The Bridge on the Drina (53 page)

With a little ready money and with the help of the Višegrad Turks, some of whom were his relatives, he had managed to build up a small business over the last two years. But it was not easy for, as we have seen, times were hard and insecure, and profits difficult to make even for those whose position was assured. He had been living on his capital while waiting for better and more peaceful times. Now, after only two years of the hard life of a refugee in the town, this storm had broken in which he could do nothing and could not even think of what to do next; the only thing left to him was to follow its course anxiously and await fearfully its outcome.

It was of this that the two men were now talking, softly, intermittently and disconnectedly, as one speaks of things already well-known and which can be looked at from the end, the beginning or any point in the middle. Alihodja, who liked and greatly respected Mujaga, tried to find some words of solace or consolation, not
because he thought that anything would help, but because he felt it his duty in some way to partake in the misfortune of this honourable and unfortunate man and true Moslem. Mujaga sat and smoked, the very image of a man whom fate has loaded too heavily. Great beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and temples, stood there some time until they grew big and heavy, then shone in the sun and overflowed like a stream down his lined face. But Mujaga did not feel them nor brush them away. With dull eyes he looked at the grass in front of him and, wrapped up in his own thoughts, listened to what was happening within himself which was stronger and louder than any words of consolation or the most vigorous bombardment. From time to time he moved his hand a little and murmured something or other which was far more a part of his own inward conversation than any reply to what was being said to him or what was taking place around him.

'This has come upon us, my Alihodja, and there is no way out. The One God sees that we, my father (peace be to him) and myself, have done everything we could to remain in the pure faith and the true way of life. My grandfather left his bones in Uzice and today we do not even know where he is buried. I myself buried my father in Nova Varoš and I do not know if by now the Vlachs are pasturing their cattle over his grave. I had thought that I at least would die here, where the muezzin still calls, but now it seems that it is written that our seed will be extinguished and that no one knows where his grave will be. Can it be that God's wishes are so? Only now I see that there is no way out. The time has come of which it is said that the only way left for the true faith is to die. For what can I do? Shall I go with Nailbeg and the 
schutzkorps 
and die with a Schwabe rifle in my hands, shamed both in this and in the next world? Or shall I wait and sit here until Serbia shall come, and wait once more for all that we fled from as refugees fifty years ago?'

Alihodja was about to utter some words of encouragement that might provide a little hope, but he was interrupted by a salvo from the Austrian battery on the Butkovo Rocks. It was immediately answered by the guns from Panos. Then those behind Goleš opened fire. They were firing low, directly over their heads, so that the shells wove a web of sound above them that catches at a man's entrails and tightens the blood-vessels until they hurt. Alihodja rose and suggested that they take refuge under the balcony, and Mujaga followed him like a sleepwalker.

In the Serbian houses huddled around the church at Mejdan there were, on the other hand, no regrets for the past or fears
for the future; there was only the fear and burden of the present. There was a sort of special, dumb astonishment, that feeling which always remains among people after the first blows of a great terror, with arrests and killings without order or justice. But beneath this consternation everything was the same as it had been earlier, the same expectant waiting as before, more than a hundred years ago, when the insurgents' fires had burned on Panos, the same hope, the same caution and the same resolution to bear everything if it could not be otherwise, the same faith in a good result somewhere at the end of all ends.

The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who from this same hillside, shut up in their houses, anxious and frightened but moved to the depths of their being, had listened intently trying to hear the feeble echo of Karageorge's gun on the hillside above Veletovo, now listened in the warm darkness to the thunder and rumble of the heavy howitzer shells passing above their heads, guessing from the sound which were Serbian and which Austrian, calling them endearing nick-names or cursing them. All this while the shells were flying high and falling on the outskirts of the town, but when they were aimed low at the bridge and the town itself everyone fell suddenly silent for then it seemed to them, and they would have sworn to it, that in that complete silence, in the midst of so much space around them, both sides were aiming only at them and the house in which they were. Only after the thunder and roar of a nearby explosion had died away, they would begin talking again, but in changed voices, assuring one another that the shell which had fallen quite close was of a particularly devilish kind, worse than any other.

The merchants from the market-place had for the most part taken refuge in the Ristić house. It was immediately above the priest's house, but larger and finer, sheltered from the artillery fire by the steep slopes of the plum-orchards. There were few men but many women, whose husbands had been arrested or taken as hostages, who had taken refuge here with their children.

In this rich and extensive house lived old Mihailo Ristić with his wife and daughter-in-law, a widow who had not wanted to marry again or return to her father's house after the death of her husband, but remained there with the two old people to bring up her children. Her eldest son had fled to Serbia two years before and been killed as a volunteer on the Bregalnica. He had been eighteen years old.

Old Mihailp, his wife and daughter-in-law served their unusual guests as if they were at a family feast, a 
slava. 
The old man
especially was untiring. He was bareheaded, which was unusual, for as rule he never took off his red fez. His thick grey hair fell over his ears and forehead and his huge silvery moustaches, yellow at the roots from tobacco, surrounded his mouth like a perpetual smile. Whenever he noticed that anyone was frightened or more melancholy than the others, he would go up to him, talk to him and offer him plum brandy, coffee and tobacco.

'I can't, 
kum 
Mihailo. I thank you like a father, but I can't; it hurts me here,' protested a young woman, pointing to her white and rounded throat.

