The Girl in the Film

by Eagar, Charlotte

  I heard Edin say, did I know that Muffy was around, and I laughed and said we’d been sharing a tent in the Panshir valley – she’d gone to a press conference. That’s where I’m going, he said… sorry, got to rush, aren’t you going? He looked surprised, and a little superior, as I shook my head, and said I had interviews to do. See you later, he said, and I was left alone in the lobby, waiting for my interpreter; that’s the one thing I miss about not doing news, the self-important urgency of it all. I had weeks to find my Taliban-era undercover schoolmistresses, my female doctors, would-be members of parliament and burgeoning TV anchorwomen for American Vogue.

  It was later that evening in the bar that we started to talk. We didn’t talk about Sarajevo for a bit: Edin was keen to tell me about Sierra Leone, and East Timor; places I hadn’t been, that CTV had sent him; keen to show he wasn’t any longer just a local hire. But then slowly, one of us, I think it was Muffy, said something like, “Do you ever get back there?” and Edin made a face, and said, “Not so much.” I could feel the dread in my stomach; I couldn’t have stopped her – perhaps I didn’t want to – but she had had a bit to drink; she said to Edin, you knew Amir, what was your take on that? Did you go back for the trial? “Oh God, no,” I said.

  But Muffy said: “Shh.”

  I knew, of course, that Amir’s killer had been caught. They found Selim’s bullet in the evidence room and matched it to the same gun. The policeman who’d witnessed that autopsy was still alive, so they pulled him in for what Tom referred to as “interview without coffee.” It didn’t take very long. He said it had been Franjo, the Foreign Legionnaire; he still had the gun on the wall of his restaurant, mounted on a plaque above the fireplace. It was Franjo’s cousin that Amir had killed.

  I’d noticed the gun, that night we’d been there, it was a funny shape, and had Legio Patria Nostra and Honneur et Fidélité written on it in poker work, and a photograph stuck into the top, of him and Vince, that English thug who nearly punched me when I was in Jez with Hal; they were by a UN APC on Sniper Alley, with the same gun. Underneath, in the same letters, it said, “Sarajevo 1992–95”. It turned out to be a present from Vince. Vince had had it mounted by a man who stuffed fish in Newcastle. Tom told me that they found four Moldovan girls locked up on the upper floors of the restaurant. Franjo and Vince had been trafficking them through Bosnia all the way to the north of England. It all came out at the trial: Franjo realised, during the investigation, that Vince had been tricking him with other scams, so he spilled the beans. Selim, it turned out, had been killed by Vince because Vince had nicked the money Selim had paid for black market cement – there’d been a booming business in all the building materials sent to Sarajevo by aid agencies just after the war.

  I didn’t go back for the trial. I was in America, doing a piece for the Telegraph magazine about a Hispanic cricket team in a ghetto in LA. I’d resigned from my magazine the day Milosevic fell, which happened to be the first week I got back from Sarajevo. I wrote the women-trafficking piece for Marie Claire – Sabina found me a photographer she knew from the war and my magazine was too crap to care – and then followed it up with one on love-struck Muslim couples holed-up in bed-sits in Bradford fleeing arranged marriages. The work took off: a Weight Watchers’ convention weekend in Disneyland for the Independent Magazine, that sort of thing. I was even sent to test out a five-star hotel in Venice.

  Then all this war started and I wanted to write about something that mattered again… except arranged marriages in Bradford do matter as well, so I don’t know… I wanted to… Oh God… smell cordite on the air… drive through a checkpoint on a mountain road… Maybe I wanted to fall in love. But as Phil said, you don’t fall in love like that twice.

  Edin went quiet and when he started to speak, it was to me, as if Muffy didn’t exist.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said, then he broke into Serbo-Croat: “It wasn’t how they said in the trial.” Muffy looked annoyed, she couldn’t understand what he said, but Edin didn’t notice. He and Amir, for a year or so, he said, had been smuggling food and stuff into Sarajevo. We all knew that by now. It had started with Selim, buying stuff from the Serbs across the frontline. He had friends in the special forces who’d bring things in through the tunnel, under the airport. Amir and Edin, with their cars, and their petrol and their UN IDs, would help sell the stuff on. Then Amir got his blue card, in the summer of ’94, and they began bringing booze and cigarettes in on UNHCR flights. His voice sang on and on, the story of his war, and neither Muffy nor I needed to have been there at all. He was the voiceover to the cinema in his head.

