Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

My suitcases are packed. The wine tastes good. The plums that grow in Višegrad are better than any others. 00 49 1748 526368. You can reach me at any time, any time over the last ten years, so to speak. I'm writing a portrait of Višegrad in thirty lists. But first I'm coming to see you, Asija.

Hello, good evening. I'm nothing special. My story is nothing special. Good evening. I arrive too late for everything. I arrive too late to be special. I'm arriving at the story of my life too late. Good evening, Bosnia, please call back: 00 49 1748 526368.

Asija, I'll look for your hair, I'll look on all the faces I see for your forehead. I'll drop your name into every conversation like a seed and hope it will grow into a flower. Dear answering machine, do you know a flower called Asija? If so please call me at 00 49 1748 526368. Excuse me, please. .

Hello? Hello? Is there anyone there? I have no idea who you are. I'm Aleksandar Krsmanović, student, grandson, refugee, long hair, big ears, looking for his memory. Looking for a girl. Well, a woman, really. Asija. Do you know Asija? I once met a madman, a soldier looking for a girl called Emina. Do you know a girl called Asija? I'm conducting a methodical search. My method is to gloss over my own story and draw up endless lists. 00 49 1748 526368.

Asija? Asija? Asija? Asija. Asija. Asija.

One day a man who asked good questions asked:

Who is that, what is that? Forgive me!

Where is it,

Where does it come from,

Where is it going,

This country

Of Bosnia?

Tell me!

And the man he was addressing swiftly replied:

There is a country called Bosnia somewhere, forgive me,

A cold, bleak country,

Naked and hungry,

And besides all that,

Forgive me,

It is defiant

With sleep.

This is me, Aleksandar. The poem is by Mak Dizdar. If you pick it up, call me at 00 49 1748 526368. I'd like to tell you the story of the baker who sprinkled thirty sacks of flour over the streets of Višegrad one summer night in '92, and after that, in her little shop, she. .

Mesud and Kemo can't remember Kiko's real name. The two men have spent hours, in between coffees, telling me the myths and legendary tales of soccer in Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Sarajevo. We're sitting in a small betting shop and café above the Old Town, and Mesud says: perhaps he was just called Kiko, same as the Brazilians.

Kiko, number nine, Kiko of the amazing headers, Kiko the iron skull of the gentle river Drina had scored thirty goals in the last half-season before the war, twenty of them with his head, three with his right foot, the other seven all with his weaker left foot, and all of those in his last game, only a few days before the first shots were fired in Sarajevo.

I landed in Sarajevo yesterday, found a room, three days for thirty euros with a young woman who had three daughters. I went to the streetcar terminals. I went out to the gray apartment buildings made of prefabricated concrete slabs. I walked through the Old Town, hands clasped behind my back, eyes on the ground, as if I were lost in thought and thus belonged here; tourists are never thoughtful. I wanted to know what people were talking about in the city, but I didn't dare ask. I listened. I wanted to know how you get up on the rooftops. I went to sniff the air in stairways, at the library they gave me a number belonging to a table with a reading lamp. I saw students studying. Orpheus and Eurydice was being performed that evening, I wanted to see what kind of underworld the river god's son goes down into, only to lose the woman he's already lost yet again, but I couldn't get a ticket. I was glad to find that such things were sold out. I was glad of everything that looked like riches rather than ruins or that seemed carefree, although I told myself that being carefree is no good. I climbed to a rooftop. I had the feeling that I'd given something up, I looked down at the city and didn't know what it was. I didn't want to go dancing, I wanted to see people dancing. There was no line outside the club, but I waited all the same, and then I just bought yesterday's Süddeutsche Zeitung at a nearby newsstand. I found a note from my landlady on the bed in my room: there's pita in the oven if you're hungry. I was hungry, the shadow birds my fingers made flew over Bosnian walls again, I slept for three hours.

On the second day I made coffee for my landlady and asked her about Asija. I asked about Asija everywhere I went. I kept looking for Asija's bright hair. In the streetcars, at the terminals, among the high-rises and in the cafés of the Old Town. I read names outside doors, I climbed to rooftops and searched the area from above. I dropped her name into every conversation. I tried to convince officials and notaries of the urgency of my search, they let me look at registers of names, statistics about refugees, lists of victims. I was told I'd come very late in the day, and I politely asked people to confine themselves to constructive comments. At the Academy of Music I secretly leafed through the card index of members of the library, still feeling sure that Asija was a violinist. I wasn't allowed to see the records of customers at the video library, but the suntan studio let me see theirs. On the way between those places I read the phone book. I called eight Asijas, apologized to six for disturbing them, two weren't at home, which gave me grounds for some hope.

There's no such street in Sarajevo, said the taxi driver when I gave him the address for Asija that Granny Katarina had given me years ago, but at my insistence he got his central switchboard to confirm it. I asked him to drive me to a street that sounded rather like the address on my note, rang at five doors and read all the names by the doorbells. The sky was cloudy, I reached the end of the street and looked around me. Children were writing their names on the asphalt with colored chalk. I'm not leaving Sarajevo until I've found something.

I bought a book about the genocide in Višegrad. I was planning to walk through the city until some kind of stray dog met me, or someone who'd fled here from Višegrad recognized me. I watched budgies billing and cooing in a window, and on the sly I asked for plum jam with my [evap[ici . Don't you try taking the mickey out of me, replied the waiter. Later on it rained, and instead of going to the driving license center, I went into the little betting shop and café with its view of the Old Town.

Mesud, who is fiddling with his mustache, looks hard at me and says: Kiko. Kiko of the gentle river Drina. Like you.

I was going to drink a coffee and wait for the rain to stop. Four TV screens on the walls, teletext on all of them, a billiard table in the middle of the room, ashtrays on the plastic tables. Men in leather jackets or tracksuits poring over tables of numbers with great concentration. I ordered a Turkish coffee. Two older men were reading the paper at a table in front of the broad glass facade, one wore a tracksuit top with the inscription ROT-WEISS ESSEN and the number 11 on it.

Well, what a coincidence, I said, I live in Essen.

The men lowered their newspapers and looked around. I was standing behind them, coffee cup in hand. They said nothing.

The top, I said, and pointed my cup at the man with the mustache. The other man put sugar in his coffee, sipped cautiously, and devoted himself to his paper again.

Germany, Regional League North, Essen versus Düsseldorf on Sunday, it'll be a draw, said the man in the jacket. His mustache covered his mouth, moving up and down as if the man were chewing.