How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (5 page)

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.

Bark away, bark away, mutters Kamenko, staring fixedly as he slowly takes his pistol out of the trumpet.

Stay down there, whispers my mother, pushing my head under the table. I can see everything all the same, I see Kamenko's arm twitch, there's the shot, there are screams, there's the clatter of the trumpet as it lands on the ground. Nataša falls on my neck, falls into my arms, doesn't bite, doesn't kiss, just whispers: what was that?

Something so loud that even Petak is silenced. Something so horrifying that my mother's legs twitch. Something of such significance that the mountains repeat it, and the echo sounds like distant thunder. His face distorted by pain, the trumpeter holds both hands to his right ear, but he's writhing as if he has been hit in the stomach. The pistol was too close, I want to shout, why so close? Nataša leans her head against my back and hugs me. She doesn't have to do that, I'd like to fight her off, or perhaps she does have to do that just now.

Stop! Stop the music! You'll play what I say now! orders Kamenko, kicking the trumpet. Has our nation won battles so gypsies can shit on our songs?

Only Great-Grandpa's snoring breaks the silence after Kamenko's question. No shot, no barking, no orders in the world can disturb so melodious a sleep. Before Kamenko rose to interrupt the song of Fair Emina, Great-Grandpa was singing along with the first verse. He went to sleep in midsong, with his head on the table.

Kamenko pushes the trumpeter up against the wall and puts his arm under the man's chin. The leather of his boots is worn right down to the metal. The trumpeter's breath rattles in his throat, and Great-Granny dabs the corners of her mouth with a lettuce leaf, adjusts her eye patch, and plants herself right behind Kamenko.

High Noon, cowboy! she calls out to him. She is armed with two forks. I'm going to count to three! One: Kamenko, my sound and healthy Kamenko, did you know I suckled your grandfather Kosta because his mother's milk was too thin? It was my milk that made your Kosta tall and healthy. He played with my Slavko and danced at our parties. And when your Kosta wanted a song, he strapped on his own accordion and hit the keys manfully, the musicians just couldn't keep up with him! And two: Kamenko, my handsome Kamenko, you've let your hair and beard grow, you wave that pistol about and you've sewn a badge on your cap—admittedly it's sewn on crooked, but these things can be learned. But did you know your grandfather Kosta went to war against caps like that and the double-headed eagle on them, did you know he was wounded twice in the same shoulder and twice in the same calf ? So three: Kamenko, my trigger-happy bandit, why are you firing guns in our house? We raised it from the ground and up to the sky with these hands, and now you go shooting it right in the throat where its soul lives!

Kamenko pushes the trumpeter away and turns to GreatGranny. Ah yes, the house . . . And at once the fathers behind him get to their feet. I'll pay for the mortar in your wall, but who, Kamenko asks, is going to compensate me for the injury done to my ears by these bastards? Kamenko with his pistol pushes in between Great-Granny and the musicians huddled in the corner. Great-Granny's fingers are playing impatiently with the forks in her skirt pocket. Kamenko doesn't stand a chance against Marshal Rooster, the fastest gun in Veletovo. Miki is my blood brother, his family is my family—all honor and respect to this blood! says Kamenko, turning out his forearm, because when you're talking about blood and brothers you are bound to think of a wrist. Miki stares straight ahead, pulping bread in his closed fist. He has turned his sleeves up; he bites the bread so hard that the muscles in his lower jaw tense. The fathers hurry toward Kamenko, my own father moves fastest—but Kamenko raises his pistol even faster, turns, and mimics a shot at each father as they stand in a semicircle. Bang, bang, bang, he says.

I put my hands over my ears; the fathers stand there. My father has stopped in midstride, arms bent, leaning forward the way he did when chasing the runaway pig.

But, but, but! Kamenko turns in a second, slower semicircle, waves his pistol as if shaking his head. Each “but” is for one of the fathers, and the fourth is for Great-Granny: but didn't my grandfather sacrifice his shoulder and calf for his country and his people? While we sit here the Ustashas are plundering our country, driving our people away, murdering them! Didn't my grandfather fight the Ustashas too? He did, Mrs. Krsmanovic, he did! I'm not having gypsies give me Ustasha songs and Turkish howling anymore! I want our own music for our own Miki! Songs from the glorious days that once we knew and that will come again! Kamenko strikes his chest with his free hand. Let's start now! I'm not here to talk or dance. Get on with it!

However, it is not the fat singer who starts performing. Instead, Great-Grandpa wakes up. All of a sudden he raises his head from the table and continues the song of Fair Emina at the very place where Kamenko shot it dead. Loud and sorrowful, as if the vain girl Emina were standing in front of GreatGrandpa's balcony and won't return his greeting:

. . . ja joj nazvah selam, al' moga mi dina,
ne
šć
e ni da
č
uje lijepa Emina . . .

Great-Grandpa's voice rings out, and Petak joins in, howling. Bemused, Kamenko looks at the white-haired singer. Emina's hair, worn in braids, smells of hyacinths, she has a silver dish under her arm, in the song she is standing under a jasmine bush but in Veletovo it's under a plum tree:

Great-Grandpa spreads his arms wide and throws back his head