They say that when the end of time comes the seasons will get mixed up.
36.
I had a dream that I only managed to recall a single phrase from: the innocent monster of the past. I forgot the dream, the phrase remained.
37.
Sarajevo 1914/2024
The historical reenactments are becoming ever more brutal, ever more authentic. This ranks among the most popular ones in the Balkans—a spin around Sarajevo in a copy of Franz Ferdinand’s car—a Gräf & Stift Phaeton, black, four cylinders. Plus the clothes, the crown prince’s white shirt, the uniform, the saber, the route, the stops, the driver’s fatal confusion—everything just as on that day.
“Don’t stay outside, step inside history! Be Gavrilo Princip or Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo 1914!”
The organizers, who by the way have connections to the city council, want to do something very special on the anniversary of the murder, June 28 (Gregorian style). Something heretofore unseen and hyper-realistic. It also happens to be a milestone anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. Thousands of locals engaged as extras and dressed in the clothing of the epoch have been strolling through the city for weeks. A detailed reenactment is unfolding in accordance with existing archival photographs and in consultation with historians from the university. But something is missing, there is no suspense, no threat. After all, this is not simply a jaunt about town by a royal personage on a fine June day . . . a war is commencing, after all, not a garden party. They have managed to track down a distant relative of the dynasty—from a rather collateral branch of the family, but still, royal blood is needed, isn’t it?
For the role of Gavrilo Princip, they hold a casting call with young anarchist-leaning Serbian guys, unemployed and up for anything. It turns out that in the meantime the erstwhile Black Hand movement, which had given rise to the assassins back then, has also been reestablished. They choose a young man from its ranks. They suit him up with the proper pistol—a Browning FN M1910, small, flat, perfect for concealed carry. Loaded with blanks, of course, but at least the shots will still be heard.
June 28 rolls around, the whole city comes out to watch, some with tickets, others on the balconies of nearby buildings, kids hanging from the branches of trees. A striking resemblance to that June 28 in 1914, incidentally. Even the clouds are the same, as someone will later note, comparing the photos. A breeze is blowing, carrying the already fallen linden blossoms. The extras, some dressed in tails and top hats, others more eccentrically, are scurrying around impatiently. The women proudly wear their hats as large as storks’ nests, dolled up in the style of an epoch coming to an end (due in large part to that very day).
The archduke putters up in his four-cylinder heavy black Gräf & Stift Phaeton. Everything happens as it did on that forenoon—the motorcade with the three cars sets out, the first unsuccessful attempt with the bomb, the stop at the town hall, where the archduke, visibly shaken, would say: I came here to see you, and you greet me with bombs. A stop by the hospital to visit the wounded, the cars taking the wrong route, the maneuver near the Latin Bridge before the eyes of the despairing Gavrilo Princip, who is guzzling a beer in front of the pub. At that moment the assassin raises his eyes and sees that the victim has come to him of his own accord. He takes out his pistol, leaps toward the car, which is turning in place like a heavy beetle, and shoots the archduke.
A red rose blossoms on the archduke’s white shirt, blood gushes forth. Everything is so realistic that the people in the crowd are stunned, no one dares applaud. The wife Sophie crumples to Franz Ferdinand’s feet, but no one pays any particular attention to this, just as is written in history as well. But something about the assassin’s behavior is unexpected. It’s as if he himself cannot believe what has happened, according to the script he needs to unsuccessfully try to shoot himself, to swallow cyanide, but instead he swallows his tongue.
A long, historically long second hangs over the center of Sarajevo, as if something clicks in time and we can see Gavrilo Princip standing there awkwardly with his still-smoking gun, the crowd is gaping in the frozen moment before they rush to tear him to pieces, the wind has died down, nothing can be heard, a child falls from the tree branches, but doesn’t dare cry . . .
(For a moment I feel like I can see Demby’s signature here, with his new open-air theater, tragicomedy dell’arte.)
And at that moment the archduke gasps, blood sprays out like a fountain. The man is truly breathing his last.
The guards hurl themselves upon Gavrilo Princip, or rather the one playing Gavrilo Princip, but it doesn’t matter anymore, everything has been set into motion, just as before. The gun goes off one more time in the uproar and the supposed blank pierces the stomach of one of the guards. Then the crowd really does rush to tear the killer apart. Police sirens start howling, ambulances try to make their way through. Horses toss policemen from their backs and in the melee trample several ladies along with their hats. The chaos is uncontrollable and unscripted.
Afterward nobody will be able to explain how the supposedly blank bullets turned out to be live rounds. Once every hundred years even an empty rifle goes off, as the saying goes in this region, but who knows . . . ?
The Austrian authorities immediately send a sharp note protesting the murder of their fellow countryman and descendant of the archduke. The European Prosecutor’s Office brings charges against the organizers of the reenactment and calls for the immediate arrest of everyone involved and an investigation into the Black Hand anarchist movement. The local inhabitants of Sarajevo don’t wait for invitations and the offices of several Serbian companies are trashed immediately.
Europe finds itself on the cusp of a second First World War.
38.
Something has changed, something is not the same.
I hear its dragging footsteps, heavy breathing. It wasn’t like this before, there used to be rhythm, dancing, running.
For a moment, between the shadow of the leaves I catch a glimpse of the tired light of yesterday or of a forgotten afternoon years ago. Something seeps in, drop by drop, the sediment of other times.
On my palate I sense the taste of ash, with my nose I catch the scent of something burned. Like stubble or a forest that has set itself alight . . .
Something has changed, something is not the same.
With my fingers I touch another skin, cold and grainy. Before, it was warm and smooth, alive like a person’s hand, now it is like the shed skin of a viper.
You stroll through the hot afternoon in August and suddenly out from behind some bush the stench of rot hits you. A corpse, of a rat most likely, but still a corpse.
Something has started to go rotten, go bitter, to stink, to go dark, and to grow cold, I feel it with my five senses.
Something has changed, something is not the same.
But what if time has already stopped? How will we know? Will the clocks stop? Will the calendars be stuck on one and the same day? Hardly, they actually don’t feed on time, they do not live off it.
So what feeds on time, then?
Everything living, of course. The cats, cows, bees, and water snakes, the thistles, the lizard hawks and the lizards, the squirrels in the park, the earthworms and the fruit fly, the blue whale and redfish—everything that swims, crawls, silently creeps, climbs trees, grows, reproduces, grows old, and dies. Only these feed on time . . . Or time feeds on us. We are food for time.