The Cellist of Sarajevo (18 page)

As they walk towards the market, he notices that Ismet isn’t smoking. Normally he would, he thinks, and a part of him wishes Ismet would offer him another cigarette. He wonders if he is the reason Ismet isn’t smoking, if he feels obliged to share.

The market is crowded, and Kenan is made bulky by his water. “Wait here,” Ismet says, “and I’ll see if there’s anything worth buying. I’ll come get you if there is.”

He watches Ismet disappear into the throng. This is one of the city’s busiest outdoor markets, but it’s not a large space, and they’ve crammed as many tables into the square as they can. It’s not the real black market, this place, though it’s certain that many of the items for sale have entered the city through illicit means.
He’s been shopping here for most of his life, and a good percentage of the food that he’s eaten, the food that has built him into the person who stands here now, has come from these tables. He never imagined it could feel as though this market were holding him hostage.

Kenan thinks about the tunnel, how it could be used to get all the children out of Sarajevo, how it could be used as a way to save the city. Instead, it’s lined with rails to carry cars that bring in the goods being sold here at their ridiculously inflated prices. It’s the new tram. And then Kenan understands what happened to his washing machine. He hadn’t thought about it at the time, but what would anyone want with an electrical appliance in a city that didn’t have electricity? He sees, now, that the railcars that enter Sarajevo laden with goods bound for the black market do not leave empty. Somewhere, in a city other than this hell, someone is washing their clothes in a machine they purchased for a song, knowing or not knowing that they are accomplices in the destruction of his city.

Up the street, to the west, he sees a man standing beside a black Mercedes. He’s dressed in a brand-new track suit, and he is clearly well fed. He stands, smoking, seeming to be waiting for something. Every so often he looks up the street, towards Kenan, in the direction traffic comes from.

A large truck drives by. Kenan recognizes it from the brewery, one of the trucks used to haul water that sped by him on his way up the hill. He assumed it was bound for the troops at the front lines or the hospital. But the truck stops behind the black Mercedes, and the driver gets out and talks to the man standing beside it. He can’t tell what they’re saying, but the man hands the driver a piece of paper and slaps him on the back. The driver gets back into the truck, pulls out into the street and disappears down the road. Kenan has no idea where he’s going, but he understands completely what he’s just seen, knows that the water in that truck isn’t bound for anyone who deserves it.

At first he just stands there, shocked. But as it sinks in, he begins to understand. Of course they buy and sell water. They buy and sell everything else, why should this be different? If he had money himself, he would pay whatever it cost to take this day back, not to have seen and done what he has. But it isn’t right, all the same. They should not be able to do this.

And now he is angry. All he sees is the man in the track suit beside the Mercedes, and all he wants to do is put his hands around his throat. He takes a step forward, feels the rope that holds his water fall from his shoulders. He stops, takes another step, stops again. He can’t afford to leave the water. It would be gone before he even got to the man in the track suit.

Kenan goes back, retrieves the fallen rope. He heaves up the water, its weight now a familiar burden. It seems unlikely to him that he will ever be free of it. So be it. He’ll carry this water on his back forever, like Atlas and his world, and that is fine. He lurches forward, his vision tunnelling into the man in the track suit.

The man is smoking a cigarette, looking back towards the marketplace. His movement is languid. He’s not in any particular hurry. He turns, looks in Kenan’s direction. He looks right at him, seems to laugh at the sight of him trying to run while carrying all this water. The man doesn’t know that Kenan is coming for him, that he is the reason for the comical sight he smiles at. This only makes Kenan angrier.

The man in the track suit flicks his cigarette onto the ground, walks around to the other side of his car and opens the door. He digs around in his pockets until he finds a pair of sunglasses. He breathes on the lenses, wipes them on the T-shirt he wears under his track suit and gets into the car. The Mercedes rumbles to life and accelerates into the street. By the time it disappears from view, Kenan is only three-quarters of the way to where the man was standing.

Kenan continues on. He stops where the Mercedes was parked, looks down at the man’s discarded cigarette. It still smokes, unfinished, a good amount of tobacco remaining. It’s an American cigarette, the kind
Kenan never really liked but would smoke if he had to. He hasn’t had one of these since the war started.

