Sarajevo Marlboro Read Free

kill them,” adding, “or I would give them a pen and paper and tell them, as you tell me, to DRAW!”
    The doctors’ faces lit up. They took their pens and papers and pronounced Salih F. insane.
    Here Kafka moves from the projected world to the real: the very terms of knowledge and justice are interrogated by experience and found more than wanting. The best of Jergović’s work operates at this level and the contradictions faced by the characters inhabiting his prose enact a historical reality that too often falls through the cracks of the blindered vision we have been made to think can apprehend the world. Throughout, with both gentleness and bitter irony, he reminds us that we should “gently stroke” the very objects we cherish most, our books, for instance, so we can remember they are nothing but “dust.”
    Ammiel Alcalay
    May 2003

The Excursion
    You want to bury your head in the pillow. Anything else is just torture. Yet the snugness of your bed soon vanishes like a dream. The sleep world disappears and you bump your head against your mother’s bony shoulder. As you glance out of the corner of an eye you see the steps of the bus dancing under your feet. This optical illusion of neat geometrical figures sends you right back to sleep. Ten minutes later you wake up again with a sick feeling in your stomach, but now it’s too late. You’re already on the bus surrounded by the clerks and typists of the Public Accounts Department on an excursion to Jajce. Your mother is the only member of staff who has brought a child with her – because you have to see the waterfalls, or so she insists, and she won’t take no for an answer, even though your stomach is threatening toerupt and right now your head feels more like a cesspool than a waterfall. Will it never clear up? You hear sounds amid the din, the rhythm of the bus, its thick window knocking. Through the glass you notice things – people, scenes, aspects – that will become, much later, ten years on perhaps, the more or less familiar images of your homeland. Such things you will describe with fervor and exaggeration to strangers from other countries.
    Outside the window it’s a rainy day. The overflowing Bosna rushes under the bridge. Not the best weather for an outing, perhaps. Nevertheless the middle-aged employees gossip happily and ogle the blonde secretaries who have packed roast chicken and other snacks into their oversized beach bags, as well as make-up and combs, packets of Panadol, suntan lotion and those mysterious little objects that, as you will soon discover, come in handy once a month – but always, it seems, in the course of day-trips or celebrations.
    You look out of the window and see a Fiat overtaking the bus. Inside the tiny vehicle are four young men who, as seen from your lofty vantage, look like happy dwarfs enjoying the rain. It’s obvious they want to race everyone they meet in this shiny, wet world. But you seem to be the only person watching them. The attention of the other passengers is drawn to other things, understandably perhaps, because it’s the middle of the week and they’ve got a day off, so they intend to make the most of it. Take old Džemo, for instance, who has brought an army hip-flask and is now passing it round. The toothless fool offers you adrink as a joke. At first you think it’s just water inside the flask, but then you catch a whiff of the alcohol, its sharp smell not unlike the liquid that nurses use to wipe your shoulder before they give you a jab. You can’t stop the heaving in your guts, until finally you throw up, covering the seat in front of you in a bitter, yellowy-green substance whose unpleasant smell stays in your nostrils for a very long time.
    The bus slows down and comes to a halt in the middle of the road. The driver gets out, followed by the rest of the passengers. Your mother tells you not to move an inch, but