Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

I told him a joke: the Italians and the Partisans are fighting day and night in a forest, then along comes the forester and throws both sides out.

Milica's father didn't laugh. He had taken off his undershirt and poured us more sauerkraut juice when we heard the first shots outside. We were only talking about it, that's all, what the hell's going on now? he shouted. Milica took her father with one hand and me with the other. Papa, you must go. Milenko, you must drive him. I'm staying here or they'll take the whole house apart.

You're coming with us!

I'm not leaving the house alone!

I'm not leaving you alone!

Then prove it and come straight back to me!

And as my Milica stood there, a truly commanding woman, I vowed all my love to her. Milenko, this isn't the time for it, she said. Her father protested, but we got his undershirt back on him. Off to Zagreb — no checkpoints, we were in luck. I went straight back, I got there in the middle of the night. Sheer hell. Coming from the west you could still get in, but sheer hell! The streetlights smashed, houses in darkness or in flames. People everywhere, none of them happy. I left the bus in a yard, goodbye bus! I thought. I almost couldn't find the house again. A candle in the window. Milica was sitting in the kitchen peeling a potato very slowly. With an ancient TV program on in front of her. She was crying.

I thought you were — Milica interrupted him.

But I wasn't, he said, and Milica kissed his shoulder.

Out of here and off to the sun, off to Italy. The bus was still there, it was even intact. Milica got behind the wheel because she knew her way around the town. But the soldiers knew their way around it too: they stopped us and said: get out, this bus is being commandeered for military purposes. But this is a peace-loving bus, I said. And that's how I got this —Walrus bent down, Milica pushed the hair back from his forehead. There was a scar running along Walrus's parting. I didn't lose consciousness, he said, I'm proud of that. Then Milica said: let's see which can go faster, our bus or your war. She stepped on the accelerator and off we went, right through the roadblock. There was still a soldier in the bus, my gun was in the bus too, he lost his balance, I didn't, and then there was no soldier in the bus anymore.

And I never took my foot off the pedal until we reached the Piazza Verdi in Trieste, said Milica, stopping to look in a shop window.

What about the war? I asked.

The war was hard on our heels all the way, but it didn't have a visa for Italy, said Walrus.

Does it have a visa for Višegrad?

Walrus stopped and looked around. We'd reached Liberation Square. This was where Maestro Stankovski had his barbershop. Zoran was nowhere to be seen. Walrus put the bags down and gave me a hug. How brave are you, Aleksandar? he asked seriously.

I lose my head rather easily, I said, but that's when I notice things best.

Just hark at him talking, said Milica, but this time she said it in a firmer voice.

You'll manage. Walrus stroked both sides of his mustache and went up to the road junction. Cars stopped, no one hooted. He climbed up on the hood of a red Mercedes, made his hands into a trumpet around his mouth and shouted: Višegrad! Hey, I'm back, with the war hard on my heels! Višegrad! he shouted, Višegrad, Walrus is back! Zoran! he shouted, here's your father. Zoran! The war is hard on my heels, but we're a family and no one can harm us!

First some came, then others, the first of them wondering how they really felt about synagogues, they salted cucumbers and ate breakfast on the Torah shrine and they gathered to discuss the situation in the shtiebel , they couldn't make up their minds, then they moved on and the hard winter came, everything froze, the blood in my veins and the tears on my face, because when the others came they didn't wonder about anything; they pushed me over in the snow so that they could go about their work in peace; let's get at the books first, one of them shouted, and then burn down the rest; the priests heard that, they went on their knees to the soldiers, fat-bellied priests with girls' eyes lovingly caressed the soldiers' boots, they prayed and begged for mercy for the building and the books and me, but the soldiers had longer beards than the priests, very well, said the drunkest soldier among them, we won't burn anything, we'll take it all out on the lake; the priests thanked them and you could hear the organ playing music in their church, the bass went down low while the synagogue was gutted, they carted everything out onto the frozen lake, the Torah scrolls, my tefillin, my kippah, the Talmud, the old, old books, and when the synagogue was as empty as their hearts they dragged me over the snow and ice by my legs and tied me to the Torah shrine in the middle of the lake, don't you worry, Jew, spring will come soon, they laughed, and they called to me from the bank to make sure that I could see every girl before they flung her into the synagogue, so that I'd have seen her alive before they brought her out to me, dead, hours or days later; we'll spend the winter here, they sang, they slaughtered pigs in front of the bimah, they posted guards by the lake so that I couldn't escape and so that they'd be told when the ice began to give way; the priests fed me with bread, they cleaned me up, it grew warmer every day, the snow melted, the full moon was never redder at Pesach, I could see the flowers coming up on the bank, and I heard the thin ice creak under the priests' quick footsteps; the soldiers didn't want to move on until I and the sacred objects had sunk, the war wasn't going to run away from them; the sun came and went, the ice held, and the soldiers, getting impatient, threatened my neck with their knives, but they threatened from the bank because they didn't trust themselves on the ice anymore; the youngest of them, wanting to prove himself, had to be rescued, he went in right beside the bank, and I knew: this ice will hold out through the summer if it has to, hunger will kill me before the lake does, for I believe with all the faith in me that the Creator, praise be to his name, does good to all who obey his commandments and evil to all who break them; they shot at me a few times and hit the shrine, I remembered the priests in my prayers to the very last when I fell asleep with no strength left, I was only skin and bone, as light as a song in the morning; the priests woke me, Rabbi Avram, they've gone! they cried happily across the ice, Rabbi Avram? they cried in alarm, because I didn't move; but I stood up, the ropes had worked loose long ago, I walked over the ice on my shaking legs, hunger guided them, I thought of nothing but food, of chewing and tasting it, surely the priests will be able to find something kosher in a hurry, I thought, I was thinking of food and not the Torah scrolls, not the Talmud, not the venerable old books, I brought nothing with me, I went over the lake empty-handed, and the ice broke in the tracks behind me, as if my weight were stepping on it just a little late; I didn't turn around, and when the priests helped me up onto the bank the holes left by my footsteps joined into a single mighty crack in the ice, there was a deafening crash, and now more and more cracks began to split the ice, all running into each other and meeting in the middle of the lake, under the Torah shrine, which disappeared first, only seconds before everything else sank into the depths, I saved nothing, it was all gone: my name, my dignity, my breath for saying long sentences, my self-respect, my confidence, but as the priests gave me water I knew one thing, I knew that the whole world is only a very short bridge, and we need have no fear of the depths below it.