Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

I unpack my rods and sit down on a stone by the water. Here the river swerves into a branching embrace; I'm sitting in the crook of its elbow. Grandpa Slavko says the Drina is a bold river. That's why I don't mind when grown-ups call me bold. I think being bold is a good thing, and I shout at the water: you bold — you beautiful — bold — river — beautiful river. The canyon echoes; kyu, ket-ket, replies the hawk, and something large throws up foam in the river; perhaps the hawk has dropped a stone. But the splashing is deeper and lasts longer than the usual meeting of stone and water. I can't see rings or ripples anywhere, it can't have been a stone, perhaps it was the Drina herself, clearing her throat? The wind grows stronger, the Drina takes a breath and asks: what do you mean, bold?

I scrape up some of the earth from the bank with the toe of my shoe and tread on it, because that's such a nice feeling under your sole. I don't know, I say, perhaps because you're unapproachably muddied and fast in autumn, you don't freeze over in winter, you flood everything in spring, and you drowned my Grandpa Rafik like a kitten in summer.

I wait. The Drina is silent. The rocks aren't silent. Stones come away and tumble into the river. The Lagoon of Light grows darker. There's a rumble farther up the mountains. The Drina does not reply. I get my can of bait and my rods out of the rucksack. Kyu. Ket-ket. I am angry because the Drina is silent. Aren't you going to say something? Don't you even remember Grandpa Rafik?

I push the ball of bait down below the surface, briefly, then angrily I throw it out. Breadcrumbs, gingerbread and ground licorice, oat flakes, chopped maggots. The ball lands with a hollow splash, and where it falls the Drina asks: what did your grandpa look like?

You should know better than I do, I say, dipping my hands in to wash them. You saw him last, and I was still very little.

I'm sorry.

Well, I was very little.

Would you like to swim?

Thanks, but not so soon after talking about death.

I decide on a plain hook, size six. Do the fishhooks hurt you? I ask.

Why don't you ask the fish?

I put the first worm on the hook and cast it out. The float moves slowly with the current.

What does it feel like, fish swimming about in you?

It tickles when they jump.

I pass my hand over the surface. Does it tickle when someone throws an old washing machine into you too?

Those bastards!

I straighten up and pull the line in. The worm is still on the hook. I cast again, a little farther to the left, closer to the rocks. Drina? How come you don't speak in dialect?

Do you?

I look at the float and don't answer. If I say no, the river will reply: well, then! Perhaps if I don't say anything she will go on of her own accord, telling me what good friends she really is with the Rzav, how much the dam bothers her, and whether rivers feel afraid too. I don't say how much I envy her because she can see so much, from her source to the river Save, up to the sky, down into the ground, right, left, it's quite a view.

The Rzav is a fine gentleman, she says, a good colleague, although he has his fits of anger every spring and bursts his banks. And the dam closes my mouth, flowing fast is like shouting out loud. Yes, she admits, she does feel fear. She defies the winter cold, the autumn rains don't bother her, but she's afraid the shooting will infect us with war too. Up against the rocks she complains, she's been through countless wars, each more dreadful than the last. She has had to carry away so many corpses, so many blown-up bridges lie at rest on her bed. I must believe her, she says, her waters are murky by the bank, nothing in the world suffers like the stones of a bridge without their bridge. And she has never been able to hide, or close her eyes to crimes, she says, foaming angrily, I don't even have eyelids! I know no sleep, I can't save anyone, I can't prevent anything. I want to cling to the bank, but I can't hold fast to anything. I'm a horrible state of aggregation! Look, no hands, not in all my long life! When I fall in love I can't kiss, when I'm happy I can't strike the accordion keys. Yes, Aleksandar, I have a wonderful view, a wonderful view and all for nothing.

Once or twice the float jerks. I stand up, I guess, at a third bite, the float goes right down. I pull in and immediately feel the weight on the rod. I give out a little more line, pull it in again — and I know I have him. He tires quickly, a young Danube salmon. I give him back to the Drina, and she lets him leap above the surface.

Drina, I need a bigger one. If Grandpa Slavko is going to cook, we need a proper fish. What do you think? Will Carl Lewis win the hundred meters? I ask, casting again, but the river gives no more answers. The wind blows more strongly, or is it a sobbing from the ravine, or would the mist like to say something too? It disperses, and now the sun is there for the lagoon again, the grasshoppers are there for the lagoon, ket-ket, calls the hawk, plunging into the ravine, ket-ket, and I wonder if the Drina has goose bumps at this moment — look at the ripples on the surface— ket-ket, kyu, ket-ket.

Dear Asija,

Did I make you up? Did I guide our hands to the light switch together because of some touching story about children in wartime? You never told me your last name, but all the same I've addressed every letter as if I knew it. I remember the morning of the soldiers' dance. The architecture of the town was rain clouds, camouflage colors and splintered glass. Edin and I wanted to do something completely normal, we wanted to feel something as simple as the weight of a fish on the line. You don't come into that part of the story. You don't come into it, frightened on the stairway, or throwing stones into the river, I don't see your beautiful hair among the soldiers looting at their leisure. You didn't come with me, we never said good-bye, Asija.

No more letters. I'm getting drunk and calling Bosnia, so forgive the theatricality. The clock on my laptop says 11:23 ÇÃ.ÇÀ., Monday, 11 February 2002. What day was it when we switched the light on? No more letters, Asija, did you ever really exist?

I run the cursor over the clock. “11:23 P.M, Monday, 11 February 2002.” I click, the Properties window comes up, showing the date and time. What day did we switch the light on, what day was 6 April 1992? I turn the date back ten years. Any moment now there'll be a flash, and my father will put a book on my head and mark my height on the door frame with a pencil. Any moment now there'll be a flash, and I'll be five feet tall, and. .

Father is waking me up: Aleksandar, there's no school today, we're going to Granny's, get dressed, I'll tell you what to take.

People grow in their sleep.

Any moment now there'll be a flash. I wait to be turned back to a day — and yes, the computer shows it; a Monday — when I'm afraid of my father. Afraid of his list of things I'm to pack, afraid of his warning: only what you need. Afraid because he doesn't say why.

What do I need?

Any moment now there'll be a flash, and an almost forgotten feeling will become the sight of cobwebs clogged with dust on the cellar walls as we wait for the next hit. I make a list of all the things I can remember in my grandmother's cellar. Worn-out ironing boards, headless dolls, duffel bags containing shirts that smell of old pumpkin, coal and potatoes and onions, moths and cat's pee. Lightbulbs flickering as shells explode. Goose bumps and yet more goose bumps. Not because the fear is so great, but because going to sleep in peacetime and waking up at war is so unimaginable.