ALSO BY WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN
You Bright and Risen Angels (1987)
The Rainbow Stories (1989)
The Ice-Shirt (1990)
Whores for Gloria (1991)
Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs (1991)
An Afghanistan Picture Show (1992)
Fathers and Crows (1992)
Butterfly Stories (1993)
The Rifles (1994)
The Atlas (1996)
The Royal Family (2000)
Argall (2001)
Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means (2003)
Europe Central (2005)
Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (2006)
Poor People (2007)
Riding Toward Everywhere (2008)
Imperial (2009)
Imperial: Photographs (2009)
Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theatre (2010)
The Book of Dolores (2013)
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014
Copyright © 2014 by William T. Vollmann
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“The Forgetful Ghost” first appeared in Vice magazine;
“Widow’s Weeds” first appeared in Agni.
Illustrations by the author
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Vollmann, William T.
[Stories. Selections]
Last stories and other stories / William T. Vollmann.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-698-13548-2
I. Title.
PS3572.O395A6 2014
813’.54—dc23 2013047856
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER
It is the custom for the barber to shave the deceased, to powder him, whiten his face and rouge his
cheeks and lips, and dress him in a frock coat with patent leather shoes and black trousers, as if going
to a ball, may God forbid—this shall not happen to Makso.
—Testament of Hatji Makso Despic, drawn up in Sarajevo, 29 March 1921
CONTENTS
Also by William T. Vollmann
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
To the Reader
Supernatural Axioms
I
Escape (Sarajevo)
Listening to the Shells (Sarajevo)
The Leader (Mostar)
II
The Treasure of Jovo Cirtovich (Trieste)
The Madonna’s Forehead (Trieste)
Cat Goddess (Trieste)
The Trench Ghost (Redipuglia, Tungesnes)
III
The Faithful Wife (“Bohemia” and Trieste)
Doroteja (“Bohemia”)
The Judge’s Promise (“Bohemia”)
IV
June Eighteenth (Trieste and Querétaro)
The Cemetery of the World (Veracruz)
Two Kings in Ziñogava (Veracruz)
V
The White-Armed Lady (Stavanger)
Where Your Treasure Is (Stavanger, Lillehammer)
The Memory Stone (Stavanger)
The Narrow Passage (Stavanger)
The Queen’s Grave (Klepp)
Star of Norway (Lillehammer)
VI
The Forgetful Ghost (Tokyo)
The Ghost of Rainy Mountain (Nikko)
The Camera Ghost (Tokyo)
The Cherry Tree Ghost (Kyoto, Nikko)
Paper Ghosts (Tokyo)
VII
Widow’s Weeds (Kauai, Paris)
The Banquet of Death (Buenos Aires)
The Grave-House (Unknown)
Defiance (Unknown)
Too Late (Toronto)
VIII
When We Were Seventeen (U.S.A.)
IX
The Answer (Unknown)
Goodbye (Kamakura)
And a Postscript
Sources and Notes
Acknowledgments
TO THE READER
T
his is my final book. Any subsequent productions bearing my name will have been composed by a
ghost. As I watch this world turn past my window, I wonder how I should have lived. Now that it
seems too late to alter myself, I decline to complain; indeed, my only regret is that pleasure comes to
an end. Wherever there is a rose, runs the ancient Gulistan, there is a thorn; and when wine is drunk
there is a hangover; where treasure is buried there is a snake; where there is the noble pearl there are
sharks; the pain of death follows the pleasures of life, and the delights of Paradise are hidden by a
wall of ill.— This wall of ill, won’t you view it with me? Through my late father’s binoculars, its
aggregates of bloody leaves resemble coral or scrambled eggs, all washed and blended by watercolor
fogs. Now let’s step up to count vines and snakes! If you’ll kindly verify my tally, I promise to prove
that for all its deadliness, our wall of ill remains no less green and delicious. To be stung by that
poisonous creeper over there might even induce an orgasm; for its leaves bear undeniably precious
speckles, and there appear to be vermilion dewdrops upon its urticating hairs. And don’t forget to lick
Malkhut, the Unlighted Mirror! Some of you may decline, in keeping with the axiom: This shall not
happen to Makso. But why not make the occasion a dress ball, should the hole in the ground prove
wide enough? As for me, even when I dance I long to describe everything—not least, the elephants
who carry great blossoms on their braided trunks, and the green monkeys standing on the elephants’
heads—for what “posterity” declines to censor, time will blight, causing happy new generations of the
ignorant to suppose that our wall of ill was never better than a hedge of grey thorns, so read me now!
