Rose of Sarajevo

by Ayşe Kulin

  “Holy shit!” exclaimed Boris.

  “Have I managed to prick your conscience a little, Boris?”

  “Look, Stefan, I’m never going to get worked up over Bosniaks the way you do. And speaking of pricks, I believe yours is what led you to feel such sympathy for the Bosniaks in the first place.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it!”

  “I approved your piece. What more do you want? Now get to work, and leave me and my conscience alone.”

  Stefan was out of the office like a shot. Boris was right: he’d need to get down to work immediately. He’d need a Serbian ID card so that he could easily cross into Karadžić’s Serbian enclave, and he’d need a list of camps so that he could arrange interviews.

  When he was quoted a price for a fake ID the following day, he said, “Fine. I’ll give them whatever they want. Just get me the ID right away.”

  While Stefan waited for his ID, Croatia kept its borders closed to the next wave of refugees. As tens of thousands of Bosniaks trapped in the mountains of northern Bosnia began falling victim to Serbian torture, rape, and execution, the people of Sarajevo, along with their president, Alija Izetbegović, finally shook themselves awake from the dream that the West would come riding in to the rescue. Human rights organizations wouldn’t save them. The UN wouldn’t save them. They were completely and utterly on their own, at the mercy of the very enemies that had been plotting against them for years. Izetbegović no longer had a choice: he had to stop the Bosniaks from fleeing their country or see Bosnia erased from the map.

  Jovan Plavić

  Stefan stared wide-eyed at his reflection in the mirror. His chestnut hair was a few shades lighter than usual, and the mustache he’d sported for years was gone. The space between his nose and upper lip seemed to have expanded by a few inches. Strangest of all, he looked about fifteen years younger. He’d have barely recognized himself if it hadn’t been for those familiar eyes, the cut of his chin, and the shape of his nose. Had the bottle of hair dye, now empty and resting on the back of the sink, caused this transformation, or was it the whiskers he’d washed down the drain?

  He combed his hair back without parting it, as he always did. Then he remembered the warning the ID-card man had given him: if he was discovered to be an imposter, the consequences would be dire. He tried parting his hair on the right, but the resemblance to Hitler was unsettling. When he parted it on the left, his hair stuck up like a rooster’s tail. He smoothed it down with some hair gel; now he looked like an Italian rake straight out of a ’30s’ flick. He washed off the gel and pushed his hair back with his fingers. It would have to do. He studied his new face for a few minutes, then threw on some clothes, ran down the stairs to his car, and drove until he found a barbershop somewhere in north Zagreb.

  “Give me a number two,” he told the barber once he was settled in the chair.

  The clean shaven person with a buzz cut looking at him in the mirror now looked like a soldier.

  “You looked better with long hair,” the barber said with a sad shake of his head.

  “I’ve got a long journey ahead of me,” Stefan said. “This is more practical.”

  “If it’s grown out by the time you get back to Zagreb, look me up. We’ll pick out a more flattering style.”

  “Inshallah,” Stefan said, an expression he’d picked up from Nimeta and his old Muslim colleagues.

  The barber narrowed his eyes.

  Stefan had agreed to leave Nimeta, but that didn’t mean he never thought about her, sometimes with longing. He was also honest enough to admit to himself that the possibility of seeing her again was one of the reasons he’d wanted to do the story. Nimeta still had a place in his heart, even if it was mostly scar tissue. Although the pain was gone, something of her would stay with him forever, that much he knew.

  He paid the cashier and went back over to tip the barber, who pushed his hand away.

  “Anything the matter?” Stefan asked.

  “No,” the barber said.

  “Are you refusing a tip because I said ‘inshallah’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Stefan was furious. He was determined to have it out with the racist barber.

  “My grandmother was a Muslim. I haven’t heard anyone use that expression since she died. Thank you for reminding me of her.”

  “So you’re half Muslim then,” Stefan said, feeling a little sheepish.

  “One quarter. But you know what it’s like in the Balkans: nobody can be sure exactly what they are. We’ve been mingling for centuries. I’ll never understand what all this fighting is about.”

  “It’s about a power grab by a bunch of madmen,” Stefan said. “Isn’t that always the way? A mad scramble for power, and the rest of us pay for it.”

  “Some of the rest of us follow along like a flock of sheep,” the barber said.

  “I’ll stop in again on my way back,” Stefan said. “My hair will have grown out by then and we can continue our chat—inshallah,” he added with a smile. “Oh, by the way, is there anywhere around here where I can get a mug shot taken?”

  “There’s a shop on the opposite side of the street, about two hundred meters to the right. Are you a Muslim?”

  “A quarter.”

  “Mother’s side or father’s side?”

  “A woman’s side.”

  When Stefan stepped out of the shop, he glanced up at the sign so that he’d remember it. The man waved a chubby hand at him through the window.

  Stefan found the photographer’s in no time and asked for two snapshots.

  “There’s a minimum of eight,” he was told. “It’ll only take ten minutes.”

  After the photographer had carefully cut and trimmed the photos with a pair of scissors, Stefan paid for them and walked out of the shop without even looking at them. When he got home, he dialed the ID man’s number.

