Song of Kosovo, page 15
The soup. That had been a complicated one. I’d parlayed a stash of German porn and a couple of very stale joints for a nearly new distributor cap and a caseload of American razors. The cap was for a friend who made a business of selling black market petrol (was there any other kind?). As payment, he took me along for a drop-off at a converted mansion on the Dedinje. The place was a warehouse of sorts, gateway for food and dry goods making their way to any of the government-front restaurants and cabarets that littered the Old Man’s Hill. I left with whatever I could carry: soap, canned soups, and British meats, and a dozen Blue Crescent first aid kits.
The soup seemed to burn her lips and Tristina withdrew and blew, her mouth making a perfect circle. For a moment, she seemed erotic again.
“Some compared me to Majoli, you know. I beat her once. Just a single set, but all the same . . .”
The self-indulgence — I know it sounds awful, Nexhmije Gjinushi — was beginning to bother me. Believe me, I understood: she’d been through a lot. But now she was becoming like one of those old women you see walking the streets, the professional widows who wrap themselves in their mourning shawls for years, staying buttoned up, not in loss, but grief itself. Like these babas, Tristina was allowing herself to become defined by misery.
“Nevertheless, tennis. It doesn’t interest me anymore.”
She sighed deeply, almost theatrically, and resumed her reading.
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
“Hmm?”
“Habit Number Five. Very Buddhist.”
Tristina sighed deeply and shook her head. “This is not Buddhism, Zavida. Everything is not Buddhism.”
“I know, my love. In fact, nothing is . . .”
After dinner, Tristina roused. We walked the Knev that night for the first time in God knows when. A thick mist had infected the street, diffusing the lights and almost dousing our cigarettes. Tristina walked beside me, just out of reach of my hand. Her steps seemed deliberate, purposeful. I tugged her thumb.
“Come, my little martyr. My ass is freezing.”
Still, she dallied. She stopped at the Tri Sesira, closed since the Americans had upped the ante. We used to laugh at all those stodgy places, Tri Sesira, Dva Jelena, Zlatni Bokal. Now she seemed wistful.
We stood contemplating the boarded-up windows for several minutes, neither of us uttering a word.
I took a hip flask from my pocket and offered my Red-Haired Angel a swig. She reached for the bottle almost automatically: homemade vodka that burned when she swallowed.
“I’m thinking of taking a trip,” she said finally. “My mother. My sister. Novi Pazar, we think. My father believes . . .”
Her voice trailed off, and she took the flask again.
“Tygan, we should marry — yes?”
More silence. I reached for her hand. She did not let me take it.
Then we turned and walked through the moist lights of the Knez.
“I wonder if they’ll bomb tonight?” She sounded almost excited.
“Stranger things have happened.”
Tristina laughed, but just a little, then reached for another cigarette.
25
THE FIRST ARGUMENT was over some trifle. The botanical nature of the tomato, I believe. She maintained it was a fruit; I was steadfast that it was in fact a vegetable.
“It has seeds, that makes it a fruit.”
“Cucumbers have seeds. Are you telling me cucumbers are also fruits?”
One argument led to the next. The correct name of Mr. Spock’s planet (answer, Nexhmije Gjinushi? The Vulcan Home World, and not simply “Vulcan” as you might expect). And then the race was on. Nothing we could do would please the other. Toilet seat up, toilet seat down; toothpaste tube squeezed from the bottom or top — that sort of shit.
And while we still lay together at night, and still made love like Satan’s own minions, Tristina never answered my question, and I never asked it again.
26
BY NOW, DEAR COUNSELLOR, the rains had ended. The trinkets no longer fell from the heavens. No more lubricated condoms in five fashion colours. No more Hanuta wafers or chocolate toffee bars from Sweden. No more ProPed High Cut Support Pantyhose. No more TV Guide, Cinema, or Haus + Garten; no more Swank, Abgespristsk, Raisert, Schwanger, or XXXBrits. No more books. The storm had abated. There was the odd cloudburst, a shower of magic realists here, a sprinkle of German noir there. Then nothing.
Gone too were the surgical strikes, those hypnotic, semi-precise high-tech wonders that had turned the nightly news into the most popular show around. Attacks straight from Hollywood, no doubt. The bombing had become impersonal, random, as if the Gods had grown weary of the game and no longer cared to hide their disdain.
