The Lazarus Project

by Aleksandar Hemon

  And when I woke up I continued imagining the future letter, with a mind so slow it seemed somebody else was tabulating all the losses, pains, and grievances, describing all those nights when I had listened to her unsteady breathing, trying to talk myself out of the pain in my head, imagining a different life for myself, the life of a good man, and a better writer. I told her breathlessly about the can of sadness I had found in our kitchen and how afraid I was of having children and how on this trip I realized that I never wanted to go back to America. I told her that I could never find peace in Chicago and that I could not watch George die. I could have written page after demented page of what would have been a testament to our marriage. I will never know you, nothing about you, what has died inside you, what has lived invisibly, I could have written. I am elsewhere now.

  I DIDN’T EVEN know where in the labyrinth of Baš Čaršija Azra lived. The local custom—our custom—demanded that I go and visit her house of sorrow, which would certainly be full of friends and family and acquaintances. And who was I? I wanted to go and see her; Rora had bonded us. But I could not find her home. I randomly inquired around Baš Čaršija for the house of Azra Halilbašić: most of the people said they did not know; some knew but did not want to tell me, taking it upon themselves to shield her from strangers. Finally, I called her at home and had to get through a series of protective aunts and anonymous men before I could offer my deepest condolences and remind her that I had been Rora’s co-traveler, that she had kindly attended to my broken hand. She asked me how it was. It was even more swollen than last week, and quite a bit bluer, too. She said I must come to the hospital’s emergency room tomorrow; she would be on duty. Thank you. I know it must be hard for you, I said. I’ll see you tomorrow, she said.

  In the emergency waiting room I waited to be called upon along with a broken-limbed biker, a battered wife, a skull-cracked drunk, and a boy who sliced his cheeks open attempting to swallow a razor; we sat in collective pain, occasionally expressed by an individual grunt. From somewhere beyond the many doors there came horrible screams. A miserable body was thrust fast through the swinging doors, a blood bag dangling above it like a wet flag.

  Between the licks of his swirling-candy stick, Lazarus asks Olga if she loves someone. Yes, she says. He asks her if she is going to marry him. Probably not, she says.

  Why not?

  Because sometimes you have no control over life and it keeps you far away from who you love.

  Do you ever imagine a life different from this one?

  Yes, all the time.

  A better life?

  Yes, a better life.

  I imagine my life to be big, so big that I cannot see the end of it. Big enough for everyone to fit into it. You will be in it, Mother and Father will be in it, people I have never met or known will be in it. I will be in it. I can see it. I have a picture of it in my head. It’s a field in bloom so deep you can swim in it. I can see it now, and I cannot see its end.

  A NIMBLE young nurse called “Brik!” and I hurried after her into an unkempt room full of patients on gurneys littered along its length. I found Azra behind a curtained-off space in the middle. She had a syringe in her hand; I thought she was getting it ready for me. An old woman was squirming on the gurney, clutching her stomach, riven with cramps; she gasped and croaked and muttered, her eyes darting sideways, as though she were following the trajectories of her pain. The nurse turned her over rather heartlessly and lifted her gown. I saw the shrunken ass, the ripples of cadaverous skin, the red and brown blotches on her thighs; the atrophied calves; the sores on her swollen, bluish feet. Azra plunged the needle into her left buttock; within seconds the old woman calmed down and the nurse turned her over. Her eyes rolled up; her upper lip exposed toothless gums; her nostril walls were paper-thin. It seemed to me she was dead, but Azra did not seem concerned. She could tell the difference between life and death. There, she said to the old lady, who could not hear her. You should feel better soon.

  We went to the office of the surgeon on night duty. There was nothing that bespoke Azra was the one on duty, other than the same low-heeled shoes under the desk. She checked my hand, turning and twisting it, ignoring my yelps and recoils; she switched on the light box to look at my X-rays again, shaking her head. I reveled in her worrying about me. Perversely, I hoped she would have to operate on me; I would have been thrilled if she were to cut through my weak flesh, all the way to the bone.

  What do you see there? I asked.

  I see what I don’t want to see. You need to have that hand above your heart when you sleep. And you are probably walking around with it hanging down. You need to stay put and rest.

  It was Rambo, wasn’t it? I said.

