How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

by Sasa Stanisic

  All the neighbors came to the party for the bathroom. Even Radovan Bunda from the high mountains, who knew about electricity only by hearsay and who talked to his chickens. By neighbors they don't mean the same in Veletovo as they do in Viegrad. In Veletovo even the Peics count as neighbors, though it's half a day's walk for them to visit my great-grandparents. Not because they're too poor to own a car—they are poor, yes, but there isn't any road to drive a car on where they live. The grown-up Peics are all over six and a half feet tall, including the women and the old folk. Once, long ago, I visited their place. I remember the sourish goat's milk, and the wooden toys, and wondering why they didn't build higher ceilings, with all of them being so gigantic. When a baby is born or someone gets married in the Peic family or in ours, we exchange visits. The families are godparents to each other's children and witnesses at weddings. My mother says I didn't have a Peic godparent, though, it has something to do with her and the religion on her side of the family. Nothing bad, says my mother, and she asks: would you have liked to be baptized?

  What's that? I ask.

  Well, there you are, she says.

  Lining up for the new bathroom, the neighbors were shifting restlessly about with bladder pressure and anticipation. Great-Grandpa had first go. He was wearing his black frock coat, he tapped his stomach and he crowed at the top of his voice: haven't gone for four days now! Bong bong, tom tom, bong bong, he beat out a rousing rhythm with the toilet lid.

  Some people, including me, clapped along. Everyone was in good humor waiting for the inside bathroom, sixteen spectators, a five-man band to play music, perfect bathroom weather, I said, presenting the show. Great-Granny gave Great-Grandpa a bottle of spirits as solemnly as if she were handing him the Baton of Youth. He put the shot glass on top of the bottle like a hat and stayed sitting on the toilet for forty-five minutes. Outside, the neighbors and relatives began talking in loud voices so as not to hear all the noises inside the new bathroom. When he wasn't groaning and crying out and clattering like a moped, Great-Grandpa sang. I put my ear close to the door so that I could hear his deep voice. How the door vibrated! My GreatGrandpa sounded like the lowest string of a double bass! In his songs, someone called Kraljevic Marko jumped across the river Drina astride a wine-drinking horse and butchered some Turks. So many that I couldn't keep up with the head count. But more exciting than the poor wretched Turks, I thought, was the question of whether all horses who drank wine could fly. When Great-Grandpa came out after forty-five minutes, triumphantly raising his clenched fist, the bottle of spirits was half empty and the shot glass was gone for ever.

  Flush it, you idiot! Great-Granny said, loud and earnestly, then she looked down into the bowl and crossed herself for the first time in sixty years. They drank the rest of the good pear schnapps and the five-man band played a waltz. After that the band opened the dancing with gypsy music that no one liked because the fast bit came too soon. We can still lie down without holding on to anything, you amateurs! cried Great-Grandpa, and he couldn't stop dancing.

  Now the neighbors had a go on the new toilet too, starting with the men. Oh, how my heart is pounding, someone said before closing the door behind him. Radovan Bunda was last in line. He kept on grumbling more and more crossly, holding on to himself in front and behind. When it was nearly his turn he roared out: what an idea, tormenting a man who's come all this way, you tramps, with your newfangled notions! He was rapidly unbuttoning his trousers as he raced off in the direction of the outside toilet.

  What outside toilet, Radovan must have asked himself when he got there, because two oxen had uprooted the little cubicle from the ground like a weed. I don't need any bowl, any flushing mechanism, any tiles! I don't even need a hole in the ground, Radovan would say later, drinking to liberty.

  All this comes back to my mind now in the inside bathroom during the thirty minutes I spend there, almost as long as GreatGrandpa, suffering horribly from my plum world record. I'm out again at last, and here comes Marshal Rooster's finger-Colt prodding me in the back—scrub those tablecloths, Great-Granny orders, scrub them, Redskin! She'd been lying in wait for me behind the door.

  Unenthusiastically, I pass the dishcloth over the stains and wonder why everyone is celebrating the fact that Uncle Miki is going away. I'd rather celebrate when he comes back from the army.

  Great-Granny's teeth are yellow, and brown at the tips; she laughs and nods: yes, yes. That, she says, pointing to a greenish lump of something, that's kryptovitz—kryptonite with slivovitz. You won't get your hands on that. It made a pile of money but a fearful stink too. Great-Granny winks at me and takes her finger away from the back of my neck to adjust her eye patch.