A few weeks back, Counsellor, at a place called Grdelica Gorge, some three hundred kilometres south of Beograd, NATO planes hit the Beograd–Thessaloniki train as it crossed the Južna Morava. The missiles killed fourteen people; bumpkins, mostly, heading to the big city for Easter holidays.
Days later, twenty people, most of them children, were killed when bombers missed an army barracks and pumped eleven Block III Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles into the residential part of Surdulica, a small industrial town known for making crappy auto parts. On the news that night, the Gods dismissed the action as a “mistake,” and added that “technology is not perfect and never will be.”
This came as a shock to many of us: if technology isn’t perfect, what hope is there for humanity?
Even the posh assholes in Dedinje weren’t safe from the Gods’ misguided love. Two days previous, NATO’s humanitarian shells scored a direct hit on Dragiša Mišović. Three patients from the neurological ward were killed, while numerous others, including a woman in the midst of a caesarean section, were injured. Their crimes? Conspiracy to be Serbs. Consorting with History.
“Serbia’s iron will cannot be broken!” Milošević declared from his bunker deep inside Mira’s pussy. “We have stood up to the greatest military coalition in history . . .”
True. The Serbian Will could not be broken. It was malleable: it could be kneaded into any form the Gods desired; it could be twisted in shapes unrecognizable. But. It could not, would not, break.
That was the problem.
Yet, even as I write this testimony, Counsellor, Beograd is fading in my imagination. The end would come quickly, and oddly, it was Crnilo that proved to be the catalyst.
I can date with some certainty the moment the end began. Tuesday, April 6, the thirteenth night of bombing, when according to the state news agency, NATO aircraft descended on poor little Crnilo.
Their target was supposedly a military barracks on the edge of town, set up (ironically, I suppose) to provide technical and manpower support in the wake of the infamous mining disaster. Some of the missiles apparently fell short of the target, striking an apartment block and killing five civilians (including, it was rumoured, the beautiful Dušan Mićić).
NATO acknowledged their “blunder,” and commenting on the error, Air Commodore David Wilby said to the press: “Despite our meticulous and careful pre-attack planning, the law of statistics will, at some stage, go against us and we will be exposed to technical defect.”
NATO’s technical defect roused the ghosts of Crnilo, as news agencies soon dove into their archives to uncover that other tragedy that had befallen this quiet mining town. It did not take long for some intrepid reporter to make the connection between Dobroslav Zanković the Beograd Magus and Dobroslav Zanković the Monster of Crnilo.
The backlash was sudden and complete. Editorials across the country denounced Father as a fraud and Marija Milošević herself led a camera crew into The Peasants’ Table (“a scrofulous carbuncle on the ass of our fair city,” she called it, in a moment, I dare say, Nexhmije Gjinushi, of genuine insight) to uncover the primitive system of wires and pulleys Father and his cronies had used to deceive the willing nation. Viewers were treated to the sight of one of Milošević’s producers, sitting cross-legged and wearing a special harness they’d discovered in the back closet, levitating on cue as he hummed the American national anthem for effect.
That evening, a mob ransacked The Peasants’ Table, smashing tables and chairs and carrying off every last beer keg and bottle of watered-down vodka. The Internet café was spared only because of Bracha’s bold insistence that he had no connection to the owners of the bar and by the presence of armed goons at the entrance and in the parking lot.
Father had the good sense to disappear. At first, he bivouacked in his Vidikovac flat, waiting for the latest storm to pass. He remained philosophical and defended his latest deception in the simplest of terms.
“It was good for business and provided me steady work at a time when I dearly needed it. Besides, we really didn’t deceive anyone. In my experience, people are hard to deceive. While they rarely see what they want to see simply because they want to see it, they often don’t see what they don’t want to see merely because they don’t want to see it.”
In time, though, the storm clouds did not lift. It was time for him to escape again. He left one evening wearing one of mother’s old cloaks and a feather hat taken from the personal collection of Sofija Dimitrijević. And that was the last any of us would hear of him for ages, Nexhmije Gjinushi. There were rumours, of course, and unsubstantiated reports from friends of relatives and relatives of friends. He had taken up with Albanian bandits. He was working as a double agent for the Croatian secret service. He had become a raspberry farmer and herbalist in some tiny hamlet in the darkest reaches of southern Serbia. Who knows? Any testimony I could provide as to his whereabouts or activities in the ensuing months would be strictly hearsay and inadmissible, I suspect, in any court of law.