For I do see beauty; I retain my sexual hopes! Consider that bluish-faced crested iguana over there
with the white-banded flesh; the way it watches me while slowly drawing itself along a branch can’t
help but put me in mind of miscegenatory sports. Having heard so much, you still don’t care to crawl
closer? Pick a rose with me; sip a bitter cup—or would you rather dive for noble pearls in your own
private cesspool? Infinity, I am sure, will kiss you in this blue and green and cloudy land. Or should
you prefer doctrine to sensation, I’ll guide you through barbed wire past Makso’s grave (and mine) to
the Last Meadow, where my favorite moss-bearded prophet has nearly finished computing the answer
to the following test of intellect: Is it better to lose all quickly or slowly—or best never to have been
born? He has already taught me the names of the evil angels. He says: There is no means through
which those who have been born can escape dying. Therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the
terms of the world.— I’ll believe him—so long as I can whiten my face and dance with an iguana. My
prophet intimates that both may be possible. He runs a barbering business on the side. He’ll rouge
your cheeks and lips for next to nothing. When prostitutes can’t help you anymore, let him sell you a
hole! He’s shown me how to play with death as did Newton with thought-pebbles. Before he got
enlightened, he used to worry that you and I would feel sad upon learning how small we are. He
himself is big. He says: You too will come to comprehend, if you but keep to the ill-ward path.— It
was he who first led me to the pale river which is white in the morning, brown in the afternoon. Down
this chalky way of rusty ships and crescent-boats sail people whom I used to know; they will transfer
at various terminals, and then, somewhere I have not been, all of them, those rich crowds with red or
yellow umbrellas, those poor men with the sacks on their heads, those longhaired women in flowerpatterned dresses, will go swarming off the last ferry into the rain. Wasn’t that Makso over there? And
didn’t my pretty lizard just make a getaway? Sharpening his razor, my prophet advises me to make my
own fun. I may as well stay here overnight, polishing these last stories until they’re good enough to
bury in the ground.
I see trees head on, in layers and layers, and now the river has turned to jade, because it reflects
bamboos muted by the humid sky. Behind a stand of needle-leaved whipping-trees comes a mountain
of writhing cobras; and from within that mountain I hear the hoarse rapid laughter of children.
A man and a woman sit across from each other, and on the round table between them lies a perfectly
wrapped box of sweets. The man opens it. The woman smiles; her finger hovers, for each candy is a
different color and shape, with a unique poison at its heart. She takes a pale jade jelly with sesame
seeds on top. He takes a red one made of bean paste. She touches his hand. They gaze down into their
candy box. Just so I gaze into my lovely wall of ill.
WTV
Sacramento 2005–2013
SUPERNATURAL AXIOMS
1. To the extent that the dead live on, the living must resemble them.
2. Confessing such resemblance, we should not reject the possibility that we might at this very
moment be dead.
3. Since life and death are the only two states which we can currently postulate, then to the extent that
they are the same, immortality, and even eternal consciousness, seems possible.
a. We do not remember what we might have been before birth. This, and only this, gives hope of
oblivion.— Insufficient!
b. Many religions, not to mention our own egocentric incapacity to imagine the world without us,
collude in asserting the existence of an afterlife.
c. The universe is at best indifferent. Since eternal consciousness would be the worst torture
possible, and God’s own writings under various aliases hint at such a possibility, why not
expect it?
d. Besides, a ghost told me so.
ESCAPE
T
hat green light and humid summer air, the cigarette scent of hotels, the way that as the women
aged they widened and solidified and their voices deepened; and then the way that the weather so
often altered so that the green light would go grey or white; the loud and prolonged clacking of the key
in the lock across the corridor, followed by footsteps echoing smashingly down the stairs, the dogs’
barking in early morning, all these stigmata of peacetime faded just as the shell-holes and bullet-holes
should have done a decade ago, and the story of the lovers began.
Many men have been conquered by the way a Sarajevo girl parts her lips when she is blowing smoke
rings, holding the cigarette beside her ear. Because Zoran had grown up with Zlata, he could hardly
have said how or when he lost his freedom; but on a certain evening of green light, he found himself
sitting beside her in the park, and while the birds sang, his hands went helplessly around her just above
the buttocks; he was bending her backward, his tongue in her mouth; and she was pushing him away,
after which her arm somehow fell around his neck.
On the following evening they were on the same bench, which he straddled, cradling her back and
bending forward to kiss her on the side of the neck while she reclined against him; and the air smelled
like flowers and cigarettes.
His face was large and strong. His skin was smooth. He kept his hair short, and his eyes were
brownish-green.
Sometimes Zlata needed to torture her sweethearts a trifle to feel alive, to know that she was
stronger than they. Afterward she felt remorse. She used to say to her elder sister: Maybe I’m asking
of them something that they’re not able to give me.— But from him she asked nothing except
everything.
First of all, she informed him, she demanded that he believe in destiny. He promised that she was
his fate. She slammed her tongue into his mouth. He gave her a copper ring. She gave him her
photograph. Their emotions could scarcely be contained in the immense greenness of a Central
European evening.
Her mother, who held a cigarette not quite vertically between two fingers, did not remind her that
Zoran was a Serb, that being of but middling significance in those days; besides, she knew the boy and
liked him.
