shouldn’t do it. And if you do it, you ought to pay.”
The silence stretched through several bars of Brothers in Arms. Then Phil said: “She’s absolutely right, you know. Killing people is wrong.”
“Well, it is,” she was blushing. “And what’s more, but this is another point, if you kill people and get away with it, then you’ll probably kill more people.”
“It’s just wrong to kill people,” said Phil. “Can you pass that bottle. Killing people is wrong. And if more people realised that, then none of this would ever have happened.”
“So what do I do now?”
“Go… to… the… police,” she said, as though she was spelling it out for the mentally retarded. Zach and Phil both laughed.
“It’s not funny,” I snapped. She seemed to have no understanding of how difficult this was. She didn’t seem to understand this country at all. “The police know. It was the police who didn’t investigate.”
“So report that to the police.”
“I just don’t trust the police here,” I said.
“They can’t all be corrupt,” said Amy. “Well, they can’t be. They found the guys who burgled my flat in three days.”
“I think we saw too many policemen in the war,” said Phil.
It was 2 a.m. before Bogdan kicked us out and the streets outside were like the old days, just us and the stars. Amy had been half asleep for an hour. She and Zach peeled off at the cathedral.
“I’ll walk you back to your hotel,” said Phil.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” he said. “Where are you staying? Not at the Holiday
Inn?”
“Oh, God no!”
We walked a bit before he said: “Have you been back?”
Was it only this morning? “Yes.”
“To room 309?”
“I went and stood outside it,” I said.
“What was it like?”
I was staring down with the dark atrium sucking at my brain.
“Horrid,” I said. “Empty. Weird.”
“Same staff?”
“Some. One of the waiters knew me.”
Phil didn’t speak for another twenty yards. Then he said: “I just don’t think I could face going back.”
“I know what you mean.”
We walked on. “Was it worth it?”
Worth it? In what way? Had it helped? Helped what? God knows. I guess it was just another chapter in my war. “I suppose so,” I said.
“But it’s not the same.”
“No?”
“It’s nowhere near as nice without you.”
We walked past the fountain in the square and the old mosque.
“It’s down here,” I said. “Robert booked it for me.”
“Didi’s place? I’ve stayed there before. Bugger. It was full this time. How’s Didi? God, what do you think of her story?”
“I don’t know her story.”
“Well, you should try and ask.”
We’d reached the corner of the street and my hotel. Far above, on its cliff, the old fort was silhouetted against the stars.
“This is it,” I said.
He smiled down at me in the moonlight. “So goodnight,” he said. But he didn’t move. Then he said: “She’s right, you know, that girl. About your Amir. Don’t worry about what Robert or Valida think. You were in love with him, remember that. And even if you hadn’t been, it would still be the right thing to do.” “I wish you were staying,” I said. He made a face: “So do I.”
“I’m not sure I can do this on my own.”
“Of course you can. Just keep asking questions.”
“I’m not used to asking questions anymore.”
“It’s like riding a bike. You never forget.” He patted the top of my arm and left his hand there too long.
“Chuck in that stupid job.”
I nodded: I knew by now it had to go. “God knows what I’ll do instead.”
“Amir’s death had nothing to do with you. It had nothing to do with journalism. You know, you mustn’t let what these people thought at the end of the war put you off. You were a good journalist. And that isn’t a bad thing to be. Somebody has to be a foreign correspondent, and it’s better that it was someone like you.”
We sat down on a wall and looked up at the broken bulge of the old library, the glint of granite in the moonlight, the shadow of the fir trees on the old frontline.
“God, it’s beautiful. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was.”
“It’s not forgetting. We’d never have looked like this then.”
We must have stared at the stars and the mountains under the moon for over a minute before he said: “Would you change it? Would you swap back? If you could, would you change what you chose then?”
Take away my war, take away you, take away Phil, the best years of my life…
“No, no, I wouldn’t.”
“Well, that’s good. Because you can’t.”
“I’d like to feel about somewhere again the way I felt about here.”
“You won’t. This was our Spanish Civil War. You don’t fall in love like that twice.”
“Did you fall in love with Beirut?”
He paused before he said: “No.”
“Why not? You were young and impressionable…”
“I was, but the war was old.”
I didn’t reply.
“Do you ever see Tim?” he said.
“Not anymore,” I said.
“He sees ghosts from here.”
He must have felt my shudder because he gave my arm a squeeze.
“Come to Jerusalem with me. You can stay in the flat. There’s loads of space. It’s a great story. The Middle East is never going way. And lots of interesting single men.”
“What, Arabs?”
“Not just Arabs. Israelis too, you might have noticed. Lots of NGOs and diplomats, you know, the usual suspects…”
“I don’t fancy being married to an Arab. Or an Israeli. Or an NGO.”