  “Then we started taking people. It was my idea. We put them in Amir’s car. It was an aid agency car; nobody could check that. He didn’t want to at first – but I said it was easy money. We’d drive them across the line, to Kasandolska; out by the airport, after Dobrinje, in no-man’s-land. We’d give the guys at the last checkpoint their cut. It was scary, of course, but you know how it was… there were so many ways to die in Sarajevo then.

  “We never drove as far as the Serbs. We stopped in Kasandolska, and the Serb we used to buy food from would come and meet us there.

  “After about three months, one of those Foreign Legionnaires said they wanted to meet us for a beer. Vince, he was called. The English one. I thought they’d be pissed off that we were moving in on their patch. The French had been doing stuff for years – you know. But they were all right. We met in Jez, like to show it was their place. Vince did the talking. He said he thought we could help. He said they’d seen what we’d been doing. He said they had more work than they could handle; maybe we could do things with them; for a cut of course. He kept playing with his gun, all the time. He was very proud of it. He said it had been used by SOE in the Second World War, and he’d bought it from an old man in Sarajevo. ‘It’s the most silent weapon in the world. It’s still used by the SAS. For assassinations…’ It was the one they said he’d used at the trial. ”

  I could suddenly see it stuck on Franjo’s wall, and feel its muzzle at the nape of my neck. Your neck, and you were next to me, in the guttering candlelight, on the international hotel beige banquettes.

  “We didn’t hear anything for a week or so. We talked about it, tried to work out what was the catch. But there didn’t seem to be one. Then Vince rang us, and said there was a guy who needed to get out. It had to be done that night, he said. Franjo was away, and he, Vince, had to be on the Serb side that afternoon; he’d meet us halfway, but not to let on. The money he was offering, we’d have been mad to turn it down. ”

  Edin swallowed, then carried on; Muffy was staring at the pair of us, transfi xed; she might not speak the language properly, but even she knew something extraordinary was going on.

  “He gave us an address and a time to pick the man up. It was one of those Austrian flats, not far from where Amir’s parents lived.

  “The man was in the flat. He was on his own. He was in his early forties, I suppose, although the war made it difficult to tell, and besides, it was getting dark. Josip Markovic. A Sarajevo Croat. Thirty-eight. They said at the trial, but we didn’t know his full name. It was cold outside. He was in a thick anorak. He had a hat, but he wasn’t wearing it, because his hair was damp. He’d washed for the trip. He was nervous. But Amir said, don’t worry, we’ve done this a lot before. It’s always fine. He had a suitcase, in one hand, and in the other he had a briefcase. He’d been a lawyer before the war. You know these refugees. It was like it was his identity.”

  Edin didn’t even glance at the camera he seemed to have on him, all the time.

  “He showed us pictures of his family in the car. He was going to see them. He’d sent them to Zagreb at the start of the war. He hadn’t seen them since. ‘My wife, Katerina,’ he said, ‘my two little girls.’ It was a photograph of them by the sea. ‘That’s new,’ he said. ‘A journalist brought them to me last year. They are so big now. I haven’t seen them grow this big. I can’t believe I am going to see the
m again.’

  “I left him and Amir at the TV station. Vince had said it was better not to have too many, better if Amir or I came alone. We didn’t want to argue – the money was so much. I said to Josip: say hello to the coast, eat some fish for me. He shook my hand; he said he couldn’t thank me enough… He even waved to me, from the back of the car.”

  Edin stopped. I didn’t speak. He started again but he wasn’t looking at me.

  “It was two hours later when I saw Amir again. He rang the bell at my flat. I said how did it go, but then I looked at him: his face was completely grey, no colour at all, and sweating, drops on his nose. What happened, I said, How’s Josip? Then I saw he had Josip’s briefcase in his hand. He sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. I started asking questions, what’s wrong? Why’ve you got that? How’s Josip? But Amir said, shut up. Just shut up. He didn’t move his hands, not even when he said, Josip’s dead. I poured him some whisky and he drank half the glass. I didn’t know what to do. I said, what do you mean? He took another gulp. Who killed him? I said. Amir looked up at me, and said: ‘I did.’