  “The mug shots are ready. You can pick them up.”

  At nine the next morning, he was holding his new ID card. He studied the face of the man with the light brown buzz cut, a bit too much space between his nose and his upper lip, and a trace of sadness in his eyes. His name was Jovan Plavić, and he had been born in Jajce.

  Jovan Plavić thought it prudent to avoid the northern border crossing into Bosnia that Stefan Stefanoviç had passed through so many times. Instead, he traveled the length of Croatia until he reached the country’s southern border. If he hadn’t chosen that alternate route, he would never have seen the refugees who had been forced out of Foča and Višegrad, some of whom were later picked off by Arkan’s Tigers as they crossed the mountains on foot.

  They’d been walking for days under a blistering sun to get to Split. Those lucky enough to be on buses were sometimes forced out onto the road, robbed, and beaten. Many had died on the way.

  Stefan should have known better than to approach a group of dusty travelers near the border and ask a young woman, “Where are all your men?”

  “No men under seventy escaped. Either they were killed or they were taken away to camps.”

  These were the camps Jovan Plavić intended to visit. He was going to see the people detained at them, talk to them, and write about them for an international audience. And he might run into Nimeta while doing so.

  An elderly woman came over to him. “You’re not a Serb, are you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I could tell,” she said.

  Stefan didn’t say another word. He’d changed his name and face, but there must have been something that gave him away. The guy who had brought him his ID card had told him to “think like a Serb” if he wanted to pass as one. But even a weary old woman had been able to tell at a glance what he was and what he wasn’t. That was bad.

  “You shouldn’t go up to strangers,” he advised the elderly woman. “And be careful what questions you ask
. You could get yourself killed.”

  “Ah, I’ve got no reason to be careful anymore. I can’t wait to die. If I were dead, I wouldn’t have seen them skin our men alive. I wouldn’t have seen them chop off the hands and feet of our husbands and sons so they couldn’t kill themselves when they were left to die, covered in flies, some of them out of their minds from the pain. Some died right away, but others—”

  “Hey! What are you doing talking to those women?” a Serbian policeman shouted, marching over to them.

  “I was asking about the roads,” Stefan said.

  Stefan hadn’t expected to have any trouble from the Serbian policemen at the border, but he’d been mistaken.

  “Why are you trying to get into Bosnia when everyone else is trying to get out?” the policeman asked.

  “I was living in Zagreb when the war started, but I’m Bosnian. I’m going to stay with my family.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Sarajevo.”

  “How long do you plan to stay?”

  “For good.”

  “Is that all you’ve got with you?” the policeman asked, eyeing the bag and small suitcase Stefan was carrying.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re going back for good and you haven’t got anything else?”

  “I’m single. I don’t need to travel with a suite of furniture.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, or I won’t let you cross.”

  “My boss wouldn’t be too happy about that.”

  “Who’s your boss?”

  “Mitević.”

  The policeman blanched. “Is Mitević really your boss?”

  “I work for Belgrade television. I’m going to shoot some footage in Bosnia.”

  “Wait for me here,” the policeman said.

  Then he disappeared into a makeshift hut with Stefan’s ID card.

  Stefan sat down on a bench a few feet away. As he waited in the sun, another banged-up bus covered with dust pulled to a stop. A group of miserable-looking travelers got out of it. A small boy started crying. A policeman told his mother to shut him up. She picked up her son, rocked him, whispered in his ear and kissed him, but he kept crying. The policeman snatched the boy from her arms and pinched his nose hard. The boy couldn’t breathe. When his mother sank to the ground, the boy started crying again. The policeman picked up the boy and threw him against the wall. He fell to the ground and was silent. Nobody moved. Nobody intervened. They were all used to this sort of thing. The mother lay on the ground. Another woman ran over and made a pillow with her knees. Nobody dared to go over to the boy. Stefan got up and started walking.

  “Plavić,” a voice said.

  Stefan kept walking.

  “Plavić! Jovan Plavić!”

  Stefan turned and looked. It was the policeman who’d interrogated him.

  “Plavić! Are you interested in crossing the border or in that Turkish brat? Why are you making me shout?”

  “I was going to see if he was dead.”

  “If he’s dead, he’s dead. What’s it to you?”

  “You’re right,” Stefan said. “It’s none of my business.”

  He went over to the hut to get his ID card. The policeman was grinning.

  “I don’t expect Mitević would want you to trouble yourself over some Turkish brat.”

  “Can I have my ID? Are you done?” Stefan asked, reaching out his hand.

  “In a hurry, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here you are, Jovan.”

  Stefan took his ID and started to walk back to the car. Then he spun round and said, “That boy, the one lying on the ground. He’s not a Turk; he’s a Bosniak.”

  When he was traveling through the parts of Bosnia that weren’t under Serbian control, Stefan would pull off his left boot, take his real ID card out from its hiding place under the felt insole, replace it with Jovan’s ID, push the insole back into place, and put his boot back on.

