Never mind, sweetheart, and he took her little paperback dictionary, in order to look up cesma yet again.
So that was our journalist, and why he had come his fellow Americans could scarcely imagine, for where lay the lucre for him? To be sure, he sometimes wondered what had become of the people he once met at Vesna’s; and perhaps he was interested in Vesna even now.
For him it was nearly an adventure. He convinced himself that a new country remained to be explored: the past.
In that season many of the young Muslim women wore matching lavender dresses and hijabs, and that was very nice, but most beautiful of all was a girl dressed all in black, with a black headscarf, brown eyes and red-painted lips; she held a red rose.
Strolling into a travel agency, he requested an interpreter. The woman put him in touch with a friend of hers, a policeman’s son less friendly than polite — but hadn’t they all been that way? The journalist could not recall. The policeman (now retired) had never heard of Enko, and the son knew nothing of Vesna (who, after all, must be too old for the boy), but the journalist remembered that she had lived in Novo Sarajevo; when Enko and Amir drove him to her place they had turned onto Kolodvorska and then, he thought, away from the river. The policeman’s son inquired her last name. She still lived in the same apartment.
She barely remembered him. After all, there had been so many journalists! When he mentioned Mirjana, Anesa, Ivica and Jasmina, she took three beers out of the refrigerator, and they sat down in the living room, yes, here where they had all listened to the shells; and there by the window, the most dangerous place, was where the poet liked to sit, his eyes enslaved by Vesna; the American could not quite remember his face anymore, so he seemed to see instead (since he and his wife had just visited the museum) a sad mosaic-face from Stolac gazing up out of a floral-framed white diamond, where it had been imprisoned ever since the third century.
He and Vesna sat smiling awkwardly at each other while the policeman’s son yawned.
Enko had been killed in one of the last battles for the strategic heights of Mojmilo. Vesna knew his son, who was sixteen. — Do you want me to call him? she asked. I don’t know if he’s working. Probably he wants to meet a foreigner who knew his father.
Well, if it’s no trouble…
The boy’s name was Denis. He was taller than his father. — Who are you? he said.
I knew your father briefly, in ’92.
We don’t like to talk about those times, said Denis. What can I do for you?
How’s Amir? He was your father’s friend—
Uncle Amir? He works for the customs department.
His cell phone rang. The policeman’s son’s cell phone was already ringing.
Wearily, Vesna opened more beers. — You still look beautiful, the journalist told her.
Not anymore. But I don’t care. I’m studying Buddhism.
You never married?
Twice. Where’s your wife?
At the hotel. Cigarette smoke makes her sick.
But everyone here smokes! cried Vesna in amazement. This was the only interesting thing he had said, but it must have been quite interesting indeed; she could not imagine this wife who declined to smoke.
I know, he said. Have you kept in touch with Marko?
Which Marko?
The poet who was in love with you.
He was my second husband. Do you want his cell phone number?
Uncle Amir’s on his way, said Denis. He knows lots of stories. Isn’t that why you’re here? That’s what you journalists do, is make money from our stories.
I don’t know if I’m a journalist anymore.
Then this is a fucking waste of time, said Denis.
At least your uncle will get a beer out of it, said the journalist. Vesna, does the shop across the street sell beer?
I’ll come with you, she said. I need cigarettes.
Denis and the policeman’s son sat gazing out the window. They were sending text messages on their cell phones.
How’s Mirjana? he asked her as they entered the elevator.
She married, and they tried and tried, but never could have children. Now her health’s not good. Also, her husband is a real bastard, so maybe it’s better we don’t phone them.
I remember that she used to tell about a Serb in her building who would cheer whenever a shell came in—
Oh, that crazy Boris? He’s still there. Very elderly now.
He said: I’ve never forgotten sitting with you and your friends at this place, listening for the shells.
Her face seemed to tighten, although he could have imagined that. She said: And you didn’t come back after ’92?
No, I didn’t. Once I tried, but we had an accident—
Well. Near the end of the war, the Serbs didn’t have so much ammunition anymore, but they’d kept these airplane grenades. When they had no more surface-to-surface missiles, they modified the grenades. And these had a very specific sound. We called them pig grenades, because they made a grunting noise. If you were very good, you knew by the sound where it was fired and exactly where in the town it would fall. I remember when we would stop and listen to it for a minute, and then we would say: Oh, it won’t fall here.
I understand, said the journalist.
One of those pig grenades fell in front of the radio-television station. It took out four floors.
The journalist was silent.
Mortar shells made a hissing sound, said Vesna, hoping to help him feel as well as understand. They were almost like bullets in that respect. You remember?
Yes—
But pig grenades, they roared when they came close. You could see the birds fly. You could always know the Serbs were bombing the town when we would see the birds fly, and just after that we would hear the grenades. I remember it. You’d think that the sky was black. Pigeons, crows, just flying into the opposite side of the city… Oh, well. You didn’t see that.
No, I didn’t.
I remember in the beginning of the war people went down into the basement, but it wasn’t really a basement; half was aboveground; socialist skyscrapers weren’t designed for shelters. After two or three months, no one went to the basement anymore. You would have had to be nuts going down eleven flights of stairs to the basement, because the attacks never stopped. But when they developed those pig grenades, we started going down again into the basement. When they took those four floors out by the radio-television building, that was the first time I was afraid.
The journalist lowered his head. He remembered the fear on her face when the shells were coming in, long before pig grenades. But who could say that his memory was any better than hers?
He bought her a pack of cigarettes. For the party, such as it was, he took a case of canned beer, the one she recommended because it was cheap.
Was Enko a particular friend of yours? she asked.
Well, I liked you better.
Of course. I’m a woman. Such likings are not important.
You were important to me.
Smiling, she said: I’m sorry, but I still can’t remember you.
Why should you? It was only for a week or two. And is Enko’s mother alive?
No. It was after that second massacre in the market, but just now I don’t remember how long after. I must be getting old.
When Amir came in, the journalist would not have recognized him. Outside the shop of the beer and cigarettes there had been a newspaper kiosk, and beside that a café at the closest of whose tables sat two skinny old men whose hair had withered to grey moss on their skulls, leaning together, clutching tiny white cups of coffee in their claws, watching him and Vesna out of the corners of their eyes. He wondered what they must have seen and heard. Amir could have been their elder brother. He gazed steadily into the journalist’s eyes. Then, very slowly, he smiled.