Freezing cold. The hall was either freezing cold or draughty, back then. I liked to play there.
‘Neno?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are we going to go to school together?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because! You’re going to primary school, and I’m going to secondary school.’
‘Secondary school?’
‘Yes. It’s a different school. For the big kids. But if you’re lucky, you’ll be in the same class as Adi. If they’ll even take you.’
He laughed:
‘If they can even find anything in there. Inside that little noggin!’
Adi and I always walked to school together. We had physical education together. We played football against each other.
‘Has anybody done anything to you?’ Mister No asked when he picked me up one day.
‘No.’
‘Let me know if anything happens.’
‘Okay.’
‘Are you hungry? Should we go see Mum at work?’
The huge department store had magical staircases. We stood still on them and glided upwards. Mum worked on the top floor. Up by the sign that read CHILDREN’S WEAR.
‘How was school?’ she asked.
Her arms smelled of rose perfume.
‘Fine. The teacher, she pulled Jović’s ears five times.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He couldn’t recite a poem by heart.’
‘Which poem?’
‘It was one … about Tito.’
Neno laughed:
‘As if there’s only one!’
‘The one with the partisans.’
‘Aha,’ Mum said. ‘Have you eaten? Or are you going home to eat with Dad?’
Dad worked at the factory. Dad used the word ‘factory’ every single day. He also used ‘party,’ ‘workers’ council,’ ‘meeting’ and ‘problem.’
He said:
‘Ugh, I can’t wait for early retirement!’
Then added:
‘Five more years.’
In small, scattered groups in the park in front of the factory hall, workers covered in soot stood smoking cigarettes. They called him ‘boss.’
‘Boss’ once said to me in private:
‘Damn those exhaust pipes and damn the guy who invented them! I get ill just looking at them. Do you realise how many pipes I’ve welded? Thousands! Hundreds of thousands! If not more!’
He thought about it for a moment.
‘More, definitely,’ he nodded.
One winter Bobi’s cousin Rade made me eat snow. We were playing ice hockey on the frozen river. The puck was a dark, flat stone. During the break we had a snowball fight and I nailed him every time.
‘Eat, you little shithead, eat!’ he shouted over my muffled sobs; there were rubbery bands of saliva hanging from the corners of my mouth.
Not until Mister No came running down the embankment and thumped him did Bobi’s cousin let go, the idiot. Idiot number two. He never touched me again.
‘Why don’t you defend yourself?’ Mister No asked.
‘He’s stronger than me. And older.’
‘That doesn’t matter. You can’t just let him do that to you. I won’t always be here to defend you.’
No, he would not. In 1988, when I started Year 5, he was no longer living at home. His room was left half-empty, his door was always closed. I wrote letters to him and badgered Mum and Dad with the same question, over and over again:
‘Why don’t we just move to Sarajevo with him?’
When they were out, I twisted the door knob and went inside. I felt like a thief. Like a ghost.
His countless cassettes and LPs were arranged in alphabetical order. That made it easier to put them back in the right place. Not once did he discover that I had sat in his rocking chair. That I had been headbanging in the middle of his room, studying all the cool covers and reading the wicked lyrics.
When he came home on holiday, I played dumb:
‘Can I borrow White Button’s latest album?’
‘No.’
‘No Smoking’s double LP?’
‘No.’
‘At least let me borrow a Balašević cassette?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Just asking.’
Mister No. I called him tight-fisted and Mister No.
‘Nedim Pozder, Neno: Mister No.’
‘Beat it, before I unscrew your head!’
It had actually been meant as a compliment. Mister No, the legendary pilot Jerry Drake, my biggest hero. The coolest comic they sold at the newsagent’s. Mister No lived in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where he flew tourists over the Amazonian rainforests. His Piper was often in for repairs. His friend Krüger was German – a World War Two veteran, just like him. In every issue the hero met a new girl, but in the end she always left.
Neno did not live in Brazil, but in Sarajevo. He did not read comics, he read books. He knew everything about plants, insects and animals. He was the smartest person in the world.
During the holidays he brought home countless stories. His words made the whole house light up.
Then we would hire a boat and row upriver. There was often heavy traffic. Kayaks, sandolins and hire boats slowly drifted past. We waved at a lot of them, and a lot of them waved back. He told me about Sarajevo, his classmates and Igman Mountain, where they went and had barbecues.
I knew Sarajevo from the TV and from songs. It was a city a lot of people sang about, and a lot of good bands came from there. Our one-horse town only had lousy covers bands, Neno had actually been in one once, until he left the bumbling amateurs behind.
When Neno returned to Sarajevo, the atmosphere in the house fell. Not just because he had left behind an ugly void, but also because more and more of Dad’s sentences began to start with ‘Back then …’ and ‘In my younger days …’
Mum yawned. Sighed sometimes. I lay on the sofa next to Dad and listened to the stories of his wild youth.
‘… And look at me now … these grey hairs … this bloody life! It’s over before it even starts … Remember what I tell you, Emir. Take what you can, while you can. Because time goes by so damn quickly. You’re what, ten or eleven now, and …’
‘Twelve!’
