Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

People say I talk like my Grandpa. There couldn't be a greater compliment.

Tonsils are the worst kind of physical propaganda! I lie down in the freshly made bed and cough. I have tonsillitis and spread spit over my face so people will think it's more tears than anyone has ever shed before, then they won't give me penicillin injections.

Vinegar and potato compresses really do lower my temperature. Grandpa brings me mandarins and minced meat with plums in bed, and explains: your fever is hungry, it's walking down to your calves.

Walrus says: the only compresses that really work are schnapps compresses on the feet, but you're too young for that. Nothing's worse than getting drunk through the soles of your feet.

Get dressed, we're off, Father tells me.

Artists have the most uncompromising sort of profession on the side.

On our way to the hospital we stop at the bridge, because Ivo Andric is trying to jump the river Drina on a horse. All Višegrad is there, dancing. Auntie Typhoon and Carl Lewis run a race across the bridge to open the program. Andric the Nobel Prize winner gives the horse some wine as they come running up.

I never tire of watching Grandpa shave. I hold on to the washbasin and get goose bumps on my head, Grandpa and I are standing so still.

There are hoofbeats on the asphalt, and Ivo Andrić takes off.

Do you think he'll make it? Grandpa asks, and he picks Granny flowers for three days running.

Hard to say.

Francesco rented a room from old Mirela and moved in opposite, and old Mirela unpacked her dusty makeup, saw that the powder was crumbly and the lipstick no use anymore, bought herself new makeup that very same day, and fiddled around with the tomatoes in her garden, her cheeks all rosy. You could get a good view into Francesco's room from the garden. On warm summer evenings Francesco would sit on the veranda, armed with a gigantic pair of compasses as he pored over plans of our dam; he wore an undershirt, and from the garden you had a good view of the veranda too. The women in our street and later of the whole town dropped by to help old Mirela with the grass, the carrots, the cucumbers and the cherry tree. The transformation of that little patch of gray-green ground within six months was a botanical miracle. Edin and I called Mirela's garden a jungle, and Edin swore he'd seen a golden horned viper sitting on a pumpkin there. My mother peered out from behind the net curtains before she went to work because Francesco did pull-ups on the cherry tree in Mirela's garden before he went to work. The cherries and my mother's cheeks bloomed as seldom before, so I decided either to make friends with Francesco or chase him away.

One evening I stood by the fence and stared at Francesco's back so hard that my gaze climbed up his backbone all the way into his head, and Francesco had to look around. I didn't understand him, he didn't understand me. I pointed to the ball and then to him, and said: Dino Zoff. It was a simple bet: if Francesco kept out at least three of my five shots he could stay. If he kept out two or only one I'd have to burn his plans and bury his compasses and his undershirt among the strawberries in the garden, and then put frogs, pigeons and cats in his room — I'd have no problem with any of that. But if he let a single shot at goal through on purpose, then I'd tell our butcher Mislav Sakic, also known as Massacre, that his wife had been wearing a scanty summer dress under the cherry tree recently, and playing about with her hair, and laughing a lot before she said good-bye to Francesco's undershirt.

So Francesco and I became friends. The tireless gardening ladies and the sweet cake-baking ladies weren't interested in weaning Francesco off Italian — far from it — so I taught him some words that very first evening, after he'd easily kept all my shots out. He could already say “My name is” and “I am an engineer on the dam” and “no thank you, I really couldn't eat another thing.” I opened his dictionary and pointed to the words for “marriage,” “a bit,” “baroque” and “eyebrow.” Then I pointed to my ears and said: sympatico, which wasn't a lie and sounded Italian. Francesco repeated after me: I. Am. A bit. Married. But. My wife. Doesn't. Have. Anything. Like. Such. Baroque. Eyebrows. Or. Such. Sympatico. Big. Ears. As. You.

You say that, I told Francesco, if you like the look of a woman — I pointed to my eyes and sculpted the figure of a woman with a broad behind in the air, the way men do when they've eaten a lot of smoked meat. And you must tell my mother and any ugly women: I am very much married although you are extremely friendly. After all, I hadn't come to Francesco's veranda to drink lemonade — there was family business to be done. When old Mirela brought us homemade cherry cake on the veranda, Francesco said to her: although extremely friendly. He had understood it all. After she had gone he pointed to the words “ugly,” “woman” and “no” in his dictionary, then to “man,” “boy” and “‘not,” and finally to his eye and the word “learn.” Francesco couldn't just build dams, he was Comrade in Chief of love.

After that evening I often went to see him. The dictionary lay on the table between us, Francesco drew, I did my homework, drank lemonade or read the Encyclopedia of World Music. Francesco explained that Italy was a boot. I painted a sandal half-standing in the Adriatic and gave it to him. My first sentences in Italian went like this: Bella sinjorina! Mi kjamo Alessandro. Posso offrirti una limonata? I said that to Edin, putting my hand on my heart. Edin looked at me as if I were an opera singer or a Japanese tourist in Višegrad and went away without a word, slowly, shaking his head a great deal. I'm only rehearsing for Jasna, I called after him.

I tried to explain to Francesco that Italians and Yugoslavians were more than just neighbors, because people who share something beautiful like a sea, and something dreadful like a Second World War, ought to sing together more. I don't know if he understood, at the word “Mussolini” he cried: nonono! I liked the way he ran his pencil along the ruler with great concentration, I liked to see the thin lines he closed up into rectangles, or how he could feed numbers into his pocket calculator for hours, murmuring under his breath “ kvatro ” or “ cinkve ” or “ centomila .” I liked the “ mila ” part best, and said: there, you see, Francesco, the sea, the war and we have the word “ mila ” too!

The rains came in the middle of August. Short, violent and predictable, even the grasshoppers didn't sound surprised when raindrops drummed down on the veranda roof. We were quiet even though we talked a lot — our voice was the pages of the dictionary, we pointed to the words and formed sentences with gaps in them all the way to Italy.

And there were evenings when we didn't say anything in either our own voices or the voice of the dictionary. On one of these evenings I wrote Grandpa Slavko a long letter applying for the post in the Party of Magician Who Could Make Things Possible. I attached a list of the possibilities that still had to be magicked into existence. Francesco drank wine and drew on his plans. He always sniffed the wine before putting the glass to his lips, and when he had finished work he massaged his temples, which made me feel tired and content.

Another time Francesco took me out to a meadow on the Drina, unpacked some shining silver balls from a black leather bag and began throwing them around. Boca, he said. He taught me the rules and told me you said boca but you wrote it “ boccia .” I tried to explain that we Yugoslavians saved whenever we could, and two letter c 's side by side was one c too many. Next evening Walrus played too, and a week later there were six of us, then eight. Francesco polished the balls, and Massacre the butcher said things like “ pallino ” and “ volo .” If Francesco had had more than sixteen balls the whole town would soon have been playing boccia . I always played, that was what Francesco had decided, and once I didn't even come in last by so very much.