Sarajevo Marlboro Read Free Page B

is to say, he didn’t, but he might as well have.” You can’t understand Džemo’s answer. Comrade Tito, you imagine, was the only person in the world strong enough to assemble the Lego bricks above the waterfall. Džemo’s “he didn’t, but he might as well have” stinks, just like his hip-flask.
    You eat a meal in the restaurant. You have shish-kebab, but in the bus on the way home you throw up. Never mind, you’d enjoyed eating it.
    It is already dark outside; but no Fiat overtakes the bus, which doesn’t stop – and nobody dies. Džemo doesn’t talk of accidents any more. He talks about something else, probably equally untrue. Or perhaps it is true just for a moment before you close your eyes and fall asleep only to wake up when the sky is red, like a burning roof over the lights of Sarajevo.

Cactus
    She was always afraid of missing the beautiful and important things in life. She traveled a lot, but more often she panicked because she was stuck at home. For some reason she always imagined that real happiness and pleasure lay elsewhere. As a result she was forever thinking up new ways of stopping time and grasping that crystal moment when life becomes a dream or a fairy tale.
    Suddenly, at the end of December 1990, she told me she longed to spend New Year’s Eve on the island of Hvar with a bunch of people I didn’t know. In her enthusiasm she managed to present her longing in terms of it being just a good idea. I was somewhat taken aback, but my objections only made her depressed, so I finally accepted the plan as if it were a joint one. We got together at Marijindvor the day beforeNew Year’s Eve. It was early in the morning; the trams were not yet running. I was introduced to some rather decadent men and women in evening dress, which I tend to associate with late nights and drunken parties. A dozen of us, plus a load of suitcases and a more or less hyperactive boxer dog, squeezed into three cars. The convoy set off, with two VW Golfs in front and a wreck of a Citroën 2cv following behind. In the old banger were the two of us, a bald engineering student, his ugly fat girlfriend and the boxer dog. The car seemed to be held together by the sort of brown tape used to wrap parcels. Not surprisingly there was an icy draft blowing from all sides and our feet almost sank through the floor. As we crawled agonizingly along the road toward the south, the fat girl talked about French perfumes and the dog kept farting noisily. On each occasion I smiled fondly at my girlfriend and made some lighthearted remark, trying as hard as I could to make her think I was enjoying myself. The 2cv inched up the Ivan mountain at about ten miles per hour until Konjic, where it spluttered a couple of times and then finally came to a standstill. The flatulent dog broke wind once again and started to bark excitedly. We got out of the car and waited for the others who were in the Volkswagens to come to our rescue. Then we began to discuss strategy or, at any rate, how to redistribute the extra passengers among the two vehicles that were still on the road. Who was going to go where? It was impossible to decide. No matter which combination of humans, suitcases and flatulent animals was proposed, my girlfriend and I always endedup being the odd ones out. And so when at last it had been decided who would continue the journey by train and who by car, I put my hand on her shoulder and whispered, “Why don’t we just go back?”
    Unexpectedly she didn’t look at me in a reproachful way. She merely shrugged and heaved a weary sigh.
    I said, “Who’ll tell them?”
    â€œYou do it. After all, you’re the man.”
    â€œIt’ll sound better coming from you. They’re your friends. Besides, if I say it they’ll only get the wrong idea and think we’re annoyed about something.”
    I was right, of course, and in the end she made the announcement.