Ukulele Jam

by Alen Meskovic

  Dad’s name was called out and I woke from my zombielike state. Our surname startled me, as if I had heard it for the first time. Maybe it was because it was said by a total stranger, shouting so loudly in all the chaos that surrounded me. It was like when you dozed off in school and the teacher unexpectedly called out your name.

  Around the same time, the men from Neno’s group were ordered to carry the bags over to the other side of the yard. Neno set his down in front of Mum and me and stood there, while most of the others slowly walked back.

  ‘Well … there it is …’

  The ground between us was a little uneven. He stood with his left leg in front, slightly bent at the knee. His hair was wet and fell flat over his forehead. It looked like the limp corner of a star.

  ‘Miki …’ he said.

  A soldier grabbed him by the cardigan:

  ‘Back to your line!’

  Neno raised his arms in the air as he tried to turn around and keep his balance at the same time. The soldier pulled him back a few metres before letting go. Mum shut her eyes. My gaze shifted between her, Neno and Dad.

  When Neno stood in line again, not far from Adi’s dad and brother, the final name was announced. The small soldier closed his notebook and waved towards the gate:

  ‘That’s everyone!’

  Someone shouted something back but I could not make it out. Neno and his group raised their arms in the air and folded their hands behind their heads. Their row turned ninety degrees and advanced towards the gate like a lazy snake. I kept my gaze on Neno’s blue cardigan. His left elbow hid his face.

  At the end of the line were Mandić and the men none of us knew. Before they disappeared through the gate, I managed to see the last of them breaking into a brisk trot. Just like in training, their heads began to nod in time – then I lost sight of them.

  Someone unseen shut the gate from outside. A metallic clang echoed across the yard. A woman wearing a headscarf started sobbing louder than the others. I put my arm around Mum’s shoulder and tried to catch Dad’s gaze. The woman with the headscarf fell to her knees wailing. Two younger women helped her up. She pounded her fist against her forehead and wailed almost unintelligibly:

  ‘My child … my child … my child!’

  The bus was now half empty, with Adi and I the only boys remaining. Dad and his group were left standing in the yard. Mum sniffled and wiped her face. I squeezed her hand and felt how weak my own was.

  We were offloaded onto a car park in front of a pink motel. There were a couple of YPA vehicles and a few older soldiers parked there. Some of them were sitting on the steps drinking straight from the bottle. The road behind us was deserted and it terrified me. The slim hope that Neno and Dad’s buses had followed ours began to fade.

  All shot? All mobilised? The old ones shot, the young ones mobilised?

  The permutations swirled round in my head until I heard the rumbling of an engine.

  A bus drove towards us. Dad was the first to get out.

  ‘Where’s Neno?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Are there any more buses coming?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where are we going now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said and gave Mum a hug.

  His glasses were steamed up from the rain.

  We were followed partway, probably the first few hundred metres. Then the road began to curve around a wooded hill. We had been told to continue straight ahead. A lanky soldier stood by the edge of the road, and as the column passed, he repeated:

  ‘Stay on the road! There are mines on both sides. Stay on the road, if you value your life! Your people are expecting you …’

  We stayed on the road. After a while the first scouts appeared. One of them – the first Bosnian soldier I had ever seen – was wearing a thin, dark-green jacket and trainers. A blue and white coat of arms with a diagonal line and three lilies on either side had been hastily sewn onto his cap.

  ‘Continue down the road,’ he said. ‘Just keep going! It’s a long way to the first houses.’

  A long way?

  That was an understatement. I thought we were never going to see those bloody houses. We trudged ahead for hours. Uphill, downhill, uphill again.

  The drizzle had stopped. Through the grey clouds, the midday sun broke through. In the woods at the entrance to the first village, the birds sang like never before. As we came out of the woods, a valley with overgrown fields and scattered farmhouses appeared before us. I had never been to this part of Bosnia and had no idea it was so beautiful.