She was the wife of Peter Gatal of Okolište. A few days before Peter had gone to Sarajevo on business. There he had been caught by the outbreak of war and from that time onward his wife had had no news of him. The army had driven them out of their house, and now she and her children had taken refuge with old Mihailo, to whom her husband's family had long been related. She was broken down with worry about her husband and her abandoned home. She wrung her hands, sobbing and sighing alternately.

Old Mihailo never took his eyes off her and kept near her always. That morning it had been learnt that Peter, on his way back from Sarajevo by train, had been taken as a hostage to Vardište and there, after a false alarm of a revolt, had been shot in mistake. That was still being kept from her, and old Mihailo was doing his best to prevent anyone suddenly and inadvisedly telling her. Every few moments the woman would rise and try to go into the courtyard and look towards Okolište, but Mihailo prevented her and talked her out of it by every possible means, for he knew very well that the Gatal house in Okolište was already in flames and he wanted to spare the unfortunate woman this sight at least.

'Come, Stanoika, come, my lamb. Just a little glass. This is not plum brandy, but a real balm and cure for all ills.'

The woman drank it meekly. Old Mihailo went on offering food and drink to everyone present and his untiring and irresistible hospitality forced them all to take heart. Then he went back to Peter's wife. The plum brandy had in fact loosened the constriction in her throat. Now she was calmer and only gazed pensively in front of her. Mihailo would not leave her side, but went on talking to her as to a child, telling her how all this too would pass and her Peter come back from Sarajevo alive and well, and they would all go home again to their house at Okolište.

'I know Peter. I was at his christening. They talked about that christening for a long time. I remember it as if it had been today. 1 was a young man then, just ripe for marriage, when I went with
my father, who was kum to Janko's children, to christen that Peter of yours.'

He told the tale of the christening of Peter Gatal which everyone already knew but which in these strange hours seemed as if new to them.

The men and women drew closer to listen, and in listening forgot their danger and paid no attention to the sound of the guns as old Mihailo told his tale.

In the good times of peace, when the famous Pop Nikola was priest in the town, Janko Gatal of Okolište, after many years of marriage and a whole succession of daughters, had a son. On the first Sunday after the birth, they brought the child to be christened and besides the joyous father and the 
kum, 
a number of relatives and neighbours came too. Even on the way down from Okolište they stopped often and had a nip from the 
kum's 
big flat flask of plum brandy. When on crossing the bridge they came to the 
kapia, 
they sat down for a short rest and another nip. It was a cold day in late autumn and there was no coffee maker on the 
kapia, 
nor had the town Turks come there to sit and drink coffee. Therefore the people of Okolište sat down as if they were at home, opened their bags of food and began a fresh flask of plum brandy. Toasting one another cordially and eloquently, they forgot all about the baby and the priest who was to christen it after the service. As in those days—the seventies of last century—there were still no bells, and dared not be, the merry party did not notice the passing of time and that the service had long been finished. In their conversations, wherein they boldly and at great length mingled the future of the baby with the past of its parents, time had no longer any importance or any measure. Several times the conscience of the 
kum 
smote him and he suggested that they should move on, but the others silenced him.

'Well, friends, let us eo and finish what we have to do, by the law and the Christian faith,' muttered the 
kum.

'Why the hurry, in God's name; no one in this parish has ever stayed unchristened,' answered the others and each offered him a drink from his flask.

The father too at one time tried to hurry them on, but in the end the plum brandy silenced and reconciled them all. His wife who up till then had been holding the baby in her arms which were blue from cold, now put it down on the stone seat and wrapped it in a coloured shawl. The baby was as quiet as if it were in its cradle, now sleeping, now opening its eyes inquisitively as if to take part in the general gaiety ('One can see that he is
a true townsman,' said the 
kum. 
'He loves good company and fun.').

'Your health, Janko,' shouted one of the neighbours. 'May your son be lucky and live long. God grant that he do you honour among the Serbs in all good and prosperity. God grant that. . . .'

'How would it be if we got on with the christening?' interrupted the father.

'Don't worry about the christening,' they all cried and once more passed round the flask of plum brandy.

'Ragib Effendi Borovac has never been christened either, but you see what a fellow he is; his horse bends under him,' shouted one of the neighbours amid general laughter.

But if time had lost all meaning for the men on the 
kapia, 
it had not done so for Pop Nikola, who had till then been waiting in front of the church, but by this time had grown angry. He wrapped his fox-skin cape about him and marched down from Mejdan into the town. There someone told him that the men with the child were on the 
kapia. 
He went there to give them a good browbeating, as he well knew how, but they welcomed him with so much heartfelt and sincere respect, with such solemn excuses and warm wishes and good words that even Pop Nikola, who was a hard and severe man, but a real townsman at heart, gave way and accepted a drink from a flask and some snacks. He bent over the baby and called it little baby names, while the child looked up calmly at the huge face with its big blue eyes and broad reddish beard.

It was not quite true, as they said, that the little one was christened then and there on the 
kapia, 
but it is true that they stayed there a long time talking, drinking and proposing many toasts. It was not until late in the afternoon that the whole gay company made its way up to Mejdan and the church was opened and the 
kum, 
stuttering and unsure of his words, renounced the devil in the name of the new townsman.

'It was so we christened 
kum 
Peter, may he remain safe and sound. He has now passed his fortieth year and as you see has lacked for nothing,' old Mihailo ended.

Everyone accepted another coffee and a glass of plum brandy, forgetting the reality of the moment which might sweep them all away. All talked more freely and easily. Somehow it now seemed clear to them that there were other things in life, more joyful and human things, than this darkness, fear and murderous shooting.