How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (17 page)

A wonderful trip

I go to Igalo with my parents every summer. The entire factory where my father works goes to Igalo. The syndicate moves people from a small town without any seaside to stay for a month in a small town that does have a seaside. There's an artists' colony in Igalo, so the only person who looks forward to going to Igalo is my father. The men and women in the artists' colony wear their hair long and nothing else, and Father is depressed when he has to put a tie on again at home. It's hard to say whether my mother looks forward to Igalo, or anything else at all.

“Right, family this year we're going to . . . ,” cried my father last week in the tones of an enthusiastic TV presenter, waving the hotel prospectuses.

“Oh, Papa, you're only talking like that because I'm supposed to show Mr. Fazlagic, not-Comrade-Teacher-now, that I know how to use quotation marks.”

“Yes, and what's more, I never talk like an enthusiastic TV presenter.”

“Igalo-o!” said my mother with the voice of a weary TV presenter announcing misery to come, and unable to do anything about it, she went to pack.

It might really have been a wonderful trip that year if Mr. Spok had come with us. A nice trip for Mr. Spok, Comrade in Chief of the town drunks, who never goes away anywhere. When I see Mr. Spok staggering across the street I can't help thinking of my Grandpa Rafik, which isn't easy, because I don't remember his face, all I know is a story about a drowned man. I feel sorry for a frog because it doesn't realize we're about to set it alight, I feel sorry for Uncle Bora because he makes himself do knee bends but can never manage it, I feel sorry for you, Mr. Fazlagic, because you'll soon forget how to laugh if you don't stop looking so grim. And I feel sorry for Mr. Spok, who says: “I'm worse off than a mongrel dog, I don't even have a pack of other dogs to run with. Everything around me is made of stone—streets, mountains, hearts. I'm never near the sea.”

I wanted to give Mr. Spok the sea, that would be the most wonderful trip imaginable for him. I wrote “Prizewinner!” on a picture postcard, and “Mr. Spok,” and “Igalo.” I congratulated Mr. Spok, but I didn't shake hands with him. That was the most difficult bit. I invited Mr. Spok to our place so that he could shower and comb his hair. After the first shower, I asked him to shower again. I asked the now showered and combed Mr. Spok if he knew how to shave, but he didn't. As part of the prize I gave him one of the two suits in my father's wardrobe and four ties, because I knew how much Father hated ties. I put on the trousers that my parents thought were my best pair. Thus prepared, showered, combed and sober, Mr. Spok and I waited in my parents' living room. I asked Mr. Spok if he could cry at will.

My mother came home first, and she just asked if Mr. Spok was a vegetarian. “I eat anything,” he said, so I gave him an apple, two slices of bread and two eggs, he could cook those for himself later, there wasn't any time now, Father was already coming through the door. I called out in a TV presenter's voice, “Family, we're going to Igalo this year, and we're going wi-i-ith . . .” I pointed to Mr. Spok, who began to cry dreadfully. I raised my eyebrows, pleading, and hugged my father, which certainly struck both of us as odd.

“Aleksandar, go to my studio!” he ordered, and Mr. Spok stopped crying. “This is really a social question,” he told me. “The fact is, I'm afraid that only family members can benefit from the syndicate's offers. Mr. Spokovic can't come too. I'm sorry.”

“Couldn't you and Mama adopt Mr. Spok? That would solve two problems at once. He could come to Igalo with us, and I wouldn't be an only child anymore.”

“Those aren't real problems, son.”

“This isn't a real conversation, Father.”

“Give my regards to Mr. Fazlagic.”

“I will.”

“All the same, you haven't written about a wonderful trip.”

“But technically speaking I've done everything right.”

Aleksandar Krsmanović

How to disappear

A wall has fallen down in the better part of Germany, and now only the not-so-good part of Germany is left. The wall was bound to come down sooner or later, that's what everyone says. Uncle Bora the guest worker, every family should have one, says the not-so-good part of Germany is better from his point of view because it pays him, and because there are a hundred houses all the same in a row there, no one feels envious, and there are traffic rules you can understand, and the traffic lights don't just stick, they really can go green, and there's Lothar Matthäus, and there are tampons for Auntie Typhoon. Tampons are little cotton-wool sticks, Auntie Typhoon puts them inside her to slow her down a bit. We can sometimes get tampons here too, but maybe they don't work with people who move really fast, I'm not sure about that.

Now that the business about the wall has been settled, we have AIDS here and a power failure. Happy people are waving black, dark gray and pale gray flags on top of the high wall, which doesn't look at all as if it has fallen over. While they're having a good time up there, other people are still working down below, knocking little stones out of the wall. My Uncle Bora says: the Germans work the whole time.