  Great-Granny doesn't talk to me about Grandpa Slavko. You're all my children, oh, you don't give me an easy time, she told Father when we arrived in Veletovo. No one wants to bury the child she bore. I'm burying my own joy.

  Father did not reply.

  Great-Grandpa replied by searching around for words.

  I miss him too, I say then, quietly, putting the cloth down. Great-Granny takes her eye patch off. Her big brown eyes. She has a thin hair growing from the mole on her cheek. Her flowered smock above her black dress. I slink away from her bad mood. The sun's shining. I climb a plum tree. Lost to the world, Father is singing a song. Mother is smiling. Nena Fatima takes off her boots. Auntie Typhoon fills bucket after bucket and pats her big belly. Uncle Miki has seized a chicken by its legs and is taking it out into the yard.

  There's cured sausage with red pepper and garlic, there's smoked ham, there's smoked bacon, there's goat's milk cheese, sheep's milk cheese, cow's milk cheese, there are fried potatoes with leeks, there are hard-boiled eggs; there are toothpicks sticking in the sausage, the ham, the cheese, the slices of egg; there's white bread and golden corn bread, the bread is always broken, never cut; there's garlic butter, liver pâté, and creamy kaymak, there's cabbage soup, potato soup and thumb-sized dollops of fat swimming on top of the chicken soup, you can dunk the bread in all those soups; there's bean broth (it's horrible!), there are baked beans and bean salad; there's white cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and minced meat, there are peppers stuffed with minced meat, minced meat stuffed with minced meat, minced meat and plums—Mother and I look at each other, she asks if there's any chocolate—yes, there's chocolate, there's chicken, there's cucumber salad (I've never seen any dish go ignored the way that cucumber salad is ignored); there's warm baklava with syrup made from sugar, cinnamon, honey, and cloves, it drips from your fingers onto your trousers, onto the minced meat; so sweet, someone cries, oh, so sweet, it's Uncle Bora, he's enjoying the sweet baklava so much that he gets to his feet, so sweet! It's almost more than I can stand, stop it, oh, more! There are plums piled on top of plums, there's plum strudel with vanilla sugar and plum jam, there are baked plums with icing-sugar topping; there are melons, the five-man amateur band takes a break from playing specially for the melons; it's a mystery to me why they've been invited to play again after the failure of their performance at the bathroom inauguration party, but there they are, falling on the melon slices, slurping, slobbering, smacking their lips, all of them slurping- slobbering-smacking, and the first tune the band plays after their break is “In Višegrad, That Fine Old Town.” But Great-Grandpa cries angrily, pleasurably: aah! and spits a barrage of melon seeds in the direction of the trumpet, aah! that won't do, you don't play something so tender with melon, you amateurs! Grandpa himself reached the lamb stage long ago—he has a melon boat on his left, a shank of lamb on his right, and is munching them in turn, aah! Yes, there's lamb too, its gray meat piled up on the flowered plates, and any moment now there'll be suckling pig: Auntie Typhoon is turning the spit, pouring beer over the pig's back and wine over the pig's belly, red-cheeked with the heat and the effort, no-no-I-don't- need-a-chair, her blonde hair flying around her head. Auntie Typhoon turns the spit with both hands so energetically that ashes fly up under the suckling pig, turn-it-too-slowly-and-it-won't-roast- evenl
y. There's rendered, salted, pressed pork dripping with bits of crackling in it, there's fried pig's innards, there are pig's trotters and pig's ears coated with jelly, nothing whatsoever is missing.

  I take the bucket of melon rinds off to the pigsty and throw the rinds over the pigs; the pigs don't mind, they have thick skins, they eat the rinds and burrow their soft snouts in the mud. I hit the fattest sow on the belly. She grunts, but she isn't bothered about anything but the rind, my tooth marks on what she's eating, that's a pig's life for you. Great-Grandpa promised me today, next time we kill a pig I can chase it too, help to get it down on the ground, put it on the spit—you run the spit in at the back, along under the backbone and out through the mouth. And I can scrape and wash the stomach out too, but I wouldn't want to put my hands in where there might be melon rind. I'd rather leave the bit with the knife to my father or my uncles. Cutting a pig's throat is the best way, says my father, but Uncle Bora shakes his head: in the heart is the best place. Uncle Miki doesn't mind which, as long as the pig ends up good and dead.

