Ukulele Jam

by Alen Meskovic

  Sitting in the car of a chain-smoking electrician on the way back to Majbule, I imagined a situation, me with greasy fingers and a sweaty forehead, struggling with some huge machine, climbing inside their dark insides, searching for the flaw.

  The scene switched to a noisy hall in an anonymous factory somewhere: there was dust in the air. My colleagues and I were coughing as we separated and assembled some machine parts with the help of a very detailed drawing. Our greasy fingerprints covered the curled-up paper. The drawing grew more and more difficult to make out. Difficulties and doubt arose. Time got away from us …

  All the images left the hint of a smile on my lips. Mechanical engineering did not interest me any more than the culinary preferences of Franjo Tudjman that the newspapers wrote about. Metals and their properties, I couldn’t care less about them, and the only two metals I wanted to know more about were thrash and heavy.

  GARLIC IN THE MORNING

  ‘Hello, mechanical engineer,’ Amar greeted me.

  ‘Hello, shipbuilder,’ I replied. ‘Are you happy with your school?’

  ‘Are you mad, man! Not one girl.’

  ‘None at ours either. Is it exciting, apart from that?’

  ‘That shipbuilding nonsense? God, no! What am I going to do with that? I want to be a journalist.’

  ‘Now let’s look at things positively,’ I said and pulled my monthly bus pass out of my pocket. ‘Look at this! Look!’

  I waved the card. All the students at the camp no matter which pedigree were given a free one. No more hitchhiking back and forth to school. Now Amar and I could join the others. Unlimited rides, access to the city buses, a certain coolness the moment you pulled out the card and nodded at the inspector – all of that made possible by the Red Cross and our anonymous international sponsors.

  The bus that picked us up at the Muscle Market only came in the morning. For that reason it was always packed. It required good elbows and strong ribs to endure the trip.

  Every imaginable eccentric was on that bus. Kača’s downstairs neighbour, a small blonde man by the name of Zvonko, boasted that he was able to eat an entire bulb of garlic for breakfast, along with bread and thinly sliced bacon. Everyone believed him – you were forced to – while we were provided with incontestable proof that the nickname we had given him was justified. Clove, we called him.

  When Clove was on the bus, half of the passengers sat with their collars pulled up to their eyes, making them look like a group of newly fledged ninjas. He often stood talking to the driver for a long time. The driver cleared his throat. Amar and I feared the worst: that the poor man behind the wheel would take a turn for the worse and drive us all into a stinking death. Anyway, you were not supposed to talk to the driver.

  On the way to school Amar and I went into the library in Vešnja. We spent half an hour in there and read what was set for us. The pensioners were hanging out near us. Rustling their newspapers, snoring, their glasses sliding down their noses.

  The content was not particularly good bedtime reading. Lots of pictures of the wounded, the displaced and the dead. Plenty of big fat lies and plenty of hatred. Not a single word about Nedim Pozder Neno. Not a single bit of news about the others from his group.

  FABIO AND HORVAT

  Concentrating in class was difficult. Sitting on your arse for seven long hours, taking notes. The pace was fast. I had not held a pen for over six months. My hand cramped up, my thoughts raced in every direction.

  The teachers gave lectures. Anything they said was the truth itself, you simply had to ensure you managed to jot it down in your notebook. There were no textbooks, and we were never given any photocopies. I did not even have a school bag. I carried my notebooks around in a thick blue plastic bag.

  Mum and Dad woke me up at six o’clock in the morning and were usually in the room when I returned around three. At twelve o’clock they would collect my lunch at the restaurant and later heat it up in the microwave at Kaća’s mum’s place. Otherwise I would not have had anything to eat till dinner, which was not until six.

  By the time I came home from school I was starving. Breakfast, consisting of a cup of tea and a piece of white bread, kept my hunger at bay until lunchtime. Then I had to ignore the gaping hole in my stomach until the end of period seven. Then hold out for half an hour on the bus to Majbule. Back to the camp, up the stairs and then finally – food!

