Rose of Sarajevo (2 page)

Nimeta had been sent to Belgrade to cover the funeral for Bosnian television. A secret police agent expelled from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1966 for bugging Tito’s phone, Ranković had come to embody Serbian nationalism and the worst nightmares of the Albanians. After helping ultranationalism take root across the country, he’d died, as all mortals do. Tens of thousands of Serbs attended his funeral on behalf of ethnic Serbs living in all of Yugoslavia’s republics. A large press contingent watched this racist show of strength from a variety of vantage points. And that’s how, on August 20, 1983, Nimeta met Stefan Stefanoviç, a journalist from Zagreb.

Reporters from every Yugoslavian republic except Serbia decided after the funeral to send letters of protest to the mayor of Belgrade at the time, Ivan Stambolić, for having failed to keep the crowds under control. Stambolić, who would become president of Serbia in 1986, had simply looked on that day in 1983 and done nothing.

Along with the other journalists, Stefan and Nimeta had gone to the bar of a large hotel to have a postfuneral drink. Stefan’s dark eyes were locked on Nimeta’s blue ones all night. Though they were surrounded by people, she saw only him; among the babble of voices, she heard only his. She could feel the heat of his body. It was a sensation she hadn’t felt for many years, whose very existence she’d completely forgotten. For the first time in her life, she’d wondered what it would be like to cheat on her husband. What about Hana, her little girl, her baby? And Fiko, whom she adore
d . . .
Still, she’d allowed this strange, dark man to engage her in conversation, to propel her to the dance floor, to pull her close, to breathe on her neck, to take her captive and transport her to other shores. When they’d returned to their hotel at the end of a long night in the bar, she’d been helpless to stop him from guiding her to his room, from unbuttoning her blouse, from brushing her breasts with his lips. She was on fire, and he could do whatever he pleased.

That night she felt as though she were slipping into sleep not in a hotel room but somewhere by the sea, stretched out on the sand, the waves crashing against the shore, rocking her. A steady stream of stars rained down from the night sky, somewhere on a distant planet. Never before had her heart raced and her blood pulsed quite like that.

The next morning, when she woke up in Stefan’s bed, weeping tears of shame, regret, and joy, she’d said, “Perhaps that demon whose funeral we attended yesterday captured my soul, Stefan. How else could I have done this?”

“Our souls have indeed been captured, Nimeta, but not by Ranković.”

Nimeta was unable to raise her tearful eyes from the floor. Cupping her chin, Stefan had lifted her head until her eyes met his and said, “Darling, it’s love that’s taken us captive.”

Nimeta had left Stefan and returned to Sarajevo. She’d written her articles and prepared her news bulletins. She’d cooked for her husband and children, and scoured the house from top to bottom, astonishing Milica, who came twice a week to do the cleaning, with her housekeeping skills. She’d taken on extra duties at the television station and hadn’t complained when Burhan was sent away to work on new projects. She’d fully expected to get the better of her heart.

But Mirsada, her friend and confidant since childhood, had said, “You’re done for. Just one bite of the forbidden fruit and there’s no turning back. You’re in for it, Nimeta.” Somehow, Mirsada had understood what lay in store for her better than Nimeta herself.

“The meeting’s about to start. Better get a move on. What is it with you this morning, anyway?” Sonya was right up in her face.

Nimeta scooped up her pen and notebook, and they walked over to Ivan’s office together. An unusually large group had gathered around the conference table.

“There have been some interesting developments, guys,” Ivan said.

He picked up the pile of newspapers in front of him and distributed them to his colleagues. As they scanned the newspapers from all the various republics, he coughed lightly, as though to clear his throat, and continued.

“Even the Belgrade papers are criticizing that damn memorandum, but there hasn’t been a peep from their leader, Milošević. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?”

“Give it a little time,” Ibo said. “Milošević’s stooge, Dušan Mitević, is going to make a speech to the local party group. I’m sure that Milošević plans to use Mitević as his mouthpiece.”

“Doesn’t the guy have a mouth of his own?” Sonya asked.

“Milošević knows how to play his cards close to his chest. Didn’t he rise to his post by dancing to President Stambolić’s tune?”