“You don’t have to marry them. Just have a fling.” I thought about telling him about Hal. Poor Hal. He seemed almost irrelevant now. What a burden, to bear the weight of all my expectations. I know he’s trained to carry blocks of concrete, but my expectations were heavier than that… I wanted the film. I wanted the romantic ending. But to Hal, of course, I suddenly realised, it hadn’t been my film at all. It was his film. The film in which he saves the world. And in that film, there’s always a girl, and he gets to shag her, and she’s never in the sequel. But where did that leave Amir and me?
“Don’t fall in love?” I asked.
“It makes life so much easier…” said Phil.
“Like you would know.” And I smiled up at him.
He didn’t speak for a moment, just stared down at me, and I saw, in the street light, the little wrinkles
gathering at the corner of his eyes with his smile, and his hair, still enough of it to fl op down to one side.
“Oh Phil, oh dear, it was so lovely to see you again.”
“It was.”
“Goodnight.”
He kissed me, on both cheeks, and hugged me, and then kissed me again a third time, and then held my shoulders and looked into my eyes, and I stared back up into his. It was about two or three seconds before I put my hands on his arms and said: “Send my love to Lena and the children.”
He smiled, maybe with relief. He took his hands down and said: “Thanks. I’ll tell her. And good luck.”
I left him in the street. The trouble is, in a way, I do love Phil. And Phil loves me. So it could never have been a fling. It would just have been a disaster.
Mujo was living in Germany and he married a German girl. One summer they decided to drive on a visit to Bosnia.
“How will I know when we are in Bosnia?” said the girl.
“You will know,” he said. “Everybody is stupid there.”
After two days in the car, they passed an imam, in his white hat, hobbling along.
“Ah, we’re in Bosnia,” said the girl.
“How do you know?”
“You said they were stupid. That man’s got a sore leg, but he’s put the bandage on his head.”
XI
I watched the white light dancing on the ceiling. For a moment, I thought I’d escaped, and then the hangover crawled over my brain like a wave on a beach next to an industrial effluent pipe. My eyeballs felt as though they were being poached in vinegar and as the vinegar vaporised, the fumes were rising, expanding in my skull and compressing my brain. I wallowed on the pillows. It was rather nostalgic to feel like this. There weren’t that many people I could drink like that with any more and I’d had much worse hangovers drinking in the war with Phil.
My dilemma hit me at the same time as the headache kicked in. If I walked into a police station here – a foreign woman, on holiday – saying “I want to report a murder that happened in the war…” Whatever Amy said about the police being marvellous, even without the hangover, the thought made me quail. The shrugs, the sexist remarks, the sleazy ineffi ciency. The feet-dragging once they realised I’d be gone in ten days – less now, only just over a week. Maybe I’m wrong. But I just don’t think the police force in the Balkans attracts the nicest people. Besides, the police had known all along. Someone who knew someone in the police would help.
That’s how it works in this place. You don’t come in off the street.
Didi was in the dining room. It was 9.55 and I was the only person left. All the other guests had gone to their various offices to continue busily re-constructing the Balkans. “Do you know any policemen?”
I said, as she brought me my coffee. “I need to find a policeman.”
She shuddered. “Policemen… I hate policemen.”
The German news on the TV was rat-a-tat into my brain. “The only policeman you can trust here is someone you already know,” she said. “And even then…” She shuddered and turned away.
Know. I must have known some policemen – the bearded lady at the Serb checkpoint Sierra One? I don’t think so… She’d hardly be in Sarajevo anyway… I must have written an article about a policeman. A nice one…
“You should ask Valida…” Didi’s voice broke in, a little keen. I could hardly explain Valida was the last person who’d give me any help. So I said: “I saw her last night, she says hello.” Didi looked pleased. “And Phil,” I added, “from the BBC, he says hello.”
“Oh Phil, he is a nice man.”
“Very…” I took a deep breath. “He says you are from Rogatica.” She didn’t speak for a moment, then she said.
“Not from Rogatica. One small village, near it, high, in the hills.”
“What’s it called?”
“You will not know it. It is far from here.”
“Try me.” I could see it, one of those white strings of houses, dotted in pasture land, on the mountain’s flank; red roofs, green fields, blue sky, mosque at one end, church at the other, with each religion hugger-mugger with their own.
“There’s no point,” her voice broke in.
“I travelled a lot.”
She shrugged and said a name; Zhiv something. She was right, I didn’t know it.
“I know Rogatica, though. I went there in the war.”
“I will never go back to Rogatica again.” She put down my coffee and moved over to the bar. But she came back a minute or so later and stood by my table. She didn’t go, but she didn’t want to start talking. I said to her, “Could I have another coffee? Why don’t you have a coffee with me?”