  The final three lessons were really bad. Especially on Monday, because after the set mealtimes on the weekend, my stomach expected nourishment. I had to improvise. I discovered that if I drank a whole bunch of water during my break, my stomach would busy itself by toying with it, forgetting that it had actually been rumbling for food. Later, when I got to know Fabio and Horvat, I started to ask them for a bite of theirs. They crammed all kinds of stuff inside them. They were all right.

  ‘This school isn’t for me,’ Fabio said.

  He was into punk and wore very tight trousers.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The teachers smell and they’re smart-arses. Four bloody years of this!’

  ‘What are you going to do then?’

  ‘No clue.’

  ‘How did you end up here?’ Horvat asked.

  He was into metal, had long hair and Reebok Hi-Tops.

  ‘Couldn’t get into secondary school.’

  ‘Your marks?’

  ‘No, wrong pedigree. They wanted five hundred German marks a year.’

  ‘A year! Are they insane?’

  ‘That’s what I told them: “Now listen here, friends, I’m short a few pfennigs. Can we find some other solution?”’

  ‘And? What happened?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. Five hundred exactly, take it or leave it.’

  MINEFIELD

  A few days before Christmas Igor showed up. Fourteen days of leave. He looked like crap. Even skinnier than in the summer, he was completely preoccupied for the first few days.

  ‘Hey, Igi! Do you remember our summer boozer?’

  ‘Yeah, kind of. I think.’

  ‘Wow, we were so drunk!’

  On the other hand he remembered the topless German babe from the beach perfectly well. He said he had just sorted out one who was her spitting image.

  ‘Her jugs were just bigger,’ he claimed.

  On Christmas Eve, half of the camp went to the church in Majbule. Igor and I stayed behind, shivering at a table in front of the restaurant. There was a clear sky above us. People came and went while Igor chain-smoked and drank herbal brandy from a small flat bottle. He said he had lost weight on purpose. That the bullets whizzed past his ears but not a single one had grazed him yet.

  ‘It’s not simply a matter of manoeuvring between them,’ he stressed. ‘It’s also about your physique, about a soldier’s … infrastructure, so to speak.’

  A series of war stories followed, in which he usually played the role of the hero. He boasted about how many Chetniks he had ‘knocked off’ and how the barrel of his Kalashnikov was glowing.

  ‘You could light a fag on it,’ he said. ‘You know how many of them I smoke.’

  To match his gem I told him a story that Dad had just told me. I did it with enthusiasm and without beating around the bush. Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would think back to this situation many times in the future, to this Christmas Eve, and to Igor’s reaction to the story.

  ‘You’ve got to hear this, it’s insane,’ I said.

  ‘Give it to me, kid! I love stories.’

  The story was about Zijad Pozder Zijo, my dad’s cousin who lived in a village further up the river. At the point of the road where the asphalt ended and the dust from the gravel kicked up when you cycled along. I went there a couple of times during the war to get some milk and bring news from the town.

  Shortly after we were evacuated, the looting of our house was well underway. The vultures drove around in lorries and emptied the houses of anything that could be sold: TVs, VCRs, sofas, record players – anything. Th
ey could not have been familiar with the local conditions, because they simply continued up the main road and entered Zijo’s house too. He and several others from the village had stayed behind. The frontline was three kilometres down the river, and Zijo’s wife happened to be Serbian. She and the children had gone to join her family, and Zijo had remained to look after the house. He lay hidden in the stable and watched as Serbian soldiers broke into his home and emptied it of resalable items.

  That same night he let his cow and dog out and decided to swim across the river. He slipped down to the water, carrying in his pocket a sealed plastic bag with money, his wedding ring and ID. He silently swam the front crawl three kilometres downriver, towards the town and the frontline. Shining rockets and bullets flew over the water. A shell hit a poplar tree a hundred metres in front of him, and it caught fire. The flames lit up the surface of the water, and he had to hide by the shore until the shooting held up.

