Opening the mailbox one morning, I saw it was empty except for a postcard. The writing was unfamiliar: neat block letters; postmark, Sarajevo. A 1930s’ photograph of New York’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Giant floats of Pinocchio, Uncle Sam, and the Tin Woodman of Oz drifted at odd angles above the street, casting huge shadows across the buildings. They were tethered by ropes to ant-sized people below.
I read: “I’m afraid to call you and will do so only if you give the all clear. Since I dropped the pictures off, I’ve been wearing a crash helmet in case you go nuclear. On a scale of one to ten, how angry are you at me for them? How did you get my telephone number? Is there life on other planets? Answer any or all of the above questions at your leisure.”
Sarajevo had recently been under fierce attack. Was that still going on? I pictured him in an underground shelter or command post, writing the card as bombs flew overhead. How amazing of him not to mention what was going on there! People have so little courage nowadays that when we do meet someone who has it by the pound, it’s hard not to be impressed. Only a little twist of fate had permitted me to know what Leland did for a living. Otherwise, I’d still have thought him just another geek with a camera who’d gotten too close. Yes, I was uncomfortable with what he had done to me, but also touched and intrigued that this interesting, modest man liked me. I called his London apartment again and said only, “The coast is clear,” and then started waiting again.
Did you ever notice how life picks up when you’re expecting an important or interesting call? The telephone itself starts to dominate the room. You’re always on edge as you move around the house because any minute it could ring and be he. And if it doesn’t ring at all, you become even more nervous. Or I do. I didn’t know this guy, yet he had taken these remarkable and distressing pictures and last been spotted dodging bullets in Yugoslavia. Days went by. God knows, I wanted him to call. Then I thought maybe my phone message had been too curt and he’d been scared off. I thought about what to say if he did call. Ask about his job? Or why he took the pictures? Would he turn out to be interesting, or only brave and dull, with an eccentric fix on retired actresses? I never said his name out loud but once in a while would try it out on my mind’s tongue. Leland. That sounded American. Zivic did not.
It was late at night. I was in bed, rereading Mariette in Ecstasy – have you gotten it yet? Please do. It makes life in a cloister sound transcendently beautiful and full of possibilities. The phone rang. I was sure it was you because you’re the only person who calls so late. But I didn’t recognize the voice, so when he said my name, I asked, “Who is this?”
“Leland Zivic. Can we talk?” His voice was completely different from the way I remembered it. Of course, what did I have to remember from the only time we had talked? Three sentences? Thinking about him, I must have imagined many different voices to suit the image in my memory. The one I heard now was soft and neutral. Low, but not so that it was distinctive or anything special. He said he’d planned to be witty and make excuses, but he couldn’t today; he just wanted to talk. Was that all right? I asked what was the matter, and he said he was in Yugoslavia near the war. I told him I knew because I’d seen him on TV. His voice got very quiet then and, oh, wow, you should have heard it. He said he’d seen things the last couple of days I wouldn’t believe. He was a photographer and took pictures of war. Normally it never bothered him because it was just a job. But maybe because his father’s family came from there, this time it was bad, really bad. Wait a minute, Rose, I’ve got to stop and light a cigarette. Just remembering his voice gives me a chill.
Here we go. Anyway, his voice sounded scared and lost. He’d called because he wanted to talk to me. His words were rushed and breathless, like a confession to me and a conversation with himself. It took me completely off guard. I’d hoped when we first spoke that it would be interesting but relaxed. This was already a hundred thousand volts in my ear. I told him to say whatever he wanted and tell me anything. I sat up in bed and pulled my pajama top tighter. I wanted to look presentable for him even though he was a world away!
He said, “I’m in a slasticarna. That’s a Yugoslavian pastry shop. There’s cake all over the floor. Can you imagine that? Cake. The whole floor is fluffy goo. The man and woman who own the place are down on their knees, trying to clean pink and blue icing off the floor. All the windows are blown out of the shop and everything’s a mess, but their phone’s working and they let me use it.”
I asked whether there was fighting where he was and he said yes, but it wasn’t bad now. It had been a couple of hours before, but it had calmed down. He said it was very kind of me to talk to him so late. I told him it was nothing, that I’d only been reading and trying to fight off the urge to sneak into the kitchen for something to eat. He asked me to tell him about my kitchen, which took me completely by surprise. When I said, “What?” he said, “Describe it. I want to have a picture of Arlen Ford’s kitchen in my mind.”
“Um, okay. The kitchen. Well, it’s white and wood. Very simple, but everything’s there.”
“Do you like to cook?”
“Very much.”
“Me too. That’s when I feel cleanest. Everything makes sense. A woman who smokes and likes to cook. That’s good.”
There was a loud metallic noise, a scraping sound, from his end.
“What’s that?”
“It’s outside. A woman and boy are dragging a man on an upside-down car hood past the store. There’s a hospital near here.” He stopped and there was a long pause. I felt I was right there and could see that man on the car hood. I asked if he wanted to talk about what he’d seen there. There was another silence, as if he were trying to decide. “No. I want to tell you why I took those pictures of you.”
Naturally my heart hopped into my head and started pounding all across my temples. The moment of truth! Let me tell it to you in his words, as best I can remember. It was so beautiful and touching.
He said, “I’ve been down here for a few weeks. It was all right at the beginning. I was here before on vacation and on assignment for the winter Olympics a few years ago. But now the whole country’s eating itself alive. When it got too much, I asked for R and R in Vienna. Give me a few days off and some calm scenery and I’ll be ready again. I’ll give you all the blood and flames you want for your front pages. They said okay, so I went up there and just walked around, did nothing. Went to museums, took off my watch, made no plans. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen, which is rare for me. Maybe because there are so many Yugoslavians in Vienna. I’d see them and wonder if they’d lost someone in the war, or if they were worried about family back home. Overload. Sometimes you get overloaded doing this and can’t shake it off by closing your eyes or taking a vacation. It sticks like a cockleburr on your brain.
“I rented a bicycle at Nussdorf and rode it up along the river to Klosterneuburg. I was black. My thoughts were so dark and sad that day. What was I going to do? Go back to Yugoslavia and take more pictures of dead people? Blood and bodies? I know a photographer who changes the position of bodies so that they’ll look more fascinating in his pictures.
“Right in the middle of that darkness, I saw you. You and your red dog. Unbelievable! A vision! As God said, There are nice things in the world too. Arlen Ford walks her dog by the Danube. What were the chances of that happening? Meeting up with you like that?” He stopped and said something in another language to someone nearby. They spoke quickly back and forth before he came back on. I asked what was happening. He said the guy who owned the store “wanted to know when he was getting off, so Leland had just given him a hundred dollars American and would hand him another fifty if we talked much longer. I told him that was crazy, but he said it was the best-spent money in weeks.