Germany looks very congested, people everywhere, you can't even see the street anymore.

Here comes the news broadcaster with the neat and tidy hair again. Epidemic, he says; USA, he says; sexually transmitted diseases, he says; another four cases confirmed in Yugoslavia, he says. AIDS, he says, raising an eyebrow. Astronauts are looking through little telescopes now, and someone says: “virus” and “blood” and “fatal.”

Now that the wall has fallen over in the better part of Germany, all the bad things are coming our way! The power failure comes our way too—Granny is alarmed, there's no sound, the TV set just crackles and goes black. It must be something like this when you're alive and then suddenly you're not alive anymore. You feel a bit frightened, and then someone lights a candle. Grandpa does that here, and in the candlelight the faces around the table turn the color of baked potato halves suffering from AIDS.

On a single evening I learn how walls fall down, how people fall down, how even the light falls down; a sickness is always to blame, and once things fall down they disappear. The better part of Germany fell sick and disappeared. I understand about disappearing. AIDS is a proud sickness, it doesn't even recognize small letters, it doesn't bother with anything like coughing and patting the dog. It wants our blood.

I lie on the carpet. Lying on the carpet I can't fall down or cut my finger and get AIDS. All the same, I wait while Grandpa Slavko, Granny Katarina, Auntie Typhoon and Uncle Bora play rummy in the candlelight; I'm waiting to disappear.

Why Či ka Doctor cut the calf
of someone's leg open

Bikers zoom through Vi
šegrad. Austrians, Swiss, Italians. The Germans have the biggest motorbikes. Michael rides a Kawasaki, Jürgen rides a Honda. Čika Doctor says: Germany and Japan have always been good friends, they just don't like to remember it.

Sometimes there are two of them, entirely encased in leather, on one motorbike. The leather bikers drink lemonade in the Estuary Restaurant and say they like our rivers. Čika Doctor—we call him that because he once cut the calf of someone's leg open—winks at us, meaning: it's more than just ordinary lemonade I serve the bikers. If Čika Doctor has no customers to serve, and nothing to do, he sits in the hotel garden, snaps his pocketknife open and shut, and sleeps in the sun.

We've counted fifteen bikers since June, but we aren't always standing there counting the bikers.

There's something of myself in it, says Čika Doctor, letting us in on the secret of his lemonade. He doesn't say which part of himself, and anyway, we'd never be able to give the secret away to the leather Germans, because for ideological reasons words where they live are not the same as here, where no one rides a motorbike like theirs because no one would venture out into the street in that weird leather gear.

Edin and I are sharing a lemonade at Čika Doctor's hotel, sitting there with our legs wide apart and acting as if we were Germans.
Hans kugel kluf nust lust bayern meinen danke danke
. We do it so that maybe Čika Doctor will tell us which part of himself he adds to the Germans' lemonade.

Why Vukoje Worm whose nose has been broken three times doesn't break mine

Tito was taken down from the classrooms today, and Vukoje Worm swore he'd take me apart after school.

The bell rings for the end of the last period. Everyone storms out of the classroom. Vukoje points at me and draws his thumb across his throat. Edin shrugs. I'm right in there with you, he says, that way he'll have to try thumping both of us at once and he'll get tired more quickly.

Edin has some excellent ideas.

Vukoje Worm, whose nose has been broken three times, is waiting in the school yard. He's not alone. Hi, Vukoje, old friend, how are you? I call. Vukoje takes off his jacket, ties his shoelaces, shoves me several times and asks if I'd rather have kicks, punches or throttles. A crowd of schoolchildren surrounds us at once.

Throttles, I say, because there's no such thing.

Good answer, says a tall young man who walks out of the crowd of kids and plants himself in front of Vukoje. Get lost, he tells Vukoje, or my forehead will make mush of yours.

Vukoje stays there, puts his hands on his hips. There's a little line of freckles on his nose. He spits out a thin sideways stream of saliva and wags a finger at me menacingly. Only when Vukoje and his friends jog slowly off do I recognize my rescuer, Damir Kičić. cinest soccer player our town has ever produced; he even went to our school.

Thanks, I say after the other kids have started off for home, looking disappointed.

I wouldn't have minded seeing it, really, says Damir.

Edin goes Cuckoo!, folds his hands and cracks his knuckles. Vukoje wouldn't have stood a chance against us, he says.

Damir, what are you doing in our town? I ask. I thought you played in Sarajevo now.

Damir laughs. Call me Kiko, he says.

Kiko, is it true what people say about you being able to knock the ball up into the air with your head as often as you like? asks Edin. Aren't they exaggerating?