‘Right, twelve … and it feels like only yesterday I was your age.’
‘When was that?’
‘Right after the war. Back then, there were gangs of Chetniks and Ustashe still holding out in the woods.’
‘Ustashe?’
‘Yes, all the collaborators, you know – fascists who slaughtered people during the war. Two of them were captured once, a couple of big fish. One of them was the mayor of the city.’
‘Hmm.’
‘They were hung down by the bridge, and I witnessed it. It’s not like in the movies, where they just fall and die. The two of them dangled there for a long time. The one guy, his rope broke twice and there were rumblings that they should release him, it must have been a sign that he was innocent. Supernatural imbeciles! Our people are so stupid. They were then and they are now. Even though the party did everything it could to help them. Innocent? Like hell he was. He was a butcher!’
‘Can you tell me about the time the partisans shot the guy with the milk again?’
‘Oh right, down by the bog. Back then there were no houses down there, it was all fields and willows.’
‘Why?’
‘Because back then the city ended at the crossing. The roads weren’t paved either. I was letting the cows graze down by the bog that morning. That was in 1944, I remember – a crazy year. The town was changing hands all the time. When you woke up in the morning, you didn’t know if the Ustashe, the Chetniks or the Partisans controlled it. The Germans had as good as given up, Mussolini was already finished.’
‘Mussolini? Who was that?’
‘Hitler’s friend.’
‘Ah.’
‘So! Let’s see: all of them were capable of
taking the town, but nobody could hold onto it. I was watching the cows and could see a group of partisans guarding a post down by the crossing. Back then there was a bakery on the corner, which also sold milk. An Ustashe – a young one – came driving along in a horse and carriage. Some empty milk cans were rattling in the back. He must have thought his people still controlled the town and that they would want to buy milk.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘When he saw the Partisans, he tried to turn the cart around. But he didn’t get a chance.’
‘Did they shoot?’
‘No, you know very well that they did not shoot. They threw a grenade. They captured him alive. Then they dragged him down to the bog and shot him there. I saw it. Through the willows.’
‘Weren’t you scared, Dad?’
‘Why should I have been scared? I was only a child. Children were not touched.’
I was under the impression that everything was over. That the good days would never return. That Neno, just like Dad’s youth, was gone forever.
By the time he returns home, I thought, it will be 1992. I’ll be fourteen, nearly fifteen. That’s a long way off. I can’t wait that long.
There and then, I wanted to run away to Sarajevo and live closer to him. One day, after Bobi had ruined my day with some self-taught judo moves, the urge was greatest. His Mum shouted from the window:
‘Slobodan! What are you doing? Leave the child be!’
But he did not leave me be. He twisted my around my back and shoved me to the ground.
‘Slobodan! Let him go! Let him go!’
Finally he obeyed.
I brushed the dirt off my trousers and hopped on my bike. Raced over the bridge and through the city. I pedalled like a madman and did not stop until I reached the Tempel water tap. ‘A Jewish mosque’ had once stood here, Dad had told me. A block of stone and the crooked tap were all that was left of the synagogue now. The Ustashe burned it to the ground in 1942.
I washed my face under the cold water and continued walking with my bike. Passed the pedestrian precinct and made it all the way to the other end of the city. At the first crossing before the ring road there was a sign with three arrows. They each pointed in a different direction: Sarajevo 211 km, Zagreb 223 km, Belgrade 229 km.
The cicadas were shrieking. A mown-down cat lay motionless in the gutter. Rumbling lorries and cars faded into the horizon.
I stopped by the sign, my gaze followed the road to Sarajevo. Behind me the church bells began to chime, and the muezzin announced the call to prayers.
I turned around and cycled home to listen to Neno’s albums.
WICKY
Wicky, the bar that Igor thought so bloody highly of, was awful. A turquoise fountain was left thirsting in the middle of the room. The bottom half of the walls featured glazed tiling. Mounted in one of the corners was a dusty television set, which showed MTV on mute, instead the music came from a stereo at the bar; lots of pop, lots of electric drums.
We sat out on the terrace, and Igor ordered a beer for himself. Then he nodded to the waiter:
‘Get him something too.’
‘A Coke, please,’ I said.
Later he ordered for both of us, without differentiating between us and without asking what I wanted:
‘Two more beers!’
‘He’s too young,’ the waiter said. ‘We don’t serve minors.’
‘He’s my brother,’ Igor replied. ‘He’s my responsibility.’
I drank a sip of my beer, and Igor asked me loads of questions. Mostly about the war, technical details. Half of them I could not answer. Igor could though. He told me, among other things, that the mobile vehicles, known as Pragas, had twin 30 mm calibre cannons. How was I supposed to know that? I had only heard them firing.
‘Czech quality,’ Igor said. ‘We use them too.’
Our conversation was not particularly interesting. Honestly, it bored me. But the actual situation and everything surrounding it was quite the experience. Sitting with Igor on the empty terrace of a bar that summer evening was a huge step forward after spending a month at Uncle’s, where for the most part I sat alone staring at a wall. Maybe that was why Igor managed to get me to talk, before he got really wasted and started waffling on about everything under the sun.