An old woman scuttles past him, bends down and picks up the cigarette. With a shrivelled hand she drops it into a tin can and continues down the street, never glancing up. She looks more like a crab than a person.

He hears music. It’s faint, and the sound comes and goes, sometimes drowned out by the noise of the street, but in the quieter moments it returns. Without knowing why, without feeling he has to have a reason, Kenan follows the sound across the street, back into town. After a short block the music grows louder, and he sees a small crowd of people standing tight up against the buildings lining the south end of the street. They are all looking at something, he can’t tell what.

He turns the corner and sees what it is they’re looking at. He finds a spot against a wall, sets down his water bottles and joins them.

Kenan knows this man. He’s seen him play before, though he can’t remember where. His tuxedo is dirty and his shoes are scuffed. His hair is black and matted, his beard a patchy accessory to a thick, long moustache. There are large dark circles under his eyes. The man looks like he’s been in a fight, and he looks like he’s lost.

Kenan has heard of this. Someone, maybe Ismet, maybe his wife, has told him that a cellist was playing every day in the street where the people were killed
while lining up for bread. It was a week or so ago. The cellist saw the whole thing happen, watched it from his window. When Kenan was told of what the cellist was doing, he didn’t say anything, but thought it was a bit silly, a bit maudlin. What could the man possibly hope to accomplish by playing music in the street? It wouldn’t bring anyone back from the dead, wouldn’t feed anyone, wouldn’t replace one brick. It was a foolish gesture, he thought, a pointless exercise in futility.

None of this matters to Kenan anymore. He stares at the cellist, and feels himself relax as the music seeps into him. He watches as the cellist’s hair smoothes itself out, his beard disappears. A dirty tuxedo becomes clean, shoes polished bright as mirrors. Kenan hasn’t heard the cellist’s tune before, but he knows it anyway, its notes familiar and full of pride, a young boy in a new coat holding his father’s hand as he walks down a winter street.

The building behind the cellist repairs itself. The scars of bullets and shrapnel are covered by plaster and paint, and windows reassemble, clarify and sparkle as the sun reflects off glass. The cobblestones of the road set themselves straight. Around him people stand up taller, their faces put on weight and colour. Clothes gain lost thread, brighten, smooth out their wrinkles.

Kenan watches as his city heals itself around him. The cellist continues to play, and Kenan knows what he
will do now. He will walk up the street to his apartment. He’ll take the stairs two at a time, not even breathing fast, and throw open his door. Amila will be surprised to see him, and he’ll grab her and kiss her, like he used to when they were much younger. He’ll run his fingers through her hair, thick and the colour of honey.

Their son, Mak, will walk into the room, wondering what the commotion is. “Gross,” he’ll say when he sees them, and Amila will pull away from him laughing.

Together they’ll all walk down into the city. He’ll hold his younger daughter’s hand. “Daddy,” she’ll say, “can we get ice cream?”

Kenan will smile and say yes, and Sanja will squeeze his hand tighter, excited. His oldest, Aida, will pout a little at first, concerned that she may miss her plans to see a movie with her boyfriend, whom Kenan is still not sure he likes, but it won’t take long for her to soften up. She has never been able to stay mad for very long, just like her mother.

They will tramp through the city, through Baščaršija, down past the library, where there is a concert taking place under the glass dome of the main hall. At a small restaurant just west of the library, which he’s been going to since he was a boy, they’ll eat until their stomachs can hold no more. He will have lamb stew and ćevapi, and laugh with the waiter when he spills a coffee on the table, their hands darting out to save their food
and stop the hot liquid from running onto their laps. On the way home they will stop and Sanja will get her ice cream, and, though Kenan can tell she’s full, she’ll insist on finishing the whole thing, which will make Amila worry a little.

They’ll be tired, full and slightly sleepy, so they’ll take the tram to the foot of their street instead of walking back, and Kenan will stand holding onto the rail while his family sits. The city will slide by him like water in the Miljacka, its streets full of people, normal, happy people worried only about whether it might rain tomorrow.