  “I said, ‘What!’ And he said, I didn’t mean to. He took another gulp. Amir never drank like that. I said, what went wrong? And Amir said, I don’t know… and then he said, ‘I don’t think anything went wrong. I think it was meant to happen that way.”

  Edin drank his drink.

  “Amir said he’d got to the place where Vince said we should meet; it was one of those ruined houses in Kasandolska.”

  Those ghostly houses, I could see them, with their broken beams, and the mine-filled gardens thick with winter weeds.

  “Amir said, ‘Vince was waiting there, with his UN Land Rover. Josip wasn’t surprised to see the UN car. Amir got out, and went over to Vince. Vince asked, is it all clear, and Amir said, clear as day. Then Vince said, right, let’s get him out of the car.

  “Josip smiled when he saw Vince. Amir said he obviously knew him from before. Vince said to him, have you got a weapon? And Josip looked a little embarrassed. He had an old revolver. Vince said, ‘Better give it to me, just to be safe.’ Vince emptied the bullets out and put it in his pocket. Or at least Amir thought he’d emptied the bullets out. Then he asked Amir, but Amir said, no. Vince didn’t believe him; Vince obviously couldn’t believe anyone could go around Sarajevo without a gun. Amir hated guns. But I made him keep one in the glove compartment. He told Vince about that one, and Vince seemed to think that was OK. Vince still had his rifle slung on his shoulder, but Amir didn’t think anything of it. Everyone was armed in Sarajevo then.

  “Vince told them to go inside the house. ‘It’s safer in there. Don’t worry. I know it’s not mined.’

  “The next thing he knew, there was that clunk-click, and Vince was pointing the rifle and saying to Josip, ‘Get down on your knees.’ Josip didn’t even speak. He gaped like a fish. Amir said, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ But Vince turned the gun on him and said, ‘Shut up, you. And you, kneel down.’ Josip knelt. He still had his briefcase at his chest, like a baby, Amir said.

  “Vince said to Amir, ‘Right you, come here.’ Amir said Vince walked him round behind Josip. Josip said, ‘Oh God’. He started to pray. Amir said he was praying. Clutching his bag and praying. Vince pointed at Josip and said, ‘Right, You do him. Don’t even think about doing anything funny. The moment you do, I’ll kill you both.’ Amir said Vince gave him Josip’s gun and moved away, covering him with his rifle. Amir said: ‘But you’ve taken the bullets out.’ But Vince said, ‘No mate, I’ve left enough.’ Vince just stood there. Amir said, he couldn’t believe what Vince wanted him to do. I couldn’t do it, he kept repeating, I couldn’t do it. But Vince said: ‘Do it, or I’ll just kill you both.’ He fired a burst of rounds round Amir’s feet. He didn’t even think of firing at Vince. There was no point – Vince said: “Don’t even think about it. You’ll be dead before the muzzle’s pointed at me.” And there was Josip, praying, at Amir’s feet. Amir said to me, he didn’t even know the gun. Then Vince said: “Do it, put it up against his head.” Amir said he put it against Josip’s head because he thought Vince might stop. He didn’t think he’d actually pull the trigger. He said, he didn’t think he actually could. But when he put the gun there, Vince said, pull the trigger. He said, no. But Vince said, fucking do it! And he shot a burst of rounds, again. On the ground by Amir’s feet. Amir said he pissed himself then. He could feel it trickling down his leg, he was glad it was too dark for Vince to see. He heard Josip say, ‘Oh God, please no. My little girls.’ Amir said his finger just clenched on the trigger. It was like it wasn’t him. There was a bang, and half Josip’s head was blown away and he fell forward onto his briefcase in the mud. Amir said he thought Vince was going to kill him then, but he didn’t. Vince said: ‘drop the gun – that’s the last bullet anyway’. Amir said he’d never been happier to drop a gun. He just wanted to do what he had been told. Then Vince told him to pull out Josip’s briefcase. He had to prise it out of Josip’s fingers. Vince told him to open it. Inside was a thick brown envelope. It was stuffed with 1000DM notes. Vince said, show me. So Amir took one out. Vince said, ‘Right, take out three more and throw the rest to me.’ Amir thought Vince was going to shoot him then, but he didn’t. Vince picked up the envelope. Amir was just standing there, holding 4000DM. Vince said: ‘That’s your cut. This didn’t happen, right? If you breathe a fucking word, I’ll kill you. And I’ll kill your fucking family. Josip was happy as a lamb when he got in the car with me. And I’m going to drop him off in Kiseljak. Right, now get back to your crappy little siege. And if you do see me, act normal.’