  Dad walked alongside me, telling how he had once driven through these parts. On a business trip with his boss.

  I am not sure why his story suddenly annoyed me. Or rather, why he and his way of telling it annoyed me. Adi and his mum were behind us somewhere. Both Adi’s dad and his brother were with Neno.

  My annoyance with Dad clashed my feelings of guilt at about being so ungrateful. After all, I still had my dad with me. A deflated rubber ball lay in the dust by the side of the road. I gritted my teeth and took a short run at it. One step, two steps, three – and then I whacked that fucking ball as hard as I possibly could.

  It whistled off and rolled down the hill.

  I nearly lost my balance from kicking it so hard. A searing pain shot through my neck and I stopped and moved my hand there.

  ‘Hey! What’s going on with you?’ Mum asked.

  I did not answer.

  Only when she repeated the question did I say indifferently:

  ‘Nothing.’

  But then!

  A few houses down the road, something happened to finally relieve my frustration. I was handed a slice of bread, a tomato and a boiled egg by an older peasant woman.

  ‘May God return everything to you,’ she said in a thick, rural accent.

  I thanked her, continued walking, and ate the bread and the tomato. Mum and Dad were given water by some younger women a little further ahead. The women had come out of their houses with glasses and large pitchers of water, plates full of fruit and vegetables, and anything else they could muster.

  The water was ice cold. Dad drank from a red metal cup that had a faded red enamel. While he drank, his teeth quietly ticked against the edge of the cup. I stood staring at the boiled egg in my cupped hand. It was still warm.

  ‘What do you have there?’ Dad asked.

  I looked up and opened my hand.

  ‘An egg?’

  ‘No,’ I said shaking my head and smiling. ‘A swan’s bollock!’

  For the first time in a long while, we both laughed.

  LUGARIĆ READS THE PAPER

  ‘What’s up?’ Fabio said the day after Uncle’s visit and my conversation with Kaća. ‘Have you studied what you were meant to?’

  ‘Nah, not really. You?’

  ‘Nope. Spent the whole weekend repairing the Puch with my bro. Didn’t even have time for a wank, man!’

  ‘I did. If I fall asleep before the break, that’s the reason.’

  We had problems with Lugarić, the old fool. The end of the school year was approaching, and there were ten or twelve of us who were going to have to retake the test with him in August. That meant our summer holiday would be spent thinking of Lugarić’s red face and flipping through useless notes from his lessons.

  He also realised that nearly half the class was going to fail, and at least seven or eight of us would have to repeat the year. And that would not sound particularly good at the parent-teacher meeting or in the ears of the rector. For that reason, late in May he announced that there would be ‘one final test,’ which at the same time meant ‘one final chance to avoid re-examination’. Those who already had a passing mark would not need to come to that lesson. The rest of us would be given two hours to solve five tasks.

  ‘We’re all going to pass,’ Fabio said.

  ‘How?’

  He pointed at Horvat.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  We found a seat in th
e fourth row, right next to the extra door to the corridor at the back, on that June day when we had to sit the exam. In the past, under the Italians, the building had been used as a hospital, run by Catholic nuns. It had been renovated several times and for that reason there were lots of absurd and superfluous details. The rooms could do with some TLC, but nothing was done about it. With my own two eyes, I saw plaster sprinkling from the ceiling because people on the floor above were stomping around.

  The door that Fabio and I were sitting next to was covered in graffiti and had been scratched by countless compasses. At table height there was a small, almost invisible hole. Fabio made it a little bigger.

  When Lugarić had written the questions on the board, he sat down behind his desk and opened the newspaper he had brought with him. He held it up and began to read to himself.

  It was a clear signal: do whatever you want, copy, share, cheat and disappear, none of you are ever going to make anything of yourselves anyway!

  Fabio wrote the problems down on a small piece of paper, made it into a thin roll and shoved it through the hole in the door. Horvat was waiting out in the corridor. With the roll of paper in his pocket, he slipped down to the canteen and solved all five tasks within thirty minutes. Then he discreetly went back upstairs, pushed five small rolls of paper through the hole and disappeared.

