Rose of Sarajevo (21 page)

“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, Croa
t . . .
you’re all the same to me. Now take off your other boot.”

Stefan 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?”

“I turned into a Serb,” Stefan said, taking off his boot and extracting his ID card to show Rasim.

“March,” Rasim said. “We can’t talk about any of this here.”

Stefan was in high spirits as he left the newspaper offices that evening. They’d reviewed every last detail of his plan to gain access to the concentration camps where the Muslim Bosniaks were being held. His timing couldn’t have been any better.
Newsweek
had sent a correspondent to interview some of the camps’ inmates, but they’d been unable to get permission to enter.
The correspondent sent by
the
Guardian
had also been unable to enter.

Under pressure from the United States, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had increased pressure on the Serbs. It would soon be impossible to deny monitors permission to enter the camps. In the meantime, foreign correspondents would find it easier to gain entry if they applied jointly with a Serbian journalist and translator. Rasim promised to pull strings to make sure Stefan was that Serbian journalist.

“Do you really think you can make it happen?” Stefan asked Rasim.

“Yes,” Rasim said. “I’ll introduce you to Zlatko.”

“Who’s that?”

“An attorney here in Sarajevo. He’ll be a great help to you. He’s been gathering information about the camps for months now. If we combine his documentation with your Serbian credentials, we’ll have an unbeatable team. Just be sure you don’t do anything idiotic like let your real identity slip. Whatever it takes, we’ve got to get you into at least a couple of camps.”

The best way for Stefan to forget he was Stefan Stefanoviç was to keep his distance from Nimeta. He was determined not to call her.

Stefan moved to a Serbian-controlled zone of the city, settling into a room in a flat left behind by a Muslim family. Rasim had said his “boot operation” was too dangerous and confiscated his real ID card.

“If they found a Croatian ID card on your person or in your room, you’d be dead,” Rasim said. “Go live in the Serbian zone, and I’ll get word to you when we’re ready for you to submit your application.”

He’d been waiting for ten days when word finally arrived in a bakery of all places. He’d gone to his usual baker and picked up a loaf of bread. The baker had taken it from him, claiming it was stale, and given him a different loaf. When he got home, he found a note on the sheet of newspaper wrapped around the bread saying, “Apply for July 10.”

He shaved and showered in preparation for his trip to the press office. When looking in the mirror, he noticed that his hair was growing out and that dark roots were now visible. It hadn’t occurred to him that would happen; he’d imagined once you’d dyed your hair, you were done with it for good. How could he get a bottle of hair dye at the pharmacy? If he asked for one himself, what would they think of him? No, it didn’t matter what they thought of him; what mattered was that a man buying hair dye would arouse suspicion. Why hadn’t he thought to bring a couple of extra bottles with him from Zagreb? But then, what if they’d searched his bags at customs?

“I’m losing it,” he said to his reflection. “I’m getting paranoid. Nobody suspects me, and nobody cares if I dye my hair. Anyway, how do I expect to find hair dye in a city where most people can’t find bread? I’ve got to sort out my hair first and then go and fill out my application.”

He snipped at his hair with a pair of scissors, lathered up what was left of it with a bar of soap, and shaved it clean with a straight razor. This time, a youthful version of Yul Brynner greeted him in the mirror. He winked and said, “Now that’s more like it, Jovan Brynner Plavić.”

Rasim had kept his word; Zlatko had laid all the groundwork. A group of foreign correspondents was expecting him to accompany them to the Manjača camp on July 10.

The camp inmates had their hands chained behind their backs. Their heads were shorn clean, their eyes full of fear and horror, their bodies so emaciated that their ribs stuck out. The wardens waved their clubs continually at their intimidated and defeated-looking charges.

Although the guards kept a close eye on the American and British journalists, they allowed Stefan, a fellow Serb, to wander freely. Stefan set about learning as much as he could as quickly as possible. The problem was the inmates were too terrified to trust him, probably fearing reprisals if they attempted to complain.

Then one of them called out to him, “I don’t care if you’re a spy. We’ll never get out of here alive. If you want the truth about this place, I’ll tell you!”

Stefan raced over. The man told Stefan his story. He’d been driven out of Banja Luka. Men, women, and children alike had all been crammed onto the manure-covered bed of a cattle truck and brought here, with no food and water during the journey. He didn’t know what had happened to the women and children. The men’s hands were kept chained day and night. They slept one on top of the other on a concrete floor. The healthier inmates let the ones with rheumatism and heart trouble sleep on top, so they wouldn’t catch a chill. They were all skin and bones.

Stefan also visited Omarska camp, where the Serbs had interned all the leading academics, intellectuals, and artists they’d rounded up in Prijedor, a city east of Banja Luka. The camp was situated in an old mine, and the Bosniaks were kept caged behind bars. Since there were no latrines, they had to urinate and defecate on the floor. Anyone approaching the camp could smell the stench well before they arrived.

Keraterm camp was in an old ceramics plant. The inmates there had suffered every conceivable type of torture at the hands of the Serbs, who spared no mercy in their efforts to extract information. Those who supported the Bosniak militia or who had served with the defense forces were executed after they were tortured.

Stefan barely slept for several days and nights after visiting the camps. Once the interviews were translated, and the footage they’d shot had been edited and narrated, the material was sent to various news agencies.