Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

Amela bakes the best bread in the world. She says nothing. Čika Hasan and Čika Sead, who are twisting their caps in their hands as they stand in front of the plywood tables, can't answer any of the soldier's questions either.

Eci-peci-pec . . The soldier with the headband recites a counting-out rhyme, and ends with his finger pointing at Čika Sead, takes his glasses off him, and breathes on the lenses. A man wearing a stocking mask ties Čika Sead's hands behind his back with wire.

Please, Čika Sead begs the soldiers, please don't. . but the headband puts the glasses on himself.

Another shot in the stairwell; the echo mingles with anxious people's voices. The rushing sound of the voices comes down to the cellar, like when you hold a seashell to your ear. I don't hear Asija's voice, I must find Asija. I catch up with the soldiers who are taking Čika Sead away, I'm still the fastest in the stairwell. The soldiers are chasing up and down in camouflage colors, bawling: get down! Get out! No! Papers! No! Hands up! What? Papers! What's your name? What's your name? Taking three steps or seven steps at once. Going into living rooms that smell of apple compote. Rummaging around in white bedrooms. Rocking the wardrobes, drawers, chests. Smearing the doors with their words, with crosses and double-headed birds, out out out, everybody out! I keep hearing soldiers' orders through the seashell. Faces are pushed up against the wall, arms are pushed up above heads against the cracked plaster. The soldiers call out a name, the person they're looking for. I don't know these soldiers, but I know the name very well — Aziz.

When soldiers curse the stairwell whimpers. When they get noisy, when they bellow, when they break things, when they hit people, when they shout abuse, when they call for Aziz, Aziz, you fucking bastard! the seashell in the stairwell begs: please stop! I count the steps up to the loft out loud, as loud as I can, but I still hear it all. I see. I see Čika Muharem on the second floor, Čika Husein and Čika Fasil on the third floor, their heads pushed hard against the banisters of the stairs by the soldiers. The backs of their necks are pushed from above with rifle butts, from the side with boots. Čika Fasil's cap is lying on the floor. I run past, I don't say hello to the neighbors, I go on counting, counting. No one is pushing Mr. Popovic the music teacher's head against anything. Mr. Popovic wears a suit and a bow tie, his wife Lena has a pearl necklace over her black blouse. Arms crossed over his chest, Mr. Popović asks one of the soldiers: what do you want, gentlemen? We're all honest folk here.

We want you to keep your mouth shut! Shut your mouth and nothing will happen. And Mr. Popović the music teacher keeps his mouth shut.

I just want to find Asija, and I keep my mouth shut too so that nothing will happen. I want to get to Asija as fast as I can, she'll be frightened, she'll be crying again, I'll find her in the attic with all the brooms and cobwebs in among the empty bottles and the mice that you never get to see but you always hear. I burst through the attic door; Asija gives a start and stands back against the wall. It's you, it's you! Quick, close the door, quick or they'll find us! Tell me, will they find us? Asija puts her arms out to me and asks, sobbing: did you see my Mama and my Papa with the soldiers? Did my Mama and Papa maybe come back with those stupid soldiers? They took them away because they have the wrong sort of name. Asija doesn't know where her parents would be coming back from: no one knows, she whispers, and no one must know we're here! If the soldiers find you they'll take your papers away, and if you have the wrong sort of name they'll drive you away in the truck with the green tarpaulin. Like Mama and Papa. Oh, perhaps, says Asija, suddenly raising her head from my hands and calling out, amid still more tears, perhaps the soldiers will take me to Mama and Papa if I tell them my name, do you think? Perhaps it would be good for me to have the wrong sort of name just now, do you hear what I'm saying?

I hear what she's saying — and I hear footsteps coming closer. I hear heavy boots, and I know I have the right sort of name. And although the soldier with the yellow beard is grinning, although he doesn't smell of sweat and schnapps like the others, although he only wants us to go back into the stairwell, I shout at him: my name is Aleksandar and this is my sister Katarina, this is Katarina, she's only my sister Katarina!

My granny's name can't be wrong, I'm sure of that. The soldier looks around the attic, the floorboards whimper under his boots. Out of here, you two! He speaks quietly; his fingers are working away in his beard, a thick yellow beard eating its way over his face. Asija hesitates. The soldier crouches down in front of her; his beard touches her cheek. She turns her head away. The soldier breathes into her face. The soldier whispers: stand up! I think: stand up, oh please, stand up! Slowly Asija stands up and goes out of the loft. I follow her, the soldier closes the door, you two don't move from this spot, understand?

We're in the fifth-floor corridor and we don't move from the spot. Asija rubs her cheek. My mother calls my name up the stairs. Aleksandar, come down at once!

You two stay here, the soldier orders.

It's not the mothers telling us what we need to know now, it's the soldiers. I call back: Katarina is with me.

Mother asks no more questions.

We wait. Everyone is waiting. How long and what for no one knows. Grown-ups and older kids won't let go of the really tiny children. They are rocked back and forth in the crook of an arm, they whine. “Ssh” is the answer they get to everything. A fat soldier looks at us as if we've stolen something. Shots are heard somewhere close by, there you go, says the fat soldier. We nod and sit down beside Čika Hasan, who is tied up.

Night hangs in the window at the end of the corridor. Engines are revving up and soldiers are singing outside. Čika Hasan says: they're going on west, farther into the interior, in theory. Čika Sead isn't there to contradict him.

The bridegrooms in our building aren't in a mood to celebrate anymore. They wearily walk up and down above us and among us and under us. One of them sings a sad song, they all know it; he sings alone and falls asleep singing. Two more soldiers come up to our floor with a plastic bag and a pan, one of them shows his crooked teeth and puts his finger in the sleeping singer's ear. He takes bread, salt and beer out of the bag. He unwraps the aluminum foil from two roast chickens. The pan is steaming; boiled potatoes. Large knives with jagged blades and notched handles; they don't need plates.

All the doors on the fifth floor are either open or lying flat — you have to walk over the doors to get into an apartment. Two soldiers are going into the one where Čika Sead used to live. Table legs scrape over the wooden floor but the table won't fit through the door frame. So the soldiers stand around, two inside, one outside, now what? The hungriest of them is already gnawing a chicken leg as he stands there. The two who are inside Čika Sead's apartment sit down at one side of the table and the other one sits down at it out in the corridor. That's the way to do it. Soldiers dig their fingers into the chicken meat, pick it up with their jagged knives, eat the chicken off the points of their knives.

Every couple of minutes the light in the stairwell goes off. We wait enveloped in darkness for seconds on end. Not enough time to get used to seeing outlines in the dark. Someone switches the light straight back on again. Each moment of darkness is a small disappearance, a small convalescence. In one of those dark moments Asija whispers: don't forget me! The forgetting tickles my earlobe. I don't know why she says that, why she says it just now; I don't know what to answer. The light comes back to life, Asija is winding hair around her finger. Tears have drawn dirty veins on her cheeks.