  Sarajevo was hellish. Stefan didn’t even recognize some parts of the city. All the main roads were barricaded, and there was always something burning in the middle of the streets. Corpses were strewn along the shoulders of the roads. The deathly silence was only ruptured by the staccato report of machine guns, exploding bombs, or sniper shots. The building in Alipašino Polje where he’d sometimes made love to Nimeta was riddled with holes. Nothing had been left unscathed. Still, life somehow went on. He saw people rushing to work, to appointments and dates, to shops with nearly empty shelves. Young people filled cafés and bars and listened to music. Love too was in the air, along with death. He saw couples everywhere, embracing and walking hand in hand.

  When Stefan entered a hotel whose facade had been sprayed with bullets, he was astonished at how ordinary everything looked. There wasn’t a trace of panic or fear. He could hear music somewhere and walked toward it. In a secluded bar, a few musicians had gathered around a piano and were playing jazz. Had he ever come here with Nimeta? He couldn’t remember. He went to the bar and ordered a drink. When he went to pay, he couldn’t believe the price, but it was too late. He took a sip of the twenty-five-dollar whiskey and vowed to give up drinking until the war was over.

  “Haven’t seen you here before,” the barman said.

  “No.”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “You guessed it.”

  “Who else would come here?” the barman said. “It’s not like anyone’s coming here for a holiday.”

  “You’ve got a point there.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Zagreb.”

  Stefan didn’t feel like talking, but the barman kept peppering him with questions. Well, he wasn’t going to be sweet-talked into ordering another drink. He asked where the restroom was, just to make his escape.

  “Over there on the left,” the barman said.

  The restroom was empty. He needed to switch identities again, so he leaned over and undid the laces to his left boot. He was just leaning over to press the felt insole back into place when he heard something directly behind him.

  “Don’t move. Stay where you are,” a deep voice barked.

  He froze.

  “What have you got in your hand?”

  “What does a man usually have in his hand in front of a urinal?” Stefan asked.

  The moment the words left his mouth, he was booted in the ass. He rolled forward and bumped his head on the wall. Even as he was falling, he had the presence of mind to shove his ID deep into his pocket.

  “I think I’ll take what you’ve got in your hand and feed it to you,” the voice said.

  Stefan got to his feet and turned around, expecting to see a policeman. But the voice didn’t belong to a cop, a soldier, or a gendarme; it belonged to a hulking brute in a black suit.

  “What were you looking for inside your boot?”

  Stefan didn’t answer.

  “You were hiding your money there, weren’t you?”

  Stefan tried to decide whether to jump him. He’d relaxed the moment he realized he was just dealing with some punk out to rob him.

  “It doesn’t matter whether you stick your money in your boot or up your asshole,” the man said, flicking open a switchblade. “I’ll get it one way or another. Or you can just hand it over real nice.”

  Stefan pulled his wallet out of his front side pocket and took out all his cash.

  “It’s the money in the boot I’m after.”

  The man picked up Stefan’s boot and shook it. A grimy ID card fell out. The man flipped it over with the point of his shoe.

  “So you’re a Croat.”

  “That’s right. I’m not a Serb.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference to me. Serb, Croat . . . you’re all the same to me. Now take off your other boot.”

  St
efan pulled it off and handed it over. Not even an ID card fell out this time. The man grabbed the cash in Stefan’s hand, jammed it into his inner jacket pocket, picked up the ID off the floor, and tossed it in the toilet.

  “If you try to follow me, I’ll kill you. Stay in here for ten minutes,” the brute said on his way out.

  As soon as he’d left, Stefan ran over and fished out his ID card. He looked for some paper towels to dry it off, but the dispenser was empty. There wasn’t even any toilet paper. So he shook the card back and forth a few times. Then he put on his boots, slipped the wet ID card into his empty wallet, and walked out of the bathroom.

  Jazz was still playing in the bar. It sounded like a song he and Nimeta had particularly liked. He wondered what she was doing right now. Was she at home?

  He left the hotel and wandered around the devastated city for a while. The Holiday Inn they’d visited so many times was a favorite with foreign journalists, so it hadn’t been a direct target and only suffered from a few shattered windows from time to time. Hotel Bristol was another story—it had burned to the ground. And, unable to figure out which of the twin towers, Momo and Üzeyir, had a Muslim name, the Serbs had lobbed bombs at both of them. Stefan found himself walking past scene after scene of destruction—the post office, the museums, the law school, the theater. Then he decided to see whether the skyscraper housing the offices of the Oslobođenje newspaper was still standing; he prayed that it was. It looked as though his colleagues there had been lucky. The upper floors had been destroyed, but they continued to publish in the underground levels of the same building.

  He told the woman at reception that he wanted to see Rasim. He appeared a few moments later. His huge belly had melted away, and his cheeks were hollow.

  “Yes?” Rasim said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Rasim, it’s me. Stefan.”

  “Who?”

  “Stefan Stefanoviç. Stejo. Don’t you remember me?”

  “Oh! Stejo! My God you look different.”

  “So do you.”

  “I’ve changed, but nothing like you. I’ve been here getting shot at and starving, and you’ve been somewhere getting ten years younger. How’d you manage that? Are you in love?”