  If it was up to Great-Grandpa I could do a lot more things anyway, not just pig killing. I could eat whatever I liked and I wouldn't have to go to school. Great-Grandpa says: boys don't get to be men in town, schools don't teach stupid lads to be fine men. You lose your sense of smell in town and you see six feet less ahead of you.

  Great-Grandpa got no further than the letter t when he was at school, because there's nothing important after that. He left his village only three times, twice to go to war, once to win a wife. He won three victories. Proud, robust, always singing, always close to tears or laughter. The family like to tell every guest how last Easter—it is always last Easter—Great-Grandpa seized one of his oxen by the horns, forced it to kneel with one hand, while he picked the first lily of the valley of the year for Great-Granny with the other, and then plowed his fields in just four days. The ox that a human being can humiliate like that, he's said to have announced, patting the ox's nostrils, doesn't deserve to set hoof on my land. If he's asked his age GreatGrandpa says: oh, I'm still young, I've never yet seen a ship and I've never yet taught a liar to be an honest man.

  Someday, when I'm as old as my great-grandpa Nikola, I will have set sail in a ship, I'll have met a liar and left him an honest man, I'll have persuaded a donkey to go the way I want, and I'll have sung like Great-Grandpa, with a voice as powerful as a mountain range, a ship, the habit of honesty and a donkey all rolled in together.

  Back to the table, because there's coffee, and Great-Granny reads everyone's future in the grounds. She promises me an unfulfilled yearning and three great loves in the next three months. Mother laughs and interrupts: but he's much too young. GreatGranny tells me off for drinking coffee while I'm still so young, and she changes the details to two great loves and one affair—but the affair will be with an uncomplicated woman artist, you never saw such green eyes!

  She doesn't need more than two minutes for anyone's future except Uncle Miki's, and she takes thirty minutes over his, rocking back and forth and never ending a sentence; then suddenly there's stuffed pastry börek, there's pita filled with potatoes, pita filled with young nettles, pita filled with pumpkin, there's walnut cake and a sip of red wine for me; the courses aren't served one by one in any special order, there's always someone saying he can't eat any more, he couldn't possibly force another morsel down, hands gesticulate, fending off any more, and no one takes the gesticulations seriously; there's no stopping now, there are hurt expressions if someone seriously threatens to expire after the next half-chicken; the wine will fortify your blood, says Great-Granny, pouring more for me when no one's looking. There's white bread with everything, Uncle Bora puts warm white bread on top of cold white bread: I'm in white bread heaven, he says, and then I'll move on to cider paradise —although that will lead to problems on plum-picking day, as Uncle Bora knows, and he laughs when Great-Grandpa holds a glass of slivovitz in front of his face: how are you going to drink it, then, of your own free will or through the nose? There's beer, there's brandy, there's cognac; ice clinks in glasses. There are never any empty plates. And there's Nataša, that girl Nataša in her flowered dress, with bare feet and red cheeks as if she has a fever. Nataša's been around all evening, chasing me and chasing me and chasing me, come and be kissed! she keeps calling, come and be kissed! She finds all my hiding places. I escape under the table, determined to stay there for a hundred thousand years until she gives up, Nataša with the gap in her teeth and her pouting lips, come and be kissed, come and be kissed! Marshal Rooster, of all people, is mean enough to speak out and give me away: he's under the table, catch him, why don't you? That's town boys for you, they're afraid of us, they crawl away under the table legs! So Nataša dives down and crawls toward me, and the way she crawls makes me think of Petak, Great-Grandpa's sheepdog, falling on the squealing, bleeding piglet today. Come and be kissed, come and be kissed, and the loud trumpet and the family singing and no one there to give Nataša a kick. I retreat, my back's up against my mother's legs when I hear the roaring. A man's voice is roaring, and the music suddenly stops. The singing stops. There's silence.

  Nataša freezes beside me. Heads close together, we peer out from under the tablecloth: we can see Uncle Miki's best friend Kamenko putting his pistol in the mouth of the trumpet and shouting until his cheeks are redder than the cheeks of two furious red faces put together and his head swells two sizes bigger: what's all this? Music like that in my village? Are we in Veletovo or are we in Istanbul? Are we decent folk or are we gypsies? You ought to be singing the praises of our kings and heroes, our battles, the great Serbian state. Miki's off to join the army tomorrow, and on his last evening you stuff his ears with this Turkish gypsy filth!