We could always have a bet on it . . . Kiko scratches his forehead, and the bet is one we can't possibly lose. Kiko laughs, the Adam's apple under the skin of his throat jumps up and down, and we shake hands on the deal.

Twelve noon on Sunday. The school yard's empty except for a little girl who is carefully riding around on her bike for the very first time, with her mother holding on to the saddle.

Edin brings the ball with him. We shoot at goal a couple of times.

Do you think he'll come? asks Edin.

Of course he'll come. Got the money?

You know it's summer when the ball bounces and it's so hot that the heat is a space, the leather smacks down on the concrete inside that space and it echoes. If I were a magician who could make things possible, then winter and autumn would be two special days sometime in November, spring would be another word for April, and the rest of the year would be summer, with life echoing, asphalt melting, and Mother putting yogurt on my sunburn.

Here he is. Give me the money.

Hi, boys!

Hi!

Nice and hot, eh?

Yes.

Got the cash?

You don't need to count it, I say, handing Kiko the bundle of notes. He licks his thumb and forefinger and sorts out the crumpled notes in his hand. Gives me his stake. You'd better count it, he says.

All present and correct, I say.

Then let's start.

Just a moment! Edin has a ruler in his hand. He puts it against Kiko's foot and works his way up his leg to his thigh, over his hip and up to his head. He has to stretch a good way for the last bit. The little girl's mother has let go of her, she's screeching and wobbling as she rides the bike, she slows down and falls forward, braking with her feet. The mother claps, the little girl shouts at her: you didn't hold on to me, you let go, she screeches, again, again! she demands.

Edin says: a hundred and ninety-two.

Grown four centimeters since last week, not bad going, grins Kiko, taking off his shirt and throwing up the ball. One, two, counts Edin, three, four, and the heat is a little girl screeching on a bike, five, six, he counts, and late summer is a bet one-hundred- and-ninety-two centimeters high, seven, eight, he counts, and the girl shouts: look, Mama, I'm riding, I'm riding my bike, I can do it! nine, ten, we count, and at ten Kiko begins to whistle, eleven, twelve, he stands there hardly moving, only ducking his head slightly before the ball touches his forehead each time, at thirteen he heads it high into the air, it's unlucky not to do that, he calls, and the ball flies and flies, and Edin says: fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, a hundred, a hundred and one, a hundred and two, a hundred and three, a hundred and four, a hundred and five, a hundred and six, a hundred and seven, a hundred and eight, a hundred and nine, a hundred and ten, a hundred and eleven, a hundred and twelve, a hundred and thirteen, a hundred and fourteen, a hundred and fifteen, a hundred and sixteen, a hundred and seventeen, a hundred and eighteen, a hundred and nineteen, a hundred and twenty, a hundred and twenty-one, a hundred and twenty-two, a hundred and twenty-three, a hundred and twenty-four, a hundred and twenty-five, a hundred and twenty-six, a hundred and twenty-seven, a hundred and twenty-eight, a hundred and twenty-nine, a hundred and thirty, a hundred and thirty-one, a hundred and thirty-two, a hundred and thirty-three, a hundred and thirty-four, a hundred and thirty-five, a hundred and thirty-six, a hundred and thirty-seven, a hundred and thirty-eight, a hundred and thirty-nine, a hundred and forty, a hundred and forty-one, a hundred and forty-two, a hundred and forty-three, a hundred and forty-four, a hundred and forty-five, a hundred and forty-six, a hundred and forty-seven, a hundred and forty-eight, a hundred and forty-nine, a hundred and fifty, a hundred and fifty-one, a hundred and fifty-two, a hundred and fifty-three, a hundred and fifty-four, a hundred and fifty-five, a hundred and fifty-six, a hundred and fifty-seven, a hundred and fifty-eight, a hundred and fifty-nine, a hundred and sixty, a hundred and sixty-one, a hundred and sixty-two, a hundred and sixty-three, a hundred and sixty-four, a hundred and sixty-five, a hundred and sixty-six, a hundred and sixty-seven, a hundred and sixty-eight, a hundred and sixty-nine, a hundred and seventy, a hundred and seventy-one, a hundred and seventy-two, a hundred and seventy-three, a hundred and seventy-four, a hundred and seventy-five, a hundred and seventy-six, a hundred and seventy-seven, a hundred and seventy-eight, a hundred and seventy-nine, a hundred and eighty, a hundred and eighty-one, a hundred and eighty-two, a hundred and eighty-three, a hundred and eighty-four, a hundred and eighty-five, a hundred and eighty-six, a hundred and eighty-seven, a hundred and eighty-eight, a hundred and eighty-nine, a hundred and ninety, a hundred and ninety-one, a hundred and ninety-two.