Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

Aleksandar? Granny Katarina knocks and comes in. Are you hungry?

I'm nearly through, Granny.

Soon would be better than nearly, she says, and turns to go, but she stops in the doorway, running her fingers over the height markings. Tomorrow is requiem mass day, she says. We're going to see Grandpa in Veletovo.

This is the first time she's mentioned Grandpa Slavko.

How often do you visit his grave? I ask.

Whenever I can. The road is all overgrown now, and it's a long way on foot. Great-Grandpa and Great-Granny look after the grave. Do you remember the day Slavko was buried? I pulled you away from the pit in the ground and asked what you thought Grandpa would want me to do now.

What did I say?

I don't know, says Granny, that's the trouble. So you'll come with me, won't you?

You mustn't forget him. And you must notice everything: what's in the paper, what people are saying, what you see, what you hear. And then you must go to see him with me every Sunday, telling him everything at your leisure. He ought to know what's going on, even without the newspaper and his glasses and going for a walk. You'll tell him how it really is. Then you'll go away and leave us alone for a little while. I'll take over the stories.

Granny wakes me by pulling at the sheet underneath me as she wants to shake it out while I'm still on it. The alarm clock says six o'clock and Miki is standing beside Granny. Good morning, Aleksandar.

I've been dreaming of a woman who's a cross between Asija and Marija, with bright curls. I took Asijamarija breakfast in bed, an omelette.

Good morning, Uncle, I say, losing my battle for the blanket, so there I lie in my underpants in front of Granny in her black dress and my broad-shouldered uncle in his black suit. Miki turns his face to the window, bump on his nose, high arched eyebrows, it's still early, he says, we boys will go for a spin.

My Grandpa's profile, his beautiful mouth.

Miki starts the car.

How are you doing, Uncle? I ask after a while. Miki looks straight ahead, no one on the street, we'll be there in a moment, he says. He drives to the bridge with me. We get out. I follow him, he goes to the middle of the bridge and looks down into the Drina. There's a cold wind blowing through the valley, clouds race across the sky.

Miki drives to a building on Pionirska Street with me. I read about this house, I saw it in the news. It has a new yellow fa cade, which makes it stand out from the dirty houses next to it. The wind rises higher. An old man wearing a hat is sitting on the bench under the window, walking stick on his lap.

What are you going to do when you finish your studies? Miki asks me. The old man spits his chewing gum out into his hand and packs it into its foil with shaking fingers. It takes him a long time, and when he's done it, Miki takes the little pellet from him. You okay? he shouts into the old man's ear.

K-k-k, says the old man, fn, fn.

Miki drives me to the Hotel Bikavac, which isn't a hotel anymore. The dilapidated little bungalows are now inhabited by people who can't afford anything else.

Do you have a girlfriend? asks Miki, looking up at the sky. It smells like rain, he says, and then: when are you planning to have children? He knocks at several doors, one is opened, a pale woman with her face still crumpled from sleep asks in surly tones what we want.

Just saying good morning, says Miki.

Miki drives me to the Hotel Vilina Vlas. Each time we get back in the car, I'm more scared. I know I should ask. I know I should scream. I know he won't answer, no matter what I do. Each time we get out of the car, I say less.

About halfway there, in Kosovo Polje, we stop by a burned-out ruin. Miki picks up a stone and rubs his thumb over the soot on it. In the parking lot outside the Vilina Vlas he offers me a cigarette and when I refuse he throws the pack away, half full.

On the way back through town he turns off at the police station. The police officers greet him as “Miki,” all of them. He goes into a small office without knocking. Pokor immediately takes his feet off the desk and puts the newspaper down. Keys, says my uncle, and Pokor hands him a large bunch of them.

Everything okay, Miki? But my uncle doesn't deign to give him another glance.

There's no one in the cells. Miki opens the door of the largest cell and places the sooty stone from Kosovo Polje on the narrow bed.

Get your studies over with quickly and see about making some cash, he says.

Miki's made lists. Miki drives me to the fire station. He crouches down outside the garage gate. The two large red fire engines used to stand behind it. I couldn't summon up any childish enthusiasm for them. Miki folds his hands in his lap and looks up at me from below. I crouch down too, but he keeps his eyes on where my head was a moment ago.

Your father and Bora, he says, breathing in sharply, don't think it necessary to visit their own mother. Perhaps they think sending money is enough. But it's not enough. She's our mother, without me she'd be all alone. And these are not good times to be alone. Miki speaks calmly, his hands part and then come together again. Your father and Bora have a problem with me. It's just between the three of us, it has nothing to do with our mother. Tell them that.

Father said they were planning. . I begin, but Miki interrupts me, and his eyes suddenly meet mine: your father hasn't spoken a word to me for seven years! Your father sends money, and photos of a swimming pool and your mother in a bathing suit. As far as your father's concerned I'm worth less than a spat-out piece of chewing gum! I look at the ground. But that won't do! he suddenly shouts, it won't do, that's not right! he shouts and shouts and shouts, that won't do, it won't do! Miki hammers the gate behind which the fire engines stand with his fist, a single blow.

I do not deprive my body of the readiness to protest, but I don't trust my mouth to find words for it, I don't let any challenging look come into my eyes, I permit myself no stern expression, I will not let my hands clench in anger. I'm outstandingly good at describing gestures.

Miki drives home with me. Granny is drinking coffee with her women neighbors. Mrs. Popović and Teta Magda are wearing black and criticizing the gathering clouds. Mrs. Popović thanks me for dropping in yesterday. I ask why, she says her husband has been playing the piano all morning. I say: that's none of my doing — nor mine, she says.

Granny would like to sit in the front seat of the car. Miki pulls out, she says: Slavko once filled the apartment with flowers for me, once he gave the Central Committee his own version of Little Red Riding Hood instead of a speech, once he prophesied, it can't turn out well, we all just have ideals but no alternatives to those ideals, and once he thought of being unfaithful to me, I could taste it in his kisses.

Just after we leave the paved road, we can drive no farther. There we are, says Miki, putting the hand brake on. There are so many potholes in the ground, and they're so deep, that even walking is difficult. Brambles and rampant undergrowth reach out to us from the sides of the road, thorny shoots, even rosebushes, there's only a narrow track left, with young oaks crossing their branches above it. It soon gets hot inside this tunnel of vegetation, the wind carries a sweetish scent of decay. The clouds overhead come together, forming a gray mosaic heavy with rain.

It's incredible, I say, hitting out at the buzzing around my head, all these insects in March.

Yes, incredible, gasps Granny Katarina, pointing to the bushes ahead of us. I stop. Suspended in the undergrowth nine or ten feet above us is the shell of a yellow Yugo. Granny and my uncle walk past the stranded car, which is held aloft only by tendrils, branches and creepers. I cautiously approach the Yugo entwined there in prickly shoots, and am left with a bleeding scratch on my forearm when I push a couple of branches aside to get a look at the registration. Our old Yugo, which always, without fail, broke down on this stretch of the road, the donkey, the idiot, the cretin of a car, as Father used to call it, has found its final parking place. The car is in love with this path — I can't explain what I see here in any other way.