  When he had swum past the car park at the beach, not far from our house, there was a large field of grass in front of him. Alongside the lawn was an approach road, and Zijo guessed that the Bosnian trenches were on the other side of the road.

  He carefully crawled through the grass, crossed the road and climbed a hill that passed through a decimated section of the town. He went in through the front gate of someone he knew, who would be able to confirm that he was not a Serbian spy or something along those lines. He knocked on the door.

  He told Dad all about it when he rang from Varaždin one day. His wife and children had made it out of Bosnia. They lived in a rented room in the city, but could barely afford the rent. They had been staying in a camp, but had to move because of the frequent raids.

  ‘We’re sorting out some documents so we can escape the country,’ he said. ‘Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands! We’ve applied for visas for every one of them. I’d clean toilets if necessary, as long as they leave me alone. I can’t bear this any longer! I go to bed hungry so that the children can eat.’

  Igor was listening more attentively than normal. Especially when I added that Zijo had crawled through a minefield by the shore. He had not known until he explained to the military personnel how he had suddenly turned up in town. They did not believe him at first. Because what was the likelihood of crawling through a minefield without triggering a single mine?

  ‘It depends on the minefield,’ Igor said. ‘Obviously there was something wrong with that one. The ones we make,’ he added proudly, ‘nobody makes it through!’

  It was a smug comment. The same old song, Bosnians had no clue about war and did not fight hard enough, while the Croatians were oh-so clever. It stuck with me for a long time.

  Just then Amar and Elvis walked past. They were in the midst of a spirited discussion on why the sea was saltier in some places more than others. They kept going. Igor and I hung out a little more. He was drunk and I was sober. He chatted away. I just sat there listening.

  At one point I faded out completely. I think he had been talking about the locals’ disdain for the president, but got sidetracked in the details about how expensive it was to buy property by the sea. My mind wandered. I mumbled ‘Yeah, yeah’ and ‘Mmm.’ I yawned.

  Then Igor suddenly paused and looked at me as though he had just said something extremely important. He expected a reaction, an opinion.

  To extricate myself from the situation I went on autopilot and shrugged:

  ‘Yeah, that’s how it is … That’s life.’

  Igor narrowed his eyes and pounded his fist on the table:

  ‘YES! BUT LIFE SHOULD BE LIVED! NOT FUCKED UP!’

  ‘Yeah, right. Obviously, man … Obviously.’

  HAPPY NEW YEAR

  Shortly before everything went to rack and ruin, we had a proper party. New Year’s Eve only came once a year, war or not, rich or poor. Mum and Dad had to cough up.

  On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Damir and Vlado paid a deposit at the office. They were given the key to a storeroom in the basement of D1. The rest of the day we spent blowing up balloons and cutting out paper decorations. Robi attended to the music, the girls attended to the decorating. The room had to be aired out, swept and wiped down.

  Samir, Amar and I went to do the shopping. It was a historic shop. Our bags were so full, one of them burst. A bottle of red wine shattered against the asphalt.

  We had still not managed to clean up the shards of glass when Vlado came walking towards us. He held his head in his hands as he informed us that we no longer had a room to hold the party in.

  ‘Damir has been called down to reception. They say someone complained.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No clue.’

  In the reception room, Damir sat waiting for Sergio, the former caretaker and current receptionist, to finish a phone call. He was by far the grumpiest receptionist at the camp. Severely overweight. Monobrow and hair bristling out of both ears. The man had some strange notion that the inhabitants of the camp had a better life than other people because they did not work and did not have to pay for food or lodgings.

  He made us wait.

  Finally, he pulled out a handkerchief and emptied his nostrils with a single loud snort:

  ‘And? Where’s the key?’

  ‘Wait a sec. What’s the matter?’ Damir asked. ‘Why can’t we have a party?’

  ‘Too much noise. People complained. Where’s the key?’

  ‘It was just a sound test. Who complained?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Yes it is! Now we’ve got nowhere to have our party.’

  ‘If you had behaved yourselves, you would have done.’