27
MY OWN DEPARTURE FROM BEOGRAD was equally inauspicious. One minute I was enjoying a shitty coffee with friends at the Kafe Agronom, when a group of uniformed men arrived. Middle-aged thugs, gaunt or tubby — take your pick because there were no in-betweens. Some dressed vaguely like police, in black uniforms and flak jackets, others dressed more like soldiers or paramilitaries in drab military costumes, a parody of green, and the Arkan crest on their homemade berets. They carried that sense of entitlement granted every disenfranchised man the day he is handed his automatic weapon.
Some of the guys started catcalling — it was stupid, yes. Instinct told us to slip away, but the hot mud, marinated in vodka to make it palatable, loosened our brains and tongues. When one of the tin soldiers asked Luka Nikolić for his papers, all hell broke loose. These were Stalinists, we had decided, forgetting about the guns until Luka’s brother Dejan had his face split open by a rifle butt. Eight of us were conscripted on the spot, pressed into the service of the Provisional Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Greater Serbia.
The next morning I was out of Beograd, making my way to the Yellow Valley, to Fuckhole or Shitsville or wherever the impersonal gods had in mind. At the time, as I have told you, I convinced myself that it was only a momentary parting from Tristina, that this love existed outside of time, had always existed and always would, that every step I marched away from her would be one more step on my way back. Her silence at the end I understood. I left without any ceremony; I was shanghaied after all, and that doesn’t leave one time for long goodbyes. My kingdom for a phone!
Let the record show that we marched for six days. Up the hills, down the hills, deeper into the region they called the Yellow Valley. It was still early in the spring, which made it even more difficult to traverse. The ground was damp and fallow, and the traction of our army issue boots was no match for the mud of the steep Drenica slopes. The grass was still curled and bruised from the harsh winter’s snow, and the dogwoods that stubbled the valleys had yet to flower.
Still, it was amazing how much ground you could cover when you were driven by alcohol and indifference. At first every step had been a chore, each tick and tock a reminder of the stupid fortune that had swept me up.
In the meantime, letters would have to do. It was old-fashioned and oddly comforting to write these letters, the ultimate cyberspace, where you are in communication with a person who only exists in your imagination. I could only envision her face as I wrote, imagine and hope that this piece of paper, this inanimate It, would somehow (by magic, I suppose) find its way to her. And then, I could only imagine her reaction to it: happiness, horniness, anger, indifference, a myriad of responses limited only by my mind’s eye and alcohol intake. Such an impersonal medium, Counsellor, these letters. No wonder no one writes them anymore.
28
DEAR TRISTINA:
Blessed Mary, I am going crazy without you. Just thinking about you right now, my cock is ready to explode. I am not sure how much longer I can hold off before seeing you again. I am tempted to pull my cock out right now, but I am trying to practise the Buddhist virtue of patience.
There’s no privacy here, of course, it’s just a bunch of guys in a wheat field trying to make do, but that doesn’t stop me. Last night, just as I was falling asleep, I imagined that you were lying in the bedroll with me, and you had your tongue deep in my mouth and both hands on my cock and balls. Just the thought of you touching me, I almost came right then and there. It just took a few strokes (my hands are no substitute for yours) and I shot my wad right in my tighty-whiteys. That’s the only way I can sleep, imagining you are there with me and that we have just fucked. Then the world seems okay and I can sleep.
What a strange picture we must make, me and all the other guys. If you came up on us at night time, you’d see a dozen bedrolls on the ground, and a dozen blankets popping up and down like they had rabbits in them, drunken rabbits dancing to some inaudible song: The Song of Kosovo.
The only sound you’d hear is a dozen guys trying not to moan too loud, and trying not to call out our absent lover’s name. And once we’re all done, and turned over to sleep for the night, you know what we do? We call out “Good night” to one another, very friendly, almost lovingly.
God, I miss you!!! Do you miss me too? Your silence is starting to worry me, but I understand. You have been through a lot, and who has time for letters these days?