They’ll get off the tram, and Kenan will watch until it curves out of sight, heading west towards the airport. Tomorrow he’ll catch it bright and early, be at work before anyone. Chelsea lost today, and he’ll give Goran a hard time, ask him why he can’t cheer for a proper team.

He will hug his daughter Aida, who is off to her movie. “Be careful,” he’ll tell her. “Teenage boys are nothing but trouble.” She’ll roll her eyes at this, but then she’ll lean in and kiss him on the cheek.

“I know, Dad,” she’ll say, and he’ll press some money into her hand.

“Buy your own popcorn. That way you’re not beholden.”

She’ll roll her eyes at him again, but she’s not mad, and he’ll stand with his arm around Amila and watch
as she crosses the street, hurrying, not wanting to be late. Kenan will look at his wife, and then his son and younger daughter, and he will know how happy he is, and none of this will ever be taken away from him.

But it is all taken away. The music is over, the notes stop. He is back on the street where twenty-two people were killed while waiting to buy bread. Maybe a blue van took their bodies away. Maybe their heads lolled back as they were loaded in, giving them one final look at the street where they were killed.

The cellist rests his hands, opens his eyes. He doesn’t acknowledge the small crowd, and they don’t applaud. A few people have laid flowers at his feet, but they are not for him. Kenan wishes he had something to leave, but all he has is water and fifteen German marks. The flowers on the ground are beyond watering. Nothing he has will make the least bit of difference.

The cellist stands, picks up his stool and turns away from the street, enters a doorway, is gone. Kenan wonders for a moment if he was ever there. The crowd of people disperses, a few at a time, until there is just Kenan and one old woman. She stands looking at the pile of flowers and the blast mark on the pavement where the mortar landed.

She turns to Kenan. “My daughter,” she says, “she was here to buy bread.”

Kenan isn’t sure why the old woman is telling him this.

“She didn’t need any, but I asked her to see if she could get me some.” The woman’s voice is soft, calm. It seems to him that her tone doesn’t fit with what she’s telling him.

He tries to think of something he can say that will mean something, that will bring her comfort or hope or anything positive, but he can’t. He nods at her, feels his chest tighten.

“What should I tell my grandchildren when they ask how their mother died?” She turns away, and Kenan understands that she does not expect an answer to her question. He has none to give her. They stand, silent, and look at the street and the flowers. A shell falls, behind them, somewhere on the left bank of the river, but neither flinches. After a while, the old woman moves to leave.

“Did your daughter like the cello?” Kenan asks, surprising himself. He doesn’t know why he’s asked this, isn’t sure why it matters. The woman stops, and he’s afraid he’s made things worse, spoken out of turn.

“I don’t know,” she says. “She never said so to me.”

“I think she was a great lover of music,” he says, and he does think this, is sure of it.

The old woman turns, looks at him, but he can’t tell what’s in her mind. She exhales a long, slow breath, smiles a small smile. She nods twice, turns and continues down the street.

Kenan stays awhile longer, then picks up his water and goes back to the market. As he’s about to cross the street he sees Ismet. He’s bartering with a man, hands waving wildly, striking the air. The man doesn’t relent, or at least he doesn’t appear to. Ismet’s hands sink, his shoulders slump a little and, shaking his head, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out three packs of cigarettes. He places them on the table, and the man hands him some bills.

Kenan watches as Ismet takes the bills to a table in the middle of the market, where he trades them with a woman for a small bag of rice. It’s what the world sent them, relief, and though it’s not supposed to be sold, it is. Kenan knows that Ismet risked his life for those cigarettes, got them as a substitute for pay from the army. Now he’s watched his friend trade them for something that he should have been given for free in the first place, but wasn’t, so greasy men in track suits and greasy men in business suits can get rich.

There is the sound of shooting coming from Grbavica, and every so often he hears shelling on the left bank, and also to the west, near the airport. The men on the hills are busy today. Their business is brisk, and they will have a lot of customers. He thinks about the woman whose daughter was killed in the bread line, wonders how many women there are like her in the city, how many people walk the streets as ghosts. It
must be a lot. They can fill up every spare scrap of land with graves, they can turn every park and football field and yard into a graveyard, and that will still not account for the dead. There are dead among the living, and they will be here long after this madness ends, if it ever ends.