  “Amir said he couldn’t believe that he was still alive.”

  A couple of other hacks had wandered by and gave us a funny look as they clocked the language being spoken, but Edin carried on as though none of us were here… as for me, I wasn’t here either; I was twenty-eight years old, a continent, another war away, in an icy, gun-ringed town, stranded in the Balkans, now the tides of empire had ebbed. I was with you. The you I had loved. You were dead of course, but I could deal with that; for I knew that the boy I had loved had been real after all. You weren’t a murderer, you weren’t a thief. You were just a boy, an ordinary young man, swamped then tossed by the waves of war, swept away by something far more terrible, far greater than you.

  I hardly heard Edin as he carried on:

  “Amir said he’d run to the car. He couldn’t remember when he’d last been so scared. He didn’t even notice he still had the briefcase. He kept thinking Vince was going to kill him as he drove away. He came straight to me. He couldn’t sleep that night – we stayed up till three or four, talking, trying to work out what on earth was going on. But of course, we thought Franjo was in on it too.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it now.”

  He was still staring out into the centre of the bar, not noticing anyone passing, anything said.

  “I think Vince was counting on things taking a long time. Josip’s body could have lain there for months. His wife wouldn’t have known for days that he hadn’t turned up. Anything could have happened in the badlands between Sarajevo and the coast. I think Amir was just plan B for Vince. So if things came back to roost, he had someone to blame. But Josip came back a few days later, on a body exchange. I suppose that was really bad luck. Bad luck for Amir too. Because that was when Vince had to use plan B.

  “I’d told Amir, anyway, he should get out of town. He had his blue card. He’d been in Italy a few weeks before. But there was Aida, and the baby was due, and his mother. He didn’t know what to do. But he said, “It should be OK. If he’d wanted to kill me, believe me, I’d be dead.” But I thought he was wrong. I said, a dead husband’s no use to Aida at all.

  “That last night, Amir told me Vince wanted to have a word. I said be careful, but he said, it’s all right. He’s in it too, he said. He’d even been paid for it after all, although he didn’t mention that. He’d left the money in my flat. And the brie
fcase too. He’d put them both on the table in front of him. He took the money out of his pocket and put it on the table too. It was like he couldn’t face seeing either of them again.

  “That last night, I saw him leave the party with Vince and Franjo, when the power went. I didn’t know, then, that Josip was Franjo’s cousin… I didn’t know that Franjo had no idea.

  I think Vince just wanted to nick all that cash. It was Franjo’s life savings. Amir said there was a fortune in there.

  “I left the next day, the moment I heard Amir was killed. Of course, I didn’t have Amir’s car any more. I went through the tunnel the way we always did. I took the money Amir had left behind. It cost me 10,000DM but…”

  Edin drained his glass and slammed it down on the table, then, for the first time in five minutes, he turned and looked me in the eye, screening finally over, credits rolling, lights turning up. “Fuck it, I’m still here,” he said.

  During the four-year siege of Sarajevo, over 10,000 people were killed by artillery or gunfire, and 60,000 injured, from a population of 350,000 – which meant a one-in-five chance of being hit.

  If you enjoyed The Girl in the Film, perhaps you’ll like:

  Ladies of the Street

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  The way that Jean Rook always told it, was like this. She was lying in bed when her husband Geoff Nash brought in the morning papers and started to read aloud from one of them.

  ‘She’s formidable, she’s fearless, she’s every other adjective you can think of beginning with an F.

  She is, in fact, the First Lady of Fleet Street.’