The fountain splattered in the breeze as I waited for her return.
She came back with two cups of Bosnian coffee. “Please sit down.”
We both stirred the grains with our spoon. Neither of us seemed to want to start again.
“Are you enjoying being back in Sarajevo?” she said, after a bit.
“I don’t know. It’s different.”
“It’s hard to go back somewhere.” She was still gripping her coffee spoon.
“Yes.”
Neither of us spoke. She tapped the spoon into the saucer.
“When did you come to Sarajevo? Was it after the war?” I asked.
“Ha! No. I would be dead if it was after the war. No. I came here in 1992.” She took a sip of the coffee.
“What, before the siege began?”
“No. Much later. Like refugee.”
“But… but… Sarajevo was being shelled…”
“Believe me, lady, Sarajevo was better than Rogatica…” She looked out of the window, then she turned back to me, “…and Rogatica was better than my old village.”
I waited. She was back in her head. Suddenly I wanted to get into her head too; it was like the old days, the curiosity to know, to let someone tell their story to me. I waited, silent, for her to come to me, but she pushed back her chair, picked up her cup, and said, “I must get on.” Then walked off before I could say anything else. I stared after her, feeling as if I’d just realised I’d left a book I’d been reading on the train.
Mujo rang his wife Fata from Germany.
“Hello my love. Is that you?” he said.
“Yes, my only one. And who are you?”
XII
It didn’t take me long to find Dragan on the internet. He’d come back into my head as Didi was talking… the mess, the blood, pooling in the pores in the upholstery on the car door, his dank eyes staring at me. Your voice: I never thought I’d save the life of a Serb policeman.
I wandered down to the old mosque. A girl with maroon hair sold me a cappuccino in an internet cafe. I drank it while I googled away; luckily, this war was still very well documented by various nutters and pressure groups. It didn’t take long until I found him in my piece on an anti-war website. Dragan Petrovic.
He had been an inspector, back in 1993.
The main police station would be the best place to start. They’d have records. If he was still here, if he was alive, if he hadn’t given up and gone to Germany or Chicago like everyone else, he would help. He owed you that. You had saved his life. I asked the maroon girl where the main police station was. I couldn’t miss it, she said; just behind the Presidency, covered in lots of big flags. It looked just like a police station, she said.
She was right. It was down a side street, between the Presidency and the river, flying the flags of the EU, the UN and the yellow triangle on blue of the new Bosnian Federation. I walked through the double doors in its imperial façade. Three men were manhandling a youth in reception. The boy looked scared and the policemen angry. One of the policemen stood back and smoked, while two others were pushing the boy into a chair. None of them looked familiar. The boy struggled briefly, but he was handcuffed and they were three.
There was a cough to my right. Another maroon-haired girl was sitting behind a sheet of glass.
“I am trying to find Dragan Petrovic please?” I said. I was expecting her to say who? Or, this is not the right place. Or, he has moved to Australia. But she just picked up the phone.
“What is your name?”
“Molly Taylor.” She repeated it into the phone. I started to say: “I am an English journalist and an old friend from the war.” But she cut me off.
“He is coming. Wait here.”
He was older, when he walked through the door, with white streaks in his hair, but the grey skin of the war was now tanned. We spoke each other’s names at the same time and with the same tremor of uncertainty.
“Dragan?”
“Molly?”
He rushed forward and started pumping my hand. “Is you. It is really you.” He had tears in his eyes as he turned to the girl: “This woman, she saved my life in war.”
“It wasn’t me, really, it was my boyfriend,” I smiled abashed, but the girl didn’t look that impressed.
“All of you. You save my life. Come upstairs.” He saw me glance at the youth cowering in his chair.
“They caught him stealing purses on the tram,” he said.
We walked through double doors and up two flights of stairs, all lino, police posters and limp rubber plants.
“Here is my office,” he said. The room was as grey as the stairs: grey carpet and grey walls and chairs upholstered in greying fake black leather.
“Coffee, tea, juice?”
“Coffee.” He picked up the phone.
“So. So. You. How are you?”
“Fine.” I smiled. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Really well,” and smiled again. The last time I had seen him, he’d been in hospital. He’d been as grey as this room with shock, full of tubes, but happy. His wife had been massaging his hand, grabbing at his fingers, as though she were desperate to reassure herself his flesh was still warm. He’d been medivac-ed to Germany and we’d lost touch.
We sat grinning at each other, with nothing to say.
“How’s your wife?” I said.
“Fine. She is fine.”
“And the children?”
His face lit up. “Very well…”
“Both?”
“Both! We have three now. We had another after the war. Maybe like new life… And you?”
The Girl in the Film Page 38