  For the next half hour, the five pieces of paper flew from desk to desk while Lugarić read the daily lies. In the end we were blatantly calling out to each other:

  ‘Pass me number five! Number four and five! I’ve got number three!’

  Lugarić just sat there and kept reading. Once in a while he rustled his paper and made a few shushes but that was it.

  The following week he entered the class smiling. Practically merry. Almost nice.

  ‘There, you see: I knew you could do it! There are none of you who are lacking in intelligence. You’re just lazy! You just need a little push.’

  It was the last day of school. Not one of us had to re-sit the exam. Standing by the blank board, Lugarić made a speech about the summer, the holidays and the harmful rays of the afternoon sun.

  ‘They are harmful … those … ultraviolet …’

  Jurišić, the local patriot and traitor, leaned back and shrugged:

  ‘Yeah, that’s life. We’re all going to die from something. Sitting in the shade can also be dangerous.’

  THE FUTURE

  Horvat and Fabio had a future. Not a bright or a safe one, but undoubtedly brighter and safer than mine. They were Croatian citizens. I was not. I was born in Vešnja. Nobody sent them wry looks.

  We shared a fag on the playing field after Lugarić’s final lesson and talked about ‘the future.’

  ‘I’m going to uni,’ Horvat said. ‘I’m already looking forward to it. Screw Vešnja, I’m moving to Zagreb! The old folks will send me money. Hot babes, cool concerts. It’ll be wicked.’

  ‘Screw uni,’ Fabio said, ‘I’m going to Italy. My uncle is making money there. I’m taking off before they call me up.’

  ‘What, you’re not going off to defend the homeland?’ I laughed as I handed Horvat the cigarette. ‘Get a haircut, wear a uniform. Fabiano, the killer!’

  ‘No thank you! I’m taking off. That’s for sure.’

  I imagined Fabio in Italy. What was he going to do there? Nothing. He would be a foreigner. He was born in Vešnja after all. Croatia was his homeland.

  ‘What a bunch of nonsense! Homeland is a broad concept, Bosniako. Unfortunately not many people understand that.’

  It was strong tobacco. Horvat coughed and thumped his chest with his hand.

  ‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘What are you going to do? You’re not very popular at the moment, you lot from Bosnia.’

  ‘No shit! I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Seriously, what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m bolting for Sweden. I’ve got friends there. They’re scoring big time, riding horses, eating cherries. But I can’t get the old ones to go with me. They can’t be bothered. They just want to go home. I think I’ll take off as soon as I’m finished here. Maybe even before.’

  ‘How the hell are you going to get there?’

  ‘I don’t know. Steal a passport maybe. Lugarić and Tomić are killing me.’

  ‘You’re not the only one,’Fabio laughed and took a long drag.

  Then he told us about a guy who was studying to be an electrician at trade school. The guy was on work experience with a self-employed electrician and was all set to get some paid work, but then he got called up. So Fabio was thinking of registering on the electrician’s programme and taking this guy’s work experience spot. At trade school you attended three lessons a week and went on work experience the other two days. The employer paid for lunch and occasionally threw in some small change.

  ‘As far as the actual transfer, it’s no problem,’ Fabio explained. ‘Trade school is one step lower than technical school. It’s just a matter of applying.’

  ‘Does he have more places?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure … Actually, do you know what? He has a colleague. They do business together.’

  ‘Cool!’

  ‘Are you interested or what?’

  ‘Paid lunch sounds good.’

  ‘The two of you are off your head,’ Horvat interrupted. ‘What kind of idiots am I hanging out with? Are you insane?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because! Only complete losers go to trade school. A bunch of idiots, man, nothing more. You’re going to waste the few brain cells you have.’

  ‘I’m wasting them here, too.’