If we live long enough, it may well be that our virtues turn into agonies; but the memory of first
love sweetens with age. I know a former blonde now gratefully married to an adoring and
understanding older husband, who smilingly steps away whenever she asks some past acquaintance for
news of the boy, now a greyhaired father with a heart murmur, who slept with her no more than three
times (she remembers each one), invited her to travel with him in a foreign country, then abandoned
her there, returning to his other woman, with whom he presently lives on bad terms. He will always
remain the former blonde’s true love. And the husband smiles. With patient craft he invites her back
into his arms.
It was with another sort of indulgence that Zlata’s mother regarded her daughter’s romance. If, God
willing, something came of it, that would be all right. If not, there were other boys, some of whom
even went to mosque.
They took a walk along the river, and somewhere, I cannot say how far from the Vrbanja Most, he
proposed. She replied that she must ask her mother.
She was wearing a low top, and her cleavage made him weak. He squeezed her round the waist until
it hurt; she loved that. She was whispering into his face, and he was smiling. Seeing how they mooned
over each other, her elder sister threw back her head in amused disgust and closed her dark eyes.
Sitting him down, Zlata’s mother said that it must be a long engagement since they were so young;
everyone would wait and see. But he knew that she was not angry. His mother went to see Zlata’s
mother and returned, saying nothing. His father put an arm around his shoulders.
Whenever Zlata had to go home to her parents, Zoran felt anguished, and gazed for half an hour at a
time at her photograph, drinking in her long reddish hair and big round earrings, her brownish-green
eyes beneath the heavy, sleepy lids, the almost cruel nostrils and lush mouth.
Her family lived in the Old Town near the library, so once the war started, the Serbs paid particular
attention to that area, which did, however, offer proximity to the brewery where one could get
drinking water. Less fortunately situated people, such as Zoran, had to bicycle there, risking their lives
to fill a water jug.
By then everyone had balcony gardens with tomatoes, cabbages, onions; and Zlata’s mother was one
of the first to learn how to cut a tomato into small pieces in order to plant them in dirt in a big black
plastic bag. God willing, six or seven new tomatoes might be born. She taught Zoran the trick, and he
showed his parents.
Zoran’s brother got some real coffee, God knows from where, and Zoran took some to Zlata’s
family. Matters certainly could have gone otherwise. I remember being told about the man who killed
two hundred people in Srebrenica; he was from a mixed marriage, but all the same they told him: You
must do it or we kill you.— There were other Serbs like him, and various Muslims and Croats did the
same. But Zlata and Zoran held fast to one another.
After Zlata’s teacher was killed by a sniper, the girl wept for many hours. Zoran sat beside her,
holding her hand.
The Serbs had the leading position in our city, said her mother. We can’t understand what drove
them to shoot us.
Drying her eyes, Zlata told her: Don’t say that in front of him. He’s never been against us!
Zoran smiled meaninglessly at the floor.
Zlata’s mother lit another half-cigarette. She wished to know if he were acquainted with any of
these murderers.
Some of my old colleagues in the office are doing it, said Zlata, squeezing his hand. Now they even
have Romanian girls who are snipers. Let’s get off the subject.
Well, well! Your colleagues! Which ones? Do you mean Darko?
Never mind.
Zoran, let me just ask you this: What should be done with these snipers?
How can I know? I’m not a soldier.
The next day he cycled to the brewery, his mother in the doorway praying after him; and an
antiaircraft gun stalked him lazily without shooting. He felt sweaty between his shoulderblades. Pale
thunderheads cooled the humid greenish and bluish mountains where the snipers were. He threw down
his bike, grabbed the jug, sprinted through the doorway because a gun was often trained on it, entered
the friendly dimness and queued for water. Then he rode to Zlata’s.
The besiegers were shooting, Zlata’s mother licking her lips for fear. He had never seen her look so
ugly. They all sat staring out the window. Zlata pressed her fists against her ears. Suddenly the
tendons arose on her elder sister’s smooth white neck, and she grasped for the wall. They bandaged up
her calf; it was merely a grazing wound. Zlata could not stop screaming.
The next day when there was no shelling, Zoran set out for the brewery, where a yellow-faced old
man lay dark-gaping and bloody, filled the jug, then rode to visit Zlata. Broken glass grinned newly in
the stairwell. The elder sister lay sleeping, with her thin lips turned down like the dark slits of her
clenched eyes. Her hair clung sweatily to her forehead and her face was pale. Zlata was scrubbing the
dishes, using as little water as she could.
Such a beautiful, quiet morning, said her mother, it’s hard to believe. Perhaps they are preparing
some surprise for us.
Zoran said: Even so, we will manage, with God’s help.
Zlata, make some coffee. So delicious, his coffee!
Thanks, but we have plenty at home. Please keep it for yourselves.
