Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

They wiped out my whole village, says Radovan, but I can assure you I still had a life! I invested in medicinal drugs, then in scrap. But a time came when everything was scrap, the town, the whole fucking country was scrap, and scrap wasn't worth a thing anymore. I rented a room, sold coffee and grilled meat and called the whole operation “McRadovan's.” One bar among many, but it was the first where you could place bets. They all came, my doctors, my blue helmets, my refugees, my politicians, my inventors, my smugglers. But I was the outright winner, me, Radovan Bunda.

Radovan is a sturdy man, well shaved, suntanned. All that remains of his dialect is the way he tends to emphasize long words on the first syllable. His hair oil smells of apples. Radovan doesn't smoke, and when he talks about money he mimes a circle in the air with his hands, fingers spread wide. He owns the whole fifth floor of the building. He's demolished partitions, combined apartments into large rooms, and glazed the whole facade that looks out onto the street. He's put in offices, a grand bedroom with a four-poster bed and gilded mirrors, and there are two guest rooms. You can't expect anyone to stay in our hotels, says Radovan Bunda. He shows me everything; he thinks the pictures in the offices are kitsch, but his colleagues like them.

Radovan smiles. My girls sing, he says. They're not making music now, but there's a video. He plays it for me, Princess Bitch and the redhead dancing. Radovan features in it, Radovan in a hat.

The loft where Asija hid is a lumber room now. Radovan opens the skylight to the roof, and I immediately hear chickens cackling. They got over the shock in the end, he says, scattering a handful of grain. Radovan Bunda goes to the edge of the apartment building roof and looks out at the town waking up.

I've made lists. Zoran Pavlovic. My friend Zoran. Walrus's Zoran. Owner of Maestro Stankovski's barbershop. I sit on the old barbershop chair. Zoran stands behind me, a hair grip in his left hand, a large pair of scissors in his right. Zoran's long hair, Zoran's narrow lips, Zoran's serious, immobile expression.

Where did you train? I ask, passing my hand through my hair.

Here and there, mostly with Stankovski. I'll start now, okay? You want it all off?

Yes, all of it. I remove my hand and hide it under the smock. Zoran clamps my hair back with the grip and applies the scissors.

Aleks?

Yes?

Oh, wow, man. .

What is it?

I mean, look at us! Look in the mirror!

Zoran has my long hair held back, our glances meet. If it's a problem. .? I say.

Oh, come on, what do you mean, a problem? You want it all off?

Get on with it or I might change my mind.

My Zoran. Walrus's Zoran. The scissors snip, he shows me the bunch of hair. We say nothing while the Panesamig razor hums away. I am Zoran's last customer. He closes the shop and turns up the collar of his jacket. You'll eat with us this evening, he says. I run my hand over my head. Zoran puts his hands in his pockets, hunches his shoulders in the cool evening air; it's windy and there are no stars.

The red facade and black window frames were Milica's idea, of course, and immediately after Walrus's house had been renovated hardly anyone could pass it without laughing or standing there shaking his head. I had to paint over the shame, the big man told everyone who asked about it; we've decorated inside too. Zoran, his father, and his stepmother moved into the house when Walrus threw Desa's seasonal workers out on the very first day he was back. As we ate the moussaka with egg to which Zoran had invited me, Milica said, smiling: Desa did act up a bit, but then I had a word with her. Milica is wearing a red and black lumberjack shirt, black jeans, and there still isn't a single line under her big blue eyes.

It's all new, you young rascal, Walrus tells me. He stands up, still chewing, and spreads his arms wide in the middle of the living room. My Milica and I turned the whole house upside down in three months. Walrus has shaved off his mustache. I stare at what's gone from between his nose and his upper lip, I can hardly say a word.

Zoran spent those three months in prison in Graz, waiting to be deported after he'd tried to cross the Austrian border one misty March morning. Walrus tells the story while Zoran salts potatoes, eyes bent on his plate the whole time. Walrus tells me how thick the mist was in which his son tried to hide, how very nearly Zoran had given the border guard the slip, how bad the food was in prison. That mist, he says, mopping his mouth with bread, there's always mist in our stories.

Mist like cement, Zoran murmurs, putting his half sister, Eliza, on his lap. Eliza is two years old and already has her father's drooping cheeks. Milica looks me over, crosses her legs, jiggles her foot up and down. Zoran is helping Eliza with her jigsaw puzzle.

You won't believe this, you young rascal, says Walrus, but do you remember Francesco? The gay Italian I took apart at boccia? Well, just wait for this!

He goes to a biscuit tin full of photos — I catch a quick glance of a basketball game, and Walrus and Milica in front of their bus — and takes out a letter. Half a page in Francesco's broken Serbo-Croat. Is Walrus well, Francesco has been worried, he's kept sending food and medicine to Višegrad, has any of it arrived? My name comes up in Francesco's hopes too. A photo came with the letter. It shows Francesco, a young woman, and a little girl on a dam. Would you believe it? says Walrus, tapping the photo. On the back it says, “My wife, Kristina, and my daughter, Drina.”

Austria. . says Zoran when we go out into the cold late that evening and put our caps on. Ankica never wanted to come. I frightened her too much.

The night smells of burnt coal, I try to find something reasonably sensible to say to Zoran, you can always come visit me in Germany, I say, and Zoran takes a deep breath and claps me on the back.

Café Galerie. My list: bars, restaurants, hotels. Turbo-folk and Eminem and the boy with the side parting and a scar peeling off on his chin. He puts a fabric heart on every table, and under the heart a handwritten explanation of his disability. There are red hearts and pink hearts. The boy doesn't look anyone in the eye, he's almost invisible amid the drunken singing. They know the songs by heart in the Café Galerie, and the boy collects his fabric hearts with as much concentration as if he were clearing an empty room. It's hot, the café is too full, the window panes are clouded with condensation.

It's odd, I say to Zoran, this is the first time I've been out in Višegrad.

They have teletext screens here too, with results coming in live. Essen versus Düsseldorf, one-all. I've won.

Zoran says: you don't miss much.

We're sitting opposite each other in the far corner of the café, I can hardly hear him, the speaker is right above our heads. Zoran keeps silent most of the time, I ask questions and seldom get more than a shake of his head in return. Sitting in silence with Zoran was never really uncomfortable, it was more of a feeling that I didn't know what to say to get the words out of him. It's much the same this evening: never mind if I talk about the war, the time after the war, women, studies, soccer — nothing in Zoran reacts, his answers are brief, mostly no more than gestures. After the third beer, I give up shouting remarks on these subjects into Zoran's ear like a journalist. I lean back in my chair and nod in time to the music. Zoran orders two beers and then waves to me as if calling me in from another room. He comes quite close to my ear and shouts, so loud that it makes me jump: look around you, Aleks! Just look around you! Do you know anyone here? You don't even know me! You're a stranger, Aleksandar! Zoran stares at me at close quarters. You'd better be glad of it!