  ‘Yes, but if you go to trade school you can’t get in to uni.’

  ‘Right! Uni! Obviously! You have to be a citizen to do that. How the hell am I going to do that? I’m not Croatian.’

  ‘Then put your name down in Bosnia.’

  ‘The only thing your name goes down on in Bosnia is the casualty list, mate. Haven’t you been keeping up?’

  ‘Wait till the war’s over then.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. “Uni, uni.” Forget it, man! If it weren’t for you today, I’d have failed my first year.’

  ‘Now it’s a good thing you remembered that. You owe me a beer. You too, Fabiano.’

  ‘Relax, you go-getter, you’ll get your beer,’ Fabio answered and turned to me. ‘But there is one thing.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘That guy, the electrician …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I think he’s Serbian.’

  'But … you said he would hire me.’

  ‘And he will, I think. But, I mean, does it bother you, or …?’

  ‘That depends,’ I said and thought of Neno, the drizzle, Kaća and the full moon. ‘Is he interested in politics?’

  ‘No, only booze. Drinks like a fish.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘He … Boro, I think he’s called … he’s cool. He worked on the Brioni Islands when he was younger. Shook hands with Tito a few times.’

  ‘Wow! Have you got his number?’

  ‘No. But I can get it.’

  The old folks were in favour. They liked the idea of a free sandwich twice a week, the prospect of a little income and last but not least, the chance for me to learn a trade.

  ‘It’s about time,’ Dad said. ‘You don’t have any skills.’

  With an eye to last year’s enrolment fiasco he added:

  ‘Make sure you have a firm agreement with the employer before you change schools. And don’t mess it up. Otherwise we’ll be left high and dry again.’

  ‘Cut it out!’ I said. ‘Stop talking to me like I’m a child. I’m fifteen years old, man. I know what I’m doing. If he doesn’t want me – fine! Then I’ll stay where I am, and that’s that.’

  He did want me. Obviously there were no other candidates. We arranged over the phone for me to drop by so we could ‘get to know each other,’ as he put it.

  A couple of days later I
took the bus into town, walked around and found Master Borslav Krivokapić’s residence. It was an old four-storey building on the inside of a courtyard. It was covered in ivy, the green filling the cracks in the facade. A dog was barking from one of the floors above me.

  I walked up the stairs cautiously and buzzed. Was slightly tense and nervous. It was an important meeting, after all. I waited for him to open the door. So we could ‘get to know each other.’ Him, a filthy Serb. Me, a filthy Bosnian. In Croatia, in 1993.

  The door was opened by a grey-haired man in his early sixties. Wearing a tight vest and a wide pair of boxers. With small eyes and a dark and hostile look, the man was anything but a pleasant sight. There was no doubt: Master Boro, the doorman for my bright future, was suffering from a bad hangover.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello. Would you be a Mr Krivokapić? Borislav Krivokapić?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me. What do you want?’

  ‘I called you … you said I should drop by … today.’

  ‘A yes. The apprentice! Was that today? Yes, come in, come in! Don’t just stand out there.’

  The master electrician livened up, and as I walked inside he offered me the only chair in the room. He walked around clumsily searching for his clothes – some on the sofa, some under the table – while I looked around.

  The room was dim and stuffy. On the middle of the coffee table was the largest ashtray I had ever seen. Around it was a swarm of cigarette butts, cutlery, bottles, bills – even a greasy cutting board. There were clothes and belongings everywhere, and I could not help but compare the room to our fourteen square metres at the camp.

  There was no question: Ours was far less bleak.

  The stories that Boro would later tell me were often contradictory. As far as I could figure out, he was orphaned during the previous war. He had grown up at an orphanage in Serbia and had moved to Vešnja after completing his military service. The idea that he had worked on the Brioni Islands and had shaken hands with Tito a few times, must have been something the other apprentice had imagined. Boro never mentioned any of those things to me, even though we talked about Tito and the Brioni Islands on a number of occasions.