Zlata, is he lying? How can there be so much coffee?
Never mind! said the boy, smiling in embarrassment.
Zlata’s mother gazed out the window. She smoked half a cigarette. Presently she went heavily
downstairs, and he took Zlata’s hand.
She’s getting fond of you, said the girl. That’s why she left us alone. Are you happy?
Yes.
Then why don’t you look at me? What’s wrong?
Last night we didn’t sleep well, he said.
Here also it was bad.
Perceiving that the hollows beneath his eyes were the same color as the stubble on his chin, she
longed to kiss him. As she began to pull his head against hers, a shell smashed loudly down, neither
near nor far. She began to scream.
Her mother rushed upstairs. An empty jar fell from her hand and shattered.
Zoran stayed long into the green evening light, holding Zlata’s hand. But before dark he had to go
home, because his family needed water. When he said goodbye, the girl could not stop sobbing. That
half-cruel look of hers which he used to find so erotic had now entirely gone. She was ill. A machine
gun chittered at him as he pedalled round the corner, but he swerved between the buildings whose
dusty window-shards resembled scraps of grey cloth. Perhaps Zlata trusted too much in destiny, which
he attempted not to think about. Passing the white profile of an Austro-Hungarian medallion upon a
sky-blue wall which for some reason had not yet been shelled, he felt desperate at her suffering.
Just as when seen through the window of a rising airplane Bosnia goes blue and then blue-green, her
indistinct patches of greyish-green, cut by whitish roads, now falling into shadow, so his anguish
dimmed down once he made up his mind. His parents had two other sons to help them. He explained
how nervous Zlata was becoming, and his mother said: Do whatever you can to take care of her.— His
father said: That’s right; you heard your mother.
What Zoran now contemplated was merely dangerous, not impossible. For example, fifteen years
after this incident, the Muslim pensioner in the stained blue suit who sat on a bench beneath the trees
on the north bank of the Miljacka told me that his son used to walk his puppydog every day no matter
how many shells fell; and one afternoon he walked the dog across the Vrbanja Most and was captured,
but the Serbs did not kill or even torture him. They sent him to Beograd. He did not even have to enter
a prison camp. Right away a beautiful Serbian girl fell in love with him.— Now he is living with that
same dog and that same girl in Florida! said the old man. The dog sleeps with them in their bed. If my
son goes out to swim in the ocean, the girl takes care of the dog, and even though that dog loves her,
he cries, he cries.
And of course Zoran was himself a Serb. Moreover, he had uncles and cousins.
There were friends to see, and friends of friends to pay off. Zlata’s mother cried out: They can do
anything to her, right in front of you! but Zoran shouted: They’re human just like you! and she
lowered her heavy head, remembering as well as he that not long ago the Vrbanja Most had merely
been barricaded by Serbian officers with stockings over their faces who threatened and gloated. In
good time the friends of friends informed him of a certain telephone whose wire remained uncut; is it
a consolation or a shame that there will always be such conveniences? He paid fifty Deutschemarks,
black smoke slowly unclenching its infinite fingers over the hill, and called his cousin Goran, who
congratulated him on not being dead. Zoran asked how the life was on their side. Goran answered:
Everything is becoming better, and we have no complaints.
He mentioned Zlata, and his cousin was silent, then said: Yes, we remember her—not like the
others, thanks to God! That would be no problem. Of course I can’t watch her every minute.
We won’t stay with you, and we thank you for your kindness.
It’s good you understand.
When should we cross?
Thursday night, at ten-o’-clock. I’ll be on duty at the Vrbanja Most.
Zlata knew that for the rest of her life she would remember that her mother was sitting at the table
with the soap opera on; a man was deeply kissing a woman. Her mother opened the trunk of ancient
dresses whose red had gone to russet, the gold embroidery along the edges dignified against the
darkness. From them she chose a young girl’s black dress embroidered with gold and silver patterns
resembling the ones carved on ancient stones.
I know you can’t wear it, her mother said, because you may need to run. But let’s see how you look.
I always thought . . .
Zlata turned away. Her shoulders trembled and she wiped her eyes. Then a machine gun fired
mindlessly on and on.
Go with God, her mother said.— Her elder sister’s head hung down. The father had been killed
months ago. As for the two younger girls, they began weeping and screaming.— Shut up, their mother
said. Don’t you want her to have her chance? Now help your sister get ready.
When Zoran came to fetch her, with all the money that his family could spare sewn inside the knees
of his trousers, in her deep voice the mother demanded that he defend Zlata with his life.
I swear it, he said, and then she embraced him for the first time.
Zlata stared out the window. Under a half-clouded sunset the river was coppery, and the trees of the
enemy hills began to thicken into a single texture. She realized that the river was almost the same
color as Zoran’s eyes.— You’ve said goodbye! her mother shouted. Now go!
Congregations being perilous, no one accompanied them when they commenced their escape.
