Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars

The Westmoreland was more crowded than usual, which is to say that there were two tables taken, and there was Bega at the bar, reading the newspaper again. Paco was still behind it, apparently unmoved from his posture of TV-watching, except the TV was off. The goyter looked a bit bigger, the new head evidently ready to hatch.

Spitefully, in Bega’s full and derisive sight, Joshua sat at the far end of the bar. Bega didn’t bother talking to him, not even when Paco walked over to take a double-bourbon order from Joshua.

“Hey, Paco,” Bega said, “did you know that Homeland Security tells you what to do in case of terrorism if you call them?”

Paco shook his head for Joshua to see, and it was hard to know whether that meant No, I didn’t know or I can’t believe that guy’s trying to talk to me .

“Listen.” Bega read, “‘The time to prepare is now. The fight against terror begins at home … Store heavyweight garbage bags and duct tape to seal windows, doors, and air vents from outside contamination. While there is no way to predict what will happen or what your personal circumstances will be, there are things you can do now.’”

Kontamneyshn is the way Bega pronounced it. Paco returned to deliver Joshua’s drink, shaking his head again, a motion no doubt limited by the growth — if it wasn’t for his goyter , he’d probably be swinging his head around like a mace. This time he seemed to be expressing some kind of disbelief. Bega was looking at both of them to detect their respective reactions, but Joshua avoided eye contact.

“‘We can be afraid or we can be ready,’” Bega finished, chuckling mirthfully.

He stood up and limped along the bar to sit on the stool next to Joshua.

“Be afraid or be ready, Josh!”

“Consider yourself nonexistent,” Joshua said.

Bega shrugged, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply, leaning on the bar.

“Why is the TV off?” Joshua asked Paco.

“Cubs already lost,” Bega said. How did Paco decide when to speak out?

“I can see you’re limping,” Joshua said. “I hope it’s horribly painful.”

“War injury,” Bega said, letting the smoke out of his mouth and nose. It floated past Paco, toward the dark TV, like a half thought. “Leg gets dead after I sit for long time. I have to keep moving. Like shark.”

Joshua downed his bourbon and coughed as the alcohol burned its way through his gullet to his stomach. He considered getting up to finish his drink at one of the empty tables, but that would’ve been a statement involving too much drama, attracting too much attention. He wished he had a knife; he’d pin Bega’s hand to the bar. And then they would talk through the torture, Joshua slicing off Bega’s fingers until he understood what needed to be understood.

“What are you going to do?” Bega asked as Joshua was experiencing a flash of déjà vu.

“About what? What exactly do you want from me, Bega?”

“I don’t want nothing from you. I just like to watch how you don’t know shit.”

“Shit about what?”

“About people. About world. About everything.”

“And how do you know all that shit?”

“I watch. I pay attention. I know.”

“Should I be scared of you? Is that what you’re saying? ’Coz I’m not.”

“You should be scared of yourself.”

“I’m not scared of anything. I don’t give a fuck,” Joshua said, and called for another bourbon. Kontam fucking neyshn. Bega raised his hand with two fingers to indicate he’d have one too.

“I’m not buying you a drink,” Joshua said.

“It’s okay,” Bega said. “I’m buying you.”

Paco delivered the bourbons and returned to his spot, picking up Bega’s Sun-Times along the way, immediately flipping to the sports pages.

“So,” Bega said. “A Bosnian, we call him Mujo, hates his wife’s cat, wants to get rid of it. He puts cat in the bag. He drives to country, to forest outside his town, lets cat out of the bag, drives back home, cat is sitting on the stairs waiting for him. Tomorrow, his wife goes to work, Mujo does it again: cat in the bag, to country, deeper into forest, lets cat out, back home. Cat is sitting on the stairs waiting for him.”

Why would he bring up the cat again? Joshua would fight him, if he had to. He’d headbutt him, and kick at his knees, and then stomp on his fucking face. Paco looked up from the papers to listen to Bega. He never paid any attention to his patrons, but here he was, enamored with Bega.

“Tomorrow, again: cat in the bag, to country, even deeper in forest, cat out. But then Mujo gets lost in forest, can’t find way out. So he calls his wife at home. ‘How ya doin’?’ ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Is cat at home?’ Mujo asks. ‘Yes,’ she says. He says: ‘Can you put him on the phone?’”

Bega slapped the bar with his open hand, exhorting Joshua and Paco to laugh. Joshua suppressed a feeble chuckle to maintain his mask of anger, but Paco chortled exactly once, which, in the gloomy world of the Westmoreland, was the equivalent of roaring laughter. The chortle turned out to be worth two shots on the house.

“I slept with Ana once too,” Bega said suddenly. “It was okay.”

The confession coincided with the return of the burning sensation from Joshua’s stomach to his throat.

“Back in Sarajevo. She was widow before Esko. We were tired.” Bega sipped his bourbon, smacking his lips. “We take it as it comes. We swim in catastrophe.”

“What is wrong with you people?” Joshua wheezed, his throat still burning but now accompanied by the pain in his lungs. Shed your wrath upon the assholes that do not recognize you, and on the kingdoms that will not proclaim your name! His eyes were now tearing up. He didn’t want Bega to think that he was going to cry. The way it should work: every day of your life you wake up knowing a little more. The way it ends up working: the less you know, the less you care, the less you’re scared, the better it is.

“ You people? You think you are special?” Bega said. “You think you are her hero?”

“I don’t think anything,” Joshua said. “I just can’t get back to where I was before.”

“Nobody ever can,” Bega said. “Welcome to world.”

“Does Esko know that you slept with Ana?” Joshua asked.

“What happens in the war, stays in the war,” Bega said. “You can never get to where you was before. The war destroys all before.”

Joshua called for another round. There was a part of him — mainly abdominal — that wanted to elbow Bega’s nose and break it, that would enjoy a river of blood advancing along the filthy bar, coloring the beer puddles, soaking the coasters. But there was another part of him for whom merely lifting the elbow off the bar demanded effort and conviction he no longer possessed. Where did his konviksheyn go?

“What are you going to do with Ana?” Bega asked.

“What am I going to do? Nothing. What can I do? It’s up to her,” Joshua said. “She’s the battered woman.”

“Battered woman? Esko never touched her.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m their friend. I live close. I know.”

You people , he wanted to say again, but it hit him, with all the force of the bourbon, that he was turning into one of the you people too. Everyone at the Westmoreland was a foreigner, Bega the foremost of them; everyone everywhere was foreign and strange, the world equally populated with you peoples , here or in Bosnia or in fukn Iraq. He was leaving America, Joshua was, the bar stool and Jim Beam the only things tenuously providing koynekshen . And once he left, he was going to stay out, never to return. Like John Wayne at the end of The Searchers , leaving again, forever heroically outside, holding his elbow, until the door closes in his face.