‘Tell me about the shell,’ he said. ‘The one that fucked up your ear.’
‘My neck,’ I corrected him. ‘My neck, not my ear. The muscles in my neck, to be precise.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not? Is it a secret?’
‘No … But … I’m going inside to take a piss first.’
In the toilet I held my cold wet hand to my neck. An old habit. It didn’t actually hurt any more.
I looked at myself in the mirror and adjusted my hair. Then I returned to Igor, determined to tell him bugger all.
PAIN IN THE NECK
The shell fell on the first of June, but it all started at the end of March. Mum drew the curtain and opened my window. Perched on the nearest branch of the pear tree in the garden, two or three sparrows were discussing politics.
‘Up you get,’ Mum said. ‘You have to go to school.’
The sitting room smelt of fresh bread and coffee. The radio was playing ‘Lily Was Here,’ though I did not know it was called that yet, and for that very reason I had dubbed it ‘The Song Without Lyrics, With Saxophone and Guitar.’ Adi had grown tired of it. I had not. I drank a cup of hot milk and contented myself with a single slice of bread.
Adi stood by the gate waiting for me as usual.
‘Fuck was it ever booming yesterday!’ he said.
‘It’s because of the river.’
‘Yeah, I know. It amplifies the sound.’
‘Were the detonations rattling your windows, too?’
‘Yep. Like somebody was knocking on them. Thumping. One blow at a time.’
‘And I was sitting right next to it cramming for The Seventh Enemy Offensive! You gotta be kidding me, man!’
‘History?’
‘Yeah! Do you want to test me?’
‘That’s the one with Tito and the parachutes. Drvar … 1944?’
‘Exactly. Let’s see how many of us there are today.’
‘There were eight of us yesterday.’
‘We had twelve. Novak asked Jović if his dad had dug out his rifle.’
‘And what did Jović say?’
‘My Dad doesn’t own weapons.’
‘Yeah, for sure.’
‘It was all too funny. We did nothing the entire lesson. Just sat talking. Maja told the class a joke.’
‘Right, right. But people in Nedođ are armed to the teeth. I’m telling you. My dad says they were the worst of the Chetniks during the war. That Jović guy is a moron!’
In the playground we bumped into Vanja, who was walking towards us. He was smiling ear to ear:
‘No school today!’
‘Who says?’
‘Nobody. There is nobody.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Not a soul, man. The door’s locked.’
‘Shit!’ Adi said and pointed at the entrance. ‘Look at all the people.’
A group of younger boys were crowded together in front of the stairs. They stood jingling glass marbles. They were playing the guessing game.
‘Make way! Come on you lot, move aside!’ Adi ordered them energetically.
They obeyed without objections. He was a head taller than all of them.
Adi grabbed the door handle.
‘Fuck, man!’
He rattled it.
‘It’s locked!’
‘You don’t say,’ Vanja gloated.
My hand took over from Adi’s on the cool metal. Same result.
‘There weren’t many teachers yesterday, either,’ Adi said.
‘No, but I saw Mandić in the corridor,’ I answered. ‘I’ve got him for history today. Third and fourth. Ah, man! This is so stupid!’
/> We stood under the window of the reception area, gave each other a boost and looked inside. I saw the duty desk at the back of the room. There were no lights on and there was nobody inside.
‘Not a soul!’
The staff room had sandblasted windows, so we could not look inside. I knocked a couple of times.
No reply.
Nothing.
‘Nobody.’
‘What are you staring at?’ Adi shouted at the snot-nosed kids. ‘Go home. Can’t you see it’s closed?’
‘Maybe we should head off home, too,’ I said.
‘Agreed,’ Vanja nodded.
‘I crammed my arse off yesterday!’ I said. ‘All day! I know the Seventh Enemy Offensive inside out, man! It’s not bloody fair!’
‘Don’t worry,’ Adi said. ‘Mandić won’t forget.’
He put his hand on my shoulder. His voice went a little hoarse:
‘Don’t worry. You’ll get your test … when all of this calms down a little.’
A few days later Dad and Mum were in the middle of a huge spring clean. The vacuum cleaner was rumbling in the sitting room. The phone lines were down. Everyone was holding their breath and waiting for the moment when ‘all of this calms down a little,’ and the two of them were waging a war against dust and fluff.
Barricaded in my room, plugging my ear with one finger and the other resting between the greasy pages of the comic book, I reread an old issue of Mister No. It started with the hero picking up Dana from the airport, where he discovered that Dana was a singer and happened to be black. Later he pummelled all the guests at the inn who had disparaged Dana. He leant back and lit a fresh cigarette.
Boom! That’s how it’s done!
‘I’m going down to the river for a bit,’ I said to the old folks, who were now in the garden drinking coffee beneath the pergola and the grapes.
‘Don’t be gone for too long,’ Mum said, worried as usual.
The distance from our gate down to the river was no more than fifty metres, that is if you could be bothered to cut through Zaim’s garden and deal with his hysterical dog, Roki.
I took a detour. One hundred and forty-five steps, I had once counted. Down the street and to the left. Then continue until you reach the end of the street. Straight ahead to the embankment.
Ukulele Jam Page 3