Feeling their way down the dark street, they found a doorway to kiss in. Her tongue was in his mouth
and his hand on her breast.
After this night we’ll sleep always in one bed, he whispered.
What time is it?
Nine-forty.
My God, Zoran! We need to hurry now . . .
At five to ten they arrived at the bridge. I wish I could compare the Vrbanja Most to the white
bridge in Vranje that a bygone Pasha built after his daughter drowned herself over the Serbian
shepherd he had executed for the crime of love. Unfortunately, the Vrbanja Most lacks
monumentality. What legends could there possibly be concerning this all too ordinary structure?
Fifteen years later I met Zlata’s mother, who now lived alone in that apartment in the Old Town.
Her hair was almost the color of cigarette smoke. She said: In this place people were taking care of
each other. When we were living in the basements, whenever we got something to eat we would cook
it and we would share it. Maybe after the war we became more selfish.
As we talked about the war, the old woman’s eyes seemed to sink into their sockets. At first she had
not believed that anything could happen to Sarajevo, and then the first bombshell landed; and when it
was over, she could not quite believe that it was over.
In her thunderous cigarette smoker’s voice she told me about the third year, when shrapnel flew into
her spleen. A couple were kissing on television. She showed me a photograph of Zlata, and the echoes
of the footsteps across the hall exploded in my head like gunshots.
They wanted to cross the bridge and they killed them on the Chetnik side, said the old woman.
I had always imagined what had occurred as simply sadistic treachery, but Zlata’s mother said:
Anyone who tried to cross over the bridge was killed. Only certain bridges were open. They had no
idea.
Who had no idea?
The Serbs. They were careless with everyone, she said, lightly striking the coffee table with her
massive wrists.
Zoran’s family was gone, of course. Nobody knew what had happened to them, and it seemed wisest
to stop asking. I walked away. A drunk cursed me from behind a wrecked airplane.
The old pensioner on the north bank of the Miljacka did not remember them, so I asked others.— I
think she was Muslim, said a woman on a bench, but another lady insisted: No, no; he was the Muslim
and she was the Serbkina.
At least they agreed that Zlata had been shot first. It must have been an abdominal wound, for she
kept screaming (for hours, they said, but I hope they exaggerated) in that puddle of light which the
enemy had trained on No Man’s Land. Zoran, trying hopelessly to drag her back into the besieged city,
was shot in the spine with a single rifle bullet, then shot again in the skull, which, considering the
distance, might be called fine marksmanship, although on the other hand the snipers had had months
to learn the range. Some embellishers claim that Zlata had not yet escaped her agony even at sunrise.
Whether or not this is so, everyone agrees that the corpses of the two lovers lay rotting for days,
because nobody dared to approach them. Eventually, when the international press made a story out of
it, it became an embarrassment, and another truce was arranged. And it turned out just as Zoran had
promised his bride, for they were buried in one grave.
In memoriam, Bosko Brkic and Admira Ismic
LISTENING TO THE SHELLS
1
In the dimming living room they were drinking slivovitz and water out of fine crystal glasses, and
everyone was laughing and smoking American cigarettes until a shell fell twenty-five meters away.
The women jumped. Another shell fell slightly closer and the women screamed. Then the people sat
silently smoking in the last light, their smoke nearly the same color as the drinking glasses, and
presently began to laugh again, leaning over their hands or spreading their fingers; they stubbed out
their cigarettes in crystal ashtrays, and the poet who loved Vesna even suspected that finally he had
found life. But Enko the militiaman sat glaring. Now it was dark, with echoes of the last light fading
from the bubbles of mineral water just within the glasses and from the women’s pale blouses, and they
sat in silence, listening to the shells.
When a shell approaches closely, you may well hear a hiss before it strikes. Once it does, you will
be deafened for a minute or two, during which time you are not good for much except to wait for
another shell. Meanwhile you see what they call the big light. After that you can hear the screams of
children.
Vesna’s best friend Mirjana had had two little boys, and a shell killed them both. A shell had
sheared away the tree in front of Vesna’s apartment; the smash had been so loud that she was certain
she must be wounded.
Mirjana said: Marinko has a car but no petrol. Do you know where he can get petrol?
Ask Enko, said Vesna.
Enko said nothing.
Smiling brightly, Mirjana tried to light another cigarette. The match-flame trembled between her
fingers and went out. Vesna leaned toward her, so that they could touch their cigarettes together.
People still had plenty of tobacco at that time. In a couple of years they would be smoking green tea.
Vesna said: It’s quiet now, thanks to God!
In the corner sat Enko with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and his police ID clinking on its
neck-chain. He had pulled off his bulletproof vest, which was leaning against the wall in easy reach.