I can’t tell you what shit this is. We have new orders, and on the move to God-Knows-Where, Kosovo, in search of the elusive and crafty Turk. The point of the whole exercise escapes me. We are in a country full of Muslims. Why we have to go off looking for particular Muslims is anybody’s guess. I would think one Muslim would do just as well as another; in fact the randomness of our approach has a lot going for it. Much more representative of Slobo’s strategy, which I figure is I-Don’t-Know-What-the-Fuck-I’m-Doing-But-if-I-Keep-Doing-Stuff-Maybe-People–Will-Think-I-Have-a-Plan. But I understand the approach. Given that we are looking for particular Muslims (although we know nothing about them, specifically, except a few anthropomorphic nicknames — the Leopard, the Badger, Korbi Artë, aka the Golden Falcon — and the fact they are “terrorists”), and not just Muslims in general, then we can maintain the illusion that this is a just, or at least justifiable, fight between known combatants. It’s all about protecting your ass, as near as I can figure. War crimes are on everyone’s mind. With the outcome already decided (you have to understand, my love, everyone — absolutely everyone — is certain we are going to lose this one). A bunch of sloppy Serbs taking on the might of the most powerful nation on earth — plus NATO! This is the Field of Blackbirds all over again. This is defeat waiting to happen. (Serbia can hardly wait!!!) An international tribunal can’t be far behind. The brass — all of them — are already working on their alibis.
But yes: the New Orders. Vojnovic himself briefed us. He came down to the fire last night and talked for what seemed like hours. Most of us pretended to listen, trying to get our chores done before darkness took over. (Kovač, the brownnoser, sat in rapt attention, jotting feverishly in his little black notebook. Our sergeant, always on the ready in case Vojnovic should need a handy dog to spit on). The mission was vital for the survival of the Serbian Nation, he told us, and “the fate of the entire war effort rests on your shoulders” (those were his exact words). Our mission was simple and complex all at once: we were going north (he was never more specific than that) deep into the Yellow Valley to root out Albanian warlords trying to pry Kosovo from its rightful place in the Serbian Federation. The warlords, Vojnovic told us, were in league with a cadre of international terrorists — Afghans, Palestinians, Neo-Nazis, and other NATO puppets. They were forcing Serbs from their homes, uprooting them from where they had lived peaceably with their Albanian neighbours for centuries (Kovač, of course, nodded violently, and looked and sat even more rigidly, as if he felt Vojnovic was signalling him out personally for special attention). There were documented reports, Vojnovic told us, of Serbian maidens as young as nine — little girls — raped by gangs of Albanian paramilitaries, of the wholesale slaughter of Serbian men and boys, anyone with a hair on his balls, their vital organs harvested and sold to Asian medical clinics, with the wholesaling of human body parts, along with a significant hand in the heroin trade that flowed through Kosovo, which financed the Albanian’s illegal and immoral insurgency. It was all Ethnic Cleansing this and Ethnic Cleansing that (Ethnic Cleanser: what a perfect name for laundry soap. My friend Boz and I might market it after the Defeat!).
The speech was meant to be rousing, I supposed. But I for one couldn’t wait for the man to shut up. I wanted to get to bed. I wanted to get back to thoughts of you.
But enough of politics. I want to tell you about my sex fantasy. It’s a good one, and it involves you (of course!). For some reason, we are on a beach somewhere on the Adriatic. I don’t care where (you pick). Anyways, we’ve gone on vacation somewhere and we’ve just come in from a swim in the cold sea, and our bathing suits are clinging to us, and I can see that your nipples are very hard. Whether from the cold or just because I am turning you on, I’m not sure. We quickly lie on our towels and snuggle to warm up, and start kissing. We kiss very softly at first, but then your tongue slips out and fights its way past my lips, and soon my fingers are very, very softly tickling your shoulders and the back of your neck. You stop my hand suddenly and push me back onto the blanket, and take out a tube of suntan lotion and pour some into your hands. You turn me onto my stomach and rub the lotion onto my back. I can feel the water drying as you massage my shoulders and back muscles, and feel the hot sun warming my skin. The smell of suntan lotion is everywhere, and it makes me hot (remember that night on the Knez, when the smell of coconut oil was everywhere?).