  What was Rambo? she asked, wiping my hand with a ball of cotton soaked in alcohol. The flesh felt nothing, but I could see she was gentle. My hand was dying. My hand was going to die first, then the rest of me, limb by limb.

  It was Rambo who killed Rora, I said.

  She pressed a pedal to lift the trash can lid and dropped the cotton ball in it; the can was empty.

  It was because Rora knew that Rambo killed Miller, I said.

  Who is Miller?

  You know who Miller is. He is the American reporter Rora worked with in the war.

  Her curls glistened under the blazing neon light. You could tell by her hair Rora was her brother.

  Miller, you say, she said and shook her head. What did Ahmed tell you?

  Rora told me the whole story. He told me that Rambo killed Miller because he was consorting with Beno. He told me Rambo got out of Sarajevo after the surgery disguised as a corpse.

  That’s the story he told you?

  Rora had photos that could be used as evidence against Rambo, the photos of Miller dead at Duran’s brothel. Rora knew too much. I could not figure out why he would risk his life coming back to Sarajevo, but I thought he had the negatives put away somewhere.

  You are pretty smart, a true writer, she said. Great imagination.

  And I think you were the one who operated on Rambo. You saved his life and he owed you. But Rambo must have decided it would be safer to get rid of Rora altogether.

  Azra snorted, took her glasses off, and rubbed her eyes—which were an even darker green today—as though finding me annoyingly unreal.

  You are right, she said. I did operate on Rambo. But I just patched him up so they could take him to a hospital in Vienna. Which they did on a UN plane, with a government escort and an attending nurse, who, frankly, we could not afford to lose at the time.

  She put her glasses back on.

  As for Miller, last I heard he was reporting from Iraq. He stopped by in Sarajevo not so long ago, gave me a call. He was on his way to a vacation in Paris. He asked about Ahmed. I told him he was in America and gave Miller his phone number. For all I know, he is still vacationing.

  I find that hard to believe, I said.

  That’s the truth.

  Who killed Rora, then?

  A boy with a gun, she said. The police arrested him today. He wanted the camera, he wanted to show off his gun, the gun went off and he kept shooting. That’s what he told the police. He was high as a balloon. He sold the camera and bought drugs. They found him asleep on the Miljacka bank. He could not remember at first what he had done.

  I find that hard to believe. Rora knew too much. Things happen for a reason.

  She was smiling, her eyes tearing up: my apparent foolishness and gullibility must have reminded her of her brother, of the time they had spent together, of the stories he had told her. She could see that he had enchanted me.

  What else did he tell you?

  He told me that your husband deserted you to join the Chetniks.

  That’s true, she said. My husband deserted me so he could shoot at me and my family until death do us part. That is absolutely true.

  Well, at least something is true, I said.

  Something is always true, she said.

  I am going to stay in S
arajevo for a while, I said.

  Stay as long as you want.

  I can’t leave just yet.

  I understand, she said. I understand.

  Did the boy take the rolls of film, too?

  No, she said. Ahmed left them at home.

  That’s good.

  That makes no difference at all.

  I am sorry.

  No reason to be sorry, Azra said. Let’s take care of your hand now. You will need it for writing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Boro Kontić, George Jurynec, Alissa Shipp, Angela Sirbu, Chaim Pisarenko, Valeria Iesheanu, Iulian Robu, Vildana Selimbegović, Jovan Divjak, Peter Sztyk, Maggie Doyle, Tatiana, Franjo i Svetlana Termać, Tanja Rakušić, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Predrag Kojović, Boris Božović, Reginald Gibbons, and—particularly—Nicole Aragi for their kindness and friendship. As my best friend, Velibor Božović is beyond thanks, but his mind and photography were indispensable and I must acknowledge that.

  In my research, the people at the Chicago Historical Society were generous and helpful. The Lazarus Project owes more than the basic facts of the Lazarus affair (to the extent that there are any facts in a work of fiction) to An Accidental Anarchist: How the Killing of a Humble Jewish Immigrant by Chicago’s Chief of Police Exposed the Conflict between Law & Order and Civil Rights in Early 20th-Century America by Walter Roth and Joe Kraus (Rudi Publishing). Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom (NYU Press) by Edward H. Judge and Anarchy!: An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s MOTHER EARTH (Counterpoint) edited by Peter Glassgold were also essential. Finally, the making of The Lazarus Project would have been impossible without the support of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

  That’s it. Over and out.