Every now and then his hand touched the grip of his gun in the holster; then he swigged from the
crystal glass and took another drag; finally he pulled off his now ridiculous sunglasses, his head
turning rapidly as he listened to his comrade Amir, who leaned forward as if anticipating something,
all the while touching his moustache with a ringed forefinger. No one else could hear their
conversation. Enko’s cigarette burned steadily between two fingers as he raised it again, tapping his
foot, and his face was young and hard.
2
Amir rose, gazed out the window into the greenish darkness, then went out.— He knows how to get
American whiskey, Enko explained.
Vesna said: Enko, can you tell me where Marinko can buy some petrol?
Who’s Marinko?
Didn’t you meet him? I thought you did. He’s Mirjana’s cousin.
Enko locked his bleak eyes on Mirjana. He said: Where are you from anyway?
Look, I’m Sarajevan, just like you.
Great. Now what part of town are you from?
Her children are all killed, Vesna explained. From now she has none.
Who the fuck cares? said Enko. What do you need petrol for?
My cousin wants it. I don’t ask him his business.
Enko laughed.— Sure, he said. I can get him as much petrol as he wants.
He’ll be grateful to you.
Gratitude doesn’t do much for me, said Enko.
3
When Amir came back with the whiskey, he informed Enko that there was a lost American journalist
at the Holiday Inn.
At the Holiday Inn, journalists were smoking quietly around marble tables in the dark. Across the
river a machine gun chortled like a night bird. Enko found the lost American and quickly uncovered
his particulars: He had no idea what he wanted, and he could pay a hundred fifty Deutschemarks per
day—not nearly as much as any television reporter, let alone a sexy anchorwoman such as Christiane
Amanpour, but whatever they could get out of him would be easy money, and his pockets might be
deeper than he said. Amir, who had recently inherited an almost new Stojadin automobile, would be
the driver, billing by the hour; while Enko would babysit the journalist at, for instance, a hundred fifty
Deutschemarks a day. Amir and Enko knew that everything is negotiable, while the journalist knew
that when one might be killed this very hour, all money is play money. So the three contracting parties
quickly achieved agreement, Enko staring into the American’s face while Amir drummed fingers on
the tabletop as if he knew of more lucrative projects elsewhere, which indeed he did.
A man in a flak jacket and helmet strutted by, with his tape recorder’s light glowing red. At another
table, some functionary from Municipality Centar was assuring a French journalist: Everything will be
solved by winter. Everything must be, or there will be hundreds and thousands dead.— The
Frenchman nodded delightedly. Now he could file his story.
The American journalist was encumbered by a pair of binoculars for which he would never have any
purpose. Enko told him: I sure could use your binoculars.
We’ll see, said the American vaguely. Maybe at the end . . .
Eight-o’-clock, said Amir to the American. Goodbye.
See you then, the American said. Well, Enko, can I buy you another drink?
Sure. By the way, I’m counting on those binoculars.
This building across the street, are there snipers in it? asked a very young British journalist in a
worried voice.
Oh, no, they’ve cleaned it! his handler assured him.
Enko knew the handler, who was a sonofabitch and had once stolen away from him a very pretty
Swedish correspondent. He therefore leaned across his enemy and explained to the British journalist,
as if out of helpfulness: But there’s a sniper shooting at the other entrance. You don’t use that.
Now the lost American was looking even more lost, just as Enko had intended. He needed to be
reminded that Enko could ditch him at any time. As a matter of fact, Enko was a man of his word. He
would never do less than he had contracted to do, and often he would do more. But it was bad business
to reveal that at the beginning.
The light continued to fail. Looking out the front windows, which happened to be lacking a few
ovals and triangles, the journalists stared at blue sky, and at that silent building across the street.
Another drink? said the American.
Enko began to feel sorry for him.— There’s a party if you want to come.
What time?
Now.
How will I get back?
No one expects you to go out by yourself, said Enko contemptuously. He rose, pulled his bulletproof
vest down over his head and strapped it tight across his sides.
4
In the windows those shards of bluish twilight sky were already colder, and now the clouds swam in.
The lights had come on in the parking garage. All was noiseless. They emerged into the grey light,
which was dulling down with dust and a little rain, Enko already half flooring the accelerator as they
screeched around the protected corner and into the sniper’s reach. Across the street, the journalist
glimpsed a building with four rows of windows visible, grey and black like ice against the pale tan
façade. Metal was chattering, but not here. Almost biting his lip, his shoulders hunched as if that could
somehow diminish his vulnerability, Enko wrenched the car around another corner; now they were
rushing past yellow walls into the Stari Grad; there was dust, chalk and broken glass on the sidewalk.
— That’s from right now, explained Enko, perhaps enjoying himself.— Just then, more glass departed
windows, smashing on the street. The journalist sat quietly in the passenger seat. He excelled at being
calm when he was powerless.
Enko demanded: What do you think about those fucking Chetniks?
Murderers, said the journalist.
Temporarily satisfied, Enko said: A few days ago a man was killed in front of the President’s
palace. We tried to help him, but he was already bloody. The trail of blood went more than a thousand
meters. Here’s where she lives.