  He grabbed the envelope with the deposit from a drawer and threw it on the counter:

  ‘Here’s your money. Take it and find somewhere else to run riot. It’s not going to be here.’

  ‘Come on, where are we going to find somewhere now?’ someone piped up.

  ‘Yeah, obviously people will be queuing up everywhere to offer us a place,’ someone else said.

  ‘But we have an agreement with the people at the office,’ Damir said. ‘We were promised …’

  ‘Tonight you can consider me in charge of both the office and reception. People complained, there’s not going to be any party. Give me the key!’

  ‘Who complained? Tell us who, so we can talk to them.’

  ‘Talk to them?’

  ‘Yes! We want to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Everyone has a right to that!’

  ‘No, they don’t.’

  ‘What do you mean by “no they don’t”?’

  ‘I mean “no.” Who has the key?’

  ‘What do you mean “no”? We do live in a democracy!’

  ‘Like hell you do!’ he laughed. ‘You’re too young for that.’

  I nudged Damir:

  ‘Parasite must be the one who complained. One hundred percent!’

  ‘The people on the ground floor of D1 are such idiots,’ Amar said. ‘It could have been any of them.’

  Samir tried to explain how much we were looking forward to the party. He could see that his brother was close to losing his patience, so he tried to smooth things over. But that exasperated Damir even more:

  ‘Drop it, Sama! Leave the moron alone! He’s just pissed off that he’s working tonight. That’s what this is about.’

  Sergio did not respond, but he looked at Vlado:

  ‘You there! You’ve got the key. Bring it here!’

  Vlado looked at Samir. Samir nodded. He reached into his back pocket then threw down the key. The metal clattered against the counter.

  ‘That’s it. Your money is there. Take it – and get lost!’

  ‘I HOPE YOUR WIFE GIVES BIRTH TO A ROLL OF BARBED WIRE, YOU MORON!’

  Damir should not have added that final comment. He was far too close, hunched over, his elbows resting on the counter. He had no chance to defend himself.

  Smack! Smack! Smack!

  Sergio grabbed him by the hair with one hand and pa
sted him with the other. Damir staggered backwards and knocked over an ugly potted plant. Dirt scattered across the floor. The plant snapped in half. For a brief moment Damir remained on his back, before attempting to get to his feet. Samir and I helped him up.

  ‘ALL OF YOU, OUT!’ the big slowcoach roared. ‘OUT! IF I HEAR SO MUCH AS A PEEP OUT OF ANY OF YOU, YOU’RE FINISHED! UNDERSTOOD? I’LL SHOW YOU, YOU SCOUNDRELS!’

  We hurried out. It was already dark .We stood by a lamp post and counted the money.

  ‘It’s all there.’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘Nothing. Let’s buy some more drinks before they close.’

  ‘Not a word about this,’ Damir said. ‘I don’t want anyone to find out that he hit me. We’re not telling anyone. Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘And as far as the party is concerned, we’ll just go down to the beach. That belongs to everyone, goddammit!’

  After dinner we stood under cover of the cliffs below D3. We tried to light a fire but it was no use. Too windy. The fire went out time after time. We stood in a circle and opened a bottle. Our teeth were chattering.

  Then Igor and the girls showed up.

  ‘Where’s that bottle?’

  ‘Over here, Igi! The party’s here. Under the stars!’

  ‘In the open!’

  ‘Did you get more to drink?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Then follow me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘When I tell you to follow me, then follow.’

  Igor, our professional Croatian soldier, had saved the day. The Sergio matter was history. Igi made use of his authority as defender of the homeland and managed to conquer nothing less than the TV room! He went over to see Ivka’s husband, Ivan, who lived on the first floor of D2. Among other things, Ivan was known for his shameless shagging. Leaving his balcony door open. Half of the camp could hear the shouting coming from his room: ‘More! More!’ and ‘Yes! Yes!’ It triggered a multitude of images in our brains. Once he and Ivka even enjoyed themselves in broad daylight. With my own eyes, I watched the old women on the terrace put down their knitting, cross themselves and slip away.