They went on to discuss what measures to take if Serbian nationalism morphed into outright racism.

“I think we’re being naïve,” Mate said. “It’s already happened. They’ve already set it all in motion. Who could stop the Serbs now?”

“You’ve got friends in Zagreb, Nimeta. Talk to them and find out that what they think,” Ivan said.

After the meeting, Nimeta called Stefan’s newspaper. For the first time since she’d known him, they spoke not as lovers but colleagues. Sounding grave and worried, he agreed with her that the memorandum signaled disaster. For the first time, he was all business and didn’t mention Burhan’s return or divorce. He didn’t even tell her how much he missed her, how much he wanted to kiss her lips, her neck, her throat. He simply informed her that he would fax the relevant information within the hour and that they would need to speak again the following day. The click of the receiver seemed to shake Nimeta out of a deep three-year sleep; she felt surprised, worried, and a little dejected.

The journalists waited. Milošević’s stooge, Dušan Mitević, delivered a speech in which he proclaimed the memorandum to be a grave threat to both Yugoslavia and Serbia. A paper reflecting the government’s views published the speech in its entirety. There still hadn’t been a peep from Milošević, and Dušan’s words were incorrectly assumed to be his own. Sensible people everywhere heaved a sigh of relief.

That night Nimeta gave Burhan a typically subdued welcome, but this time they had a long talk about her day at work. Burhan had heard about the memorandum and was worried. The Croatians in Knin had reacted much more vehemently than the Bosniaks in Bosnia, which had influenced his own reaction.

“What does your journalist friend in Zagreb have to say about all this?” he asked.

“Stefan, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Ivan spoke to him today. Zagreb’s more alarmed over this than Bosnia.”

“Sometimes I can’t help feeling like there’s an ill-omened bird gliding over our heads, Nimeta,” Burhan said.

“That bird took wing three years ago at Ranković’s funeral. Let’s just see when and where it lands.”

Her husband gave her an odd look over his eyeglasses, or so it seemed to Nimeta.

When they retired to their room for the night, Burhan held his wife, but he didn’t make love to her. Nimeta lay frozen in her husband’s arms, afraid that if she woke him he would.

Stefan called the following morning after Burhan and the children had left the house.

“I couldn’t tell him, Stefan,” Nimeta said. “I can’t tell him that I don’t love him, that I love someone else, and I want a divorce. I’ll never be able to tell him that. Forgive me.”

“Nimeta, that’s because you love Burhan,” Stefan said.

“No, Stefan. I’m madly in love with you. I think about you and miss you all the time. You’re the only man I want to make love to.”

“You’re in love with me, but you love your husband.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s clear you don’t want to hurt him, even to further your own happiness. How do I know? Because not only am I in love with you, Nimeta, I love you. I love you too much to upset you, which is why I keep forgiving you.”

“Try to understand, Stefan,” Nimeta said. “The next time we meet, I’ll explain it all to you in person. When are you coming to Sarajevo?”

“Not for a long time. A position’s opened up in London, and I applied for it today.”

“Are you serious?” she asked. Her voice trembled.

“I am.”

“I don’t believe it, Stefan. Are you telling me that I’ll never see you again?”

“We’ll see each other. But if we meet as lovers, we’re doing it on my terms. You know what I expect.”

“You’re a man. You’re not attached to anyone. I’m the one who’s in an impossible position. You’re asking me to break up my family.”

“I can’t share your love, Nimeta.”

“You’re not!
I . . . I . . .
”

“I asked you to make a choice. You’ve made it.”

“It’s not a choice I wanted to make. I had to. I’ve got obligations.”

“You get to choose the way you prioritize your obligations.”

“You’re really going to punish me by going off to London?”

“I’m not doing it to punish you.”

“Then why are you going?”

“To forget you.”

“Will you be able to forget me? Is this possible?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Well, I don’t need to try to forget you to know I never could.”

“I have to try.”

“Why?”

“Because the woman I love is unable to share her life with me.”

“I’m doing everything I can, you know that. I do everything I can to see you every chance I get. I lie and make excuses to my family and friends to create opportunities to see you.”