  Catching a pig for the spit isn't easy. Because pigs are fast, they swerve well, and follow your train of thought, said my father at the beginning of the party, surprising us with a speech, the longest speech any of us had ever heard him make. The pig sees the sharpened knife and puts two and two together. It says to itself: right, let's get out of here double quick! Does the pig have some kind of vision? asked my father, looking around at us. It hasn't found the way out of its sty for years, why should anything change over the next twenty seconds? It can smell the pig killers already. Panic and instinct exist side by side in the pig's head. Independent thoughts bloom sparsely in the communal garden: bright flowers for bright moments. The pig picks one of those flowers, it squeals and runs! The last pig killer hasn't closed the gate behind him yet. The last pig killer is Bora. He looks down at the tunnel made by his legs and says: that was never the pig, was it? Yes, brother Bora, it was, and the pig is already out of the farmyard and into the meadows. With us in hot pursuit, the runaway animal is galloping across the meadows to freedom! And guess what? Such a sophisticated pig, such a speedy and elegant pig, a pig with such vision deserves its freedom! Away from collective stupidity and the musty smell of the pigsty, off to individuality! cried my father to his audience, spreading his arms. Ahead of the pig is the forest, so are its wild colleagues, and so is the mountain range above—and here are our meadows; nothing except the river Drina is a healthier green, you feel like kneeling down to eat the grass. The pig squeals, and I can tell you it's a cry of sheer joy! The pig squeals to celebrate its revolution! Bora is the first to stop, or was he ever running after it at all? I soon give up too; only Miki runs on. My little brother Miki, said Father, looking at the place where Miki was sitting. Anyone can see he's going to be a soldier, the pig has a start of one hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred feet on him, but Miki isn't having any of it. I'm not having this! he shouts, so loud you can hear him right across the meadows, into the forest, high up in the mountains. Still invincible in its cunning and speed, the pig suddenly stops. It turns its head to my uncle Miki. Now what? The pig stands there looking at the mountains, at Miki, at the mountains, at Miki. And only when Miki has almost caught up with it does it rush away again, not toward freedom in the forest this time, but back to t
he farmyard. It crashes in between the stable and the barn and gets stuck where the gap narrows at the back. You saw the rest for yourselves; we had to get a roll of cable and the tractor to uncork it.

  My father raised his glass. My father the pig killer, eyes glazed, cried: to my brother! Everyone drank to Miki. Killing a pig for the spit is no joke! cried Father. Because pigs follow a train of thought, unlike my brother Bora here. Because Bora didn't want to go for the throat, he insisted it ought to be the heart. And because he forgot to tie Petak up. Yet there are only two mistakes you can make when killing a pig: forgetting to tie your dog up when it's going frantic with the smell of all that blood, or missing the spot when you use the knife, so that the pig goes frantic too and takes forever to die.

  Until the pain's so great that life is past bearing, I thought to myself.

  Uncle Bora had made both mistakes.

  Oh, fuck those divine pig's trotters, Bora, you may have hit the kidneys but you never hit the heart! is what Uncle Miki had shouted at his brother, putting his knee on the pig and pushing it down to the ground with all his weight. The blood was spurting in every direction. The barking was coming closer. Petak shot across the yard faster than the sound of his own bark. Bora, watch out! shouted Miki, and then Petak was leaping around the men and the bleeding pig. He wasn't barking now, he was screaming, slobber oozing through his bared teeth and dripping down his muzzle. Miki couldn't let go of the pig because Bora was raising the knife again. Stop it, Petak! Stop! he shouted, my father kicked out at the dog, who howled, and Bora brought the knife down for the second time. Stop it! Stop the music! That's what Kamenko is roaring now, although the bandsmen aren't playing anymore, they're retreating before Kamenko's pistol. Only the trumpeter doesn't move, with the trumpet still where it was at his lips when he played the last merry note, and the last merry note still hangs in the air, only not so merry anymore. The barrel of the pistol is resting in the trumpet. Kamenko's arm is trembling, the trumpeter is trembling, a cold wind rises. Kamenko with his roaring and Petak with his barking are sharpening the wind, the way Uncle Bora sharpened the longest knife ready for the pig's heart.