“True. Some of us start painting little French soldiers for our jollies instead.”
Vlado laughed. “Now you’re getting personal. Those are my friends you’re making fun of. More mature conversation than I can get from Damir and not always on the make like Grebo. And I don’t need to spend a month’s salary or a carton of Marlboros to have an evening with them.”
“Now if you could only find a way to paint up one that’s about five-foot-five, a redhead with long legs and a low cut blouse, then you could become a businessman, too. And you could charge a hell of a lot more than a month’s salary.”
“Maybe if I melted down a whole division. The French over at Skenderia aren’t very picky. I could just prop her up on the porch of headquarters next to a price list. I’d have them beating a path of Marlboros to my door.”
“Just make sure you put all the holes in the right places. You can always ask me in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Another few months and I’ll need to.”
“Still that bad, huh?”
Vlado said nothing, just shook his head with a rueful smile.
“What do you hear from Jasmina?” Goran said. It was he who’d had the connections to get her and Sonja on the bus convoy out of town.
“The same. Still settling in. Still learning to speak German. Getting a little bit further from me with every phone call. Sometimes I think I’d be better off in the army. Then maybe at least I could try sneaking out over Igman.”
“That’s assuming you even want to leave this place.”
“What, you think I’m starting to enjoy it here?”
“No. You just couldn’t bear to leave it behind. You’re too scared it might disappear in a cloud of smoke while you’re gone, and you’d come back to a big hole in the ground.”
“You know why I stay-as if I had a choice anyway. Leave now and a family of refugees will be living in my house by the time the war’s over. And with government approval. I’ll be out of a job and, by then, out of money. And probably charged with desertion on top of everything else. Besides, if I can make it through two years of this then I might as well go the distance.”
“For what? The privilege of living here after the war?”
“Why not. It’s my home. Yours too. And if it’s such a good idea to get away why aren’t you sneaking up through the hills?”
“Don’t believe I haven’t thought about it. But right now I’m making money. Real money. Deutschemarks and dollars. To get out I’d need to spend half of it, and wherever I ended up I’d probably have to spend the rest to keep living while I was looking for work. But if this war ended tomorrow I’d be out of here in a shot. Off to Croatia. Or Slovenia. Anything to get out of this place.”
“That’s going to be the time to stay, not leave.”
“You really think so? When’s the last time you took a good, slow walk around your neighborhood.”
“Nobody takes slow walks in my neighborhood anymore.”
“You know what I mean, and you don’t have to take a slow walk to see what I’m talking about. How many of your old neighbors have either been killed or have packed up and gone.”
Vlado shrugged. “Maybe a quarter. Maybe more.”
“Two thirds, more likely, and who moved in after they left? Rurals and refugees. Peasants. All with a chip on their shoulder and an ax to grind. Half of the women wearing headscarves and cursing anybody who’s not just like them. You’re a Catholic with a Muslim wife. Think there’s going to be much tolerance for that around here after the war? Take a look at our government if you’re interested in postwar demo-graphics. The upwardly mobile will be Muslim and politically active, I don’t care how much lip service you hear about a multiethnic society. That died with the first four hundred shells.”
“That’s now. When people don’t have to fight to live, or stand in line for water, or think their children are going to be blown to bits every time they step out the door, they’ll change again.”
“Don’t bet on it. And don’t think these refugees are ever leaving, either. They’ve got it too good. They’re taking all the best jobs, the best empty apartments. And they stick together. When one gets a job so do all his friends and family. Besides, you’re forgetting the way memory works around here. Talked to any old Partisans from the forties who have anything nice to say about the Germans? Or to any old Chetniks who have anything nice to say about Tito? Not to mention the good old fascist Ustasha. This city’s dead, Vlado, and so is everyone in it who sticks around after the fact.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just too stubborn to admit it.”
“Not stubborn. Sentimental. You’re one of those people who’s dug himself deep into his own little bunker and gone to sleep, thinking that if you can just survive the shelling and the sniping then you’ll be able to wake up in a few years and the sun will come out, your family will come home, and you’ll pick up right where you left off.”
“Not right where I left off. I’m not naive. I know things will be different. I won’t be able to speak the same language as my daughter for one thing.”
“That you can fix. That you can repair in a few months, maybe less. But maybe Jasmina had better be wearing a scarf on her head when she comes back. And if you still have any friends over in Grbavica then you better write them a good-bye letter now, ‘cause they’ll either be moving or they’ll be living behind a wall, one running down by the river with a checkpoint at every bridge. If we’re lucky we’ll be the new Berlin, if we’re not we’ll be the next Beirut.
“You’re one of those poor deluded souls who thinks he’s got this figured out, Vlado, who believes that survival is really all there is to it. That as long as you keep your head down, stay off the bottle, and shave every now and then, you’ll come through this just as you were, with nothing worse than a few bad memories to trouble you in the blissful years of peace that lie ahead. That’s you all over, Vlado, painting your soldiers in the dark and running after your petty criminals.”
“So I should drink, then? Or stop doing my job and join the army? Or maybe whore my way around the city every week or so to let me ‘live’ again. Those are your cures for people like me?”
“You should do anything, is all I’m saying. Any act of temporary insanity will do. Anything that will convince me you don’t really believe you’re still the safe, careful man you thought you were at the beginning of this war. Self-control is a virtue, not a religion. Because in a place like this, any move you make-any move-can get you killed, so why not choose a few with some meaning, some passion. Then maybe you won’t wake up some morning ten years from now and discover you’ve buried yourself alive and there’s no one left to dig you out.”
As Vlado fumbled for a reply the office door opened from the darkened theater, and the ticket-taker’s head popped in. “Your scene’s coming up, Goran.”
“Thanks. Be right there.”
Vlado assumed a quizzical look, in welcome for the interruption, feeling awkward, unsettled. “Your scene? You doing a floor show now?”
“A food scene,” Goran answered sheepishly. “It’s part of the movie, and, well, I never like to miss it. Comes right after the shootout. A huge meal for an American holiday. A bird the size of a hatchback Yugo, glazed and brown. Tureens of hot soup, potatoes, vegetables, pastries. Wine, drinks. It’s only a minute or two, but the whole crowd swoons. You can practically hear the drool splattering on the floor. After that who cares about the plot. I’ve seen it nine times already and I still haven’t had enough.”
He rose abruptly to his feet. “But, listen, I’ll run down this Neven tale and get back to you.”
As he moved to the door Vlado remembered something else.
“One other thing,” Vlado said. “Do you remember hearing anything about Vitas’ mother. Where she is. What she’s up to?”
Goran stopped, a hand on the doorknob.
“Yes, she’s dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be without having seen the body”