“It’s not enough for me, Nimeta. This is no way to live. Either you come with me, or I have to end the relationship.”

“Do what you want, Stefan,” Nimeta said dryly.

When she hung up the phone, she sat motionless, her arms and legs paralyzed. She knew she’d never forget Stefan for as long as she lived. But he evidently thought that he might be able to forget her by putting some distance between them. The man she’d loved for three years believed that a few thousand kilometers would take care of everything.

Their love had been so intense that she had no idea what she’d do without it or him. As memories of their time together flashed through her mind, tears began streaming down her cheeks. For three years something would catch in her throat every time the phone on her desk rang. What if it was him? If it was, the world would recede. In his voice was birdsong.

Whenever Stefan made one of his frequent visits to Sarajevo, they’d meet in the bar of the Hotel Evropa. Even if they found themselves surrounded by colleagues, they heard and saw only each other, just as they had on that first day. Stefan had rented a flat in Alipašino Polje, near Nimeta’s office. It was easy for them to meet, since Burhan was so often out of town. Nimeta would stop at Stefan’s for a few hours on her way home from work. There, with him, she was transformed from a mother of two careening toward middle age to a woman of joy and passion. At the touch of Stefan’s hand, her breasts seemed to grow more firm and her curves more rounded.

Nimeta had gone to Zagreb twice on business, and once, during a national holiday, she’d claimed to have work there. They were more carefree in Zagreb, where nobody knew her. Nimeta had reveled in being able to go out for candlelit dinners and stroll hand in hand in the streets and parks.

After a while, though, their relationship had begun to hit some road bumps. They weren’t spending enough time together for Stefan. Although Nimeta felt the same way, Stefan made an issue of it. Finally, he’d forced her to make a choice, dismissing her protestations about not being able to abandon her children. “You don’t have to leave them behind,” he’d said. “I’ll move to Sarajevo. My work allows me that flexibility.”

For the first time in her life, Nimeta had rebelled that day. She could be stubborn and capricious, and demanding of her husband in particular, but she’d always been reluctant to do anything that would create turmoil in her orderly life, even back when she had been an impetuous teenager.

In the early 1970s, she and her family had gone to Istanbul to visit relatives her parents hadn’t seen for years. Nimeta was about fifteen or sixteen at the time, a willowy, fair-skinned girl with wheat-colored hair. Istanbul had so enchanted her and her family that they returned several times a year after that, always staying in the summer house of their relatives in Erenköy.

Even today she still treasured her memories of those wonderful holidays spent giggling and cavorting with cousins in the cafés on Bağdat Avenue, eating ice cream, meeting local boys at the open-air summer cinemas, renting rowboats at the seasid
e . . .
During one of those summers, she’d flirted with a boy who lived next door. Back in Bosnia, she found herself counting the days until summer and started learning Turkish to better decipher the letters she received from her first love.

Near the end of one summer, not long before her family planned to return to Bosnia, the family next door had paid a visit to ask her parents for her hand. Her father had looked favorably on the proposal, but her mother, Raziyanım, had not.

“You said you were going to send her to university,” she’d said to her husband.

“Istanbul has universities.”

“She doesn’t even know proper Turkish,” said Raziyanım.

“She’ll learn.”

“But Nimeta’s my only daughter.”

“All the more reason to make sure she has the best of everything.”

“What’s so good about that boy?”

“He has a degree, he’s well mannered, and he’s handsome.”

“Sarajevo’s swarming with handsome, well-mannered boys with degrees.”

“That’s true, but who can predict what’ll happen to Sarajevo when Tito dies. Istanbul is Turkish and has been Ottoman for five centuries. She can put down roots and feel secure in her future. Don’t be selfish.”

“If we’re going to marry her off to a Turk, then we might as well pack our things and move to Istanbul ourselves,” Raziyanım said.

Nimeta was as in love as only an eighteen-year-old who has given away her heart for the first time can be. Even so, she was unable to rebel against her mother. She’d cried during the entire hastily arranged trip home, not once looking at her mother’s face. She’d kept the roses he’d given her that day, dried and hidden away. Months passed before she smiled at anyone in her family. They didn’t return to Istanbul, not the following year, nor ever again.