Who?
Vesna. When you get out you don’t need to run, but I’m telling you, pay attention and move your
ass.
All right.
Wait a second. Inbound. Shut up. Shut up. No, we’re fine.
As they trotted away from the car, they heard the shell explode.
In the dark landing between the first two flights of steps, Enko said: How about a cash advance?
Sure, said the journalist. How much?
Give me fifty.
Just a minute. Here it is.
Fine. Now, Vesna, she’s open-minded. She won’t care that I brought you. And there’s chicks galore,
hot chicks. Not that they’d be especially interested in a guy like you, but maybe you’ll get lucky.
Okay.
Another thing. Anybody asks what you’re paying me or if you’re paying me, that’s only my
business.
I won’t say a word.
I wish you’d have brought those binoculars. I wanted to show them off.
Vesna’s door was open. As they entered the apartment, which was foggy with cigarette smoke, they
heard many people, and far away a machine gun fired three bursts. A woman laughed very loudly.
Look! cried Mirjana. I was wondering when you’d get here. Who’s that?
Just some American, said Enko.
And this is from my cousin, for the petrol. You’d better count it.
I don’t need to count it. If he shorted me, that’s his problem.
Thanks for helping him.
Well, he owes me. Who’s that girl over there?
5
At that party Enko met a woman named Jasmina, and in the morning he brought her home with her
blouse buttoned up wrong and her lipstick smeared all over his neck. Enko’s mother knew enough not
to say anything. He was her only help. As for the American, he had to sleep in Vesna’s living room
because nobody felt like driving him back, especially after curfew. He didn’t mind a bit. Until halfpast three he sat up with the poet, discussing the novels of Ivo Andric, whom the poet detested, Danilo
Kiš, whose Garden, Ashes the poet liked better than he did, and, while Vesna sat smiling, smoking and
yawning, the ideal form of Slavic feminine beauty, which, since they were young men, occupied their
intellects. The other guests had departed. By now the snipers must likewise have gone to sleep, and the
jewel-like silence which accordingly illuminated them both, not to mention their obsessive natures,
rendered the conversation yet more interesting, if that were possible, than the topic warranted, so that
they nearly could have been outside beneath the stars investigating essential things. Vesna had gone to
share a cigarette with the new widow upstairs. The poet asserted that there was a certain kind of look,
embodied in the bygone actress Olga Ilic, which had to do with dark eyes, dark hair (preferably curly),
round silver earrings, large breasts, a long throat and plump lips. I am sorry to inform you that the
American had never heard of Olga Ilic. The poet explained that she had played both Desdemona and
Hamlet—what a free spirit!—and that on the wall of his room he treasured a newspaper photograph of
her in the lead role of “Bad Blood.” If it weren’t for the Chetniks, he’d take the American by the arm
and show him that picture right now, because these were the most important topics to human beings:
true art, romance, expression—all present in Olga Ilic’s eyes.— And you know, my friend, when she
died, she was practically a beggar! One of our greatest Yugoslav actresses! If I could go back in time,
I’d attend one of her performances at the National Theater. She used to wear a rose on her breast, and
then she’d give it away. What a poem I could write about that!— In the American, who cheerfully
admitted to knowing less about Balkan womanhood than he should, or intended to, the poet found a
refreshingly respectful audience; and in the poet the American found a guide to the names and charms
of most of the women who had been there tonight, listening to the shells. It accordingly became
evident that the poet was infatuated with Vesna, who now returned, smiling at them with seeming love
even though there were dark rings under her eyes. The American allowed himself to be likewise
infatuated, but without denying himself permission to remember Mirjana, Ivica and Dragica. Vesna
poured them all a nightcap. To himself the American pretended that he had rescued her; now they
would go to bed together for the first time. She gave him a blanket, and he lay down as far from the
window as he could, with his bulletproof vest for a pillow. When the fabric got too wet, for instance
from perspiration, it became dangerously permeable. That was why one shouldn’t sleep in it. The poet
sat up, writing a poem for Vesna. Like many egoists, he had a very kind heart, and so just before dawn,
while it was still safe, he woke up the journalist and walked him over to Enko’s.
At a quarter of nine that morning the noises began again, deep sullen thumpings and almost happy
strings of popping like firecrackers. The poet had wisely departed long since. Enko and Jasmina were
sleeping, or something. The journalist had brought a pound of American coffee for Vesna or some
other ideal Slavic beauty, but, missing the opportunity to deploy it, he now gave it to Enko’s mother
instead. That tired, hungry old woman accepted the gift with neither surprise nor thanks. Whatever
came to her came not from this foreigner, who was nothing, but from Enko.
Make yourself at home; take a shower, she said, slipping the coffee into her coat pocket.— I have
some business downstairs.
It was the first chilly day. The American took a cold shower in the pitch-dark bathroom and came
out wondering how people would manage when the snow fell.
Now there were no shells, and the sun peered mirthlessly down on broken glass. Enko and Jasmina
did not appear; nor yet did Enko’s mother. Enko and Amir were on the payroll today, but the
American, who did not know so very many things, did know that this would come right sooner or later,
or not, and that in the meantime the best thing he could do was nothing. Tired, hungover, self-bemused
by Vesna, who smiled on every guest; instructed by the poet in the ways of Slavic women, and of
course altered by the various evil potentialities of the shells, he considered that he was making
progress, and sat at the dining table cheerfully enough, writing up his observations, with his vest
leaning against his knees. He thought it his duty to express something of these people’s sufferings. If
he were here for any reason, it must be that. If he could not do anything for them, then his journey had
no purpose. As sincere in his way as Vesna, he wished for peace even if it made his story less
dramatic. Like the poet, not to mention the snipers, he gave due credit to his feelings.
In front of the apartment the asphalt had been eaten away in blotches by shells, and beyond that was
a littered sort of green over which wandered two dogs whose owners, Enko’s mother had said, couldn’t
feed them anymore, and then a row of cars, some perfect, some rusted and windowless, some bulletholed. The American listened. The smashing roar of a howitzer was startling, to be sure, but what did
it accomplish? Did the besiegers possess only one shell? At nine it was quiet again aside from certain
boomings in the background, and people passed leisurely, most of them walking, a few driving or
bicycling, all of them crossing the two-lane highway at the intersection where the streetcar had been
abandoned, then vanishing behind a tall construction crane. Shots sounded, but a man walked reading
the newspaper. No one was running. Pigeons picked at the litter.
At nine-thirty came bursts of echoing poppers that blurred the hills behind dust or smoke, and an
elderly man carrying a shopping bag grimaced, ducked and began to run. The pigeons flew in a
frightened rabble. Then it fell quiet again; everyone walked slowly or stood chatting unconcerned. A
one-legged man swung himself steadily along on his crutches. He kept turning his eyes in the direction
of the booming sounds. Then he was gone. The journalist wrote it all down.
The door opened. Enko’s mother came in sighing. The American offered her a pull from his hip
flask, at which she finally liked him. She took a gulp, licked her lips, and slapped him hard on the
shoulder. Then she made them both some weak tea.
Where’s Enko?
Asleep, he said.
Ah. With her.
They sat there, listening for the shells, and after awhile the old woman lit a cigarette and remarked:
They say it is better not to go out now. Very dangerous. Sometimes it is true, and sometimes the other
way. Anyhow, one cannot stay inside forever.
6
Just before ten the door of Enko’s bedroom opened. Enko, shirtless but already wearing his gun, strode
into the bathroom and shut the door. Then he returned to the bedroom, rubbing his forehead and
yawning. After another quarter-hour the girl came out, fully dressed, and darted shyly into the
bathroom.
Listen, said Enko. I need another advance.
Why not?
Give me a hundred.
How about fifty?
I said give me a hundred.
If I give you a hundred, then after that fifty I gave you last night, we’re square for today, which is
fine by me. The only thing is, I don’t have much cash on me in case we need to eat.
Don’t worry about that, said Enko.
All right, said the American. He took up his bulletproof vest. Jasmina had just left the bathroom, so
he locked himself in there, dropped his pants and removed another hundred Deutschemarks from the
money belt. Of course he had lied to Enko, who probably knew it; there was no safe place to leave
cash, so he carried it all. Like the others, this was a good new banknote, the kind that the people here
preferred. He folded it three times and dropped it into his pocket. Then he lifted the heavy vest over
his head, lowered it into place and snugged the two tabs across the torso panels. Over this he zipped up
the light windbreaker, to make him less conspicuous to snipers. It had always seemed to him
elementary logic that the wearer of a bulletproof vest would be in and of himself a target.
Jasmina stood at the dining room table, with her purse in her hand. Enko’s mother ignored her.
Enko was staring at him. No doubt he wanted his advance. The American said: Do you have a
second?— Enko rose and followed him down the hall. The American gave him the money.
What’s all this secret bullshit? said Enko.
I keep my finances private, said the American. That’s how I like to do things.
Fine, said Enko. Amir’s downstairs.
Where are we going?
The frontline, if you promise not to shit your pants.
I’ll do my best.
We need petrol. That’s what the money’s for. On the way we’ll drop Jasmina at her cousin’s. Let’s
go.
The American shook Enko’s mother’s hand.— Come back, she said. I’ll pray for you.
Enko was whispering something in Jasmina’s ear. She giggled.
7
Here everyone runs, said Amir. This corner is very dangerous. Serbian snipers shoot from the hills.
We must speed up here.
Okay, said the American. Enko was in the back seat with his pistol on his lap.
The car turned onto the sidewalk, then rushed across a pedestrian bridge.— This place is very