Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

Milomir from the first floor makes strong coffee. During the war, he says, my main worry was whether a grenade or a sniper would get me; now I have so many worries I don't know which is the main one. Pockmarked, arthritic, holding a lit cigarette behind his back, he bows and kisses my grandmother's hand as we leave. Katarina, he says to the hand, come and see me again soon.

After two sips you came to the coffee grounds.

I've made lists. Bars, restaurants, hotels. The Estuary Restaurant where the Rzav and the Drina meet, with a view of both rivers. I remember the domed building with its large terrace, I remember the rare evenings with mosquito bites and the sleepy croaking of the frogs when Father, Mother and I, just the three of us, sat in the Estuary and musicians came to our table. Father would fold a banknote and put it in the accordion, and the accordionist would grin and bow in my mother's direction.

Rubble, stones, iron bars, rusty beams and broken boards are woven into the round foundations of the Estuary to make a wreath. I'm standing in the middle of it now, looking at the Drina on my left and the Rzav on my right. The shards of a saltshaker crunch under my feet. The frogs are croaking.

Granny Katarina and I sit in the living room watching Isabella . I've drunk so much coffee today that I'm shaking and I can't imagine ever being able to sleep again. That's not really the name of the soap opera, Isabella is the beautiful heroine, always suffering a little but good at heart. Granny watches three soaps a day: one at four in the afternoon, another at seven in the evening, and Isabella at nine. She injects insulin during the ads. I can't watch. She pushes up her blouse and tells me about a bomb that exploded under a newly married couple's table just as the bridegroom was cutting the cake. The bride and a dog that was asleep under the table at the bridegroom's feet died. They made the dog a little golden coffin and threw it into the Drina. The bride was buried in her wedding dress, but without her shoes, because they were only borrowed.

Granny injects insulin and breathes loudly through her mouth. I can't watch. I can't listen. The more stories I know, I say, turning up the volume on the TV, the less I know about myself.

Granny looks straight at the TV set. Isabella, she says, pressing her forefinger and middle finger to the place where the needle went in, ought not to trust her stepmother so blindly.

Someone, I write later in the when-everything-was-all-right book, which I'm going to give back to Granny before I leave, someone ought to invent a tool, a kind of plane to shave the lies away from stories and deception away from memories. I'm a collector of shavings.

I've made lists. Mr. Popović the music teacher. I ring at the door on the fourth floor, his wife Lena opens it, an elaborately dressed lady with her hair pinned up, gold earrings, and a musky perfume, she's ready to go out though she doesn't go anywhere. I don't have to explain anything to her. Katarina told me you were here, she says, smiling, come on in!

Mr. Popović turns the TV off and gets to his feet when I come into the living room. He looks at me curiously and gives me his hand. He doesn't remember me until his wife introduces me. Aleksandar! What a surprise! Sit down, my boy, sit down. To be honest, I'd hardly have recognized you. Mrs. Popović disappears into the kitchen and comes back a minute later to offer us a plate piled high with cheese, a beer for me, and for her husband water and two red pills on a silver salver.

Oh yes, says Mr. Popović, I remember. I was friends with your grandfather when we were studying, and politically later too. Slavko was a good speaker, very few in the Party understood his ideas and almost no one thought they were any good. Which means they were excellent ideas.

I nod, enjoying the old man's deep, thoughtful voice, the calm I see in his bright eyes, which widen as he talks. His wife sits opposite us, folds her hands in her lap and watches him as attentively as if he were the guest.

But for Slavko, Mr. Popović goes on with his little speech, the library, for instance, would never have been extended, and to this day the schools and indeed the whole town can feel the benefit of it. How long ago that was. .

I spear a cube of cheese on a toothpick, the cheese is very cold and tastes of paprika. There are cupboards and chests of drawers adorned with flowers in the apartment, a large art nouveau lamp, a desk made of dark wood, Tito's portrait over it. Sheet music and records on shelves, on the floor, everywhere. The piano in a corner, a gramophone beside it. I look at Mr. Popović again. He has narrowed his eyes and is offering me his hand. I'm Professor Petar Popović, and you are. .?

What did you say?

Mrs. Popović clears her throat. Petar, she says, this is Aleksandar, Slavko's grandson.

Slavko Krsmanović? cries Mr. Popović, and his face brightens, what a nice surprise! You've changed a great deal, Aleksandar! Do you know, your grandfather often used to bring you with him to see us. We got on very well, the Cicero of Višegrad and I. You'd have been. . Well, at the time I'd say you were at the most. . Mr. Popović becomes thoughtful again, rests his chin on his hand. I look at his wife, who is still smiling. You'll remember, Petar, she says quietly, you'll remember, just take it slowly.

Mr. Popović frowns. Lena, he asks his wife, who is this gentleman?

Aleksandar Krsmanovic, I say myself this time. I stand up and once again shake hands with the old man wearing a tank top, his hair accurately parted. I'm visiting my grandmother. You once gave me an encyclopedia of music for my birthday.

Mr. Popović laughs, stands up too, and clasps my hand warmly between both of his. Of course, he cries, the Encyclopedia of World Music . So you're Slavko's grandson. Sit down, sit down, and bring us a beer, please, Lena. I expect you drink beer?

Yes, indeed, I say, and Mr. Popović looks at me with a friendly expression, a smiling old gentleman among his records and books of musical scores. Grandpa Slavko always spoke highly of his piano playing and described him as the only real intellectual in our town. After his wife has disappeared into the kitchen Mr. Popović presses my hand more firmly and whispers in confidential tones: all my life I've treated my wife's beauty and kindness carelessly, otherwise it's only history and death I treat that way.

Mr. Popović drinks a sip of water and looks closely at his glass; it is cloudy with condensation. Mr. Popović undoes the cuffs of his shirt. They're not real, he says, pointing to the gold cuff links with the silver treble clef on them.

His kind and beautiful wife comes back into the living room with the beers just in time to see her husband offering me his hand again and saying: I'm Petar Popović, and whom do I have the honor of. .?

After I've introduced myself he stands up. A little music, Mr. Krsmanovic? You look to me as if you'd know the value of Johann Sebastian, who is underestimated in this country. “I will not let thee go except thou bless me,” he suggests. I am glad, he sings, to cast off the misery of these times today. Pam-ta-tam, he sings, and he stops by the gramophone and stays there.

Maybe it's for the best, says Mrs. Popović, taking a sip of beer from the bottle, he can hide from memory and not suffer the horrors of the present day by day.

Mr. Popović turns away from the gramophone and goes over to his bookshelf. After a moment's thought he takes out one of the scores and leafs through it as if looking for a certain passage, pam-ta-tam, he sings.

The way from our home to Granny Katarina's: 2,349 steps. I've made lists: distances in footsteps. Home is on the other side of the Drina. Granny is still asleep, snoring peacefully, I could wake her to ask who lives there now, but I don't know how she likes to be woken, and I don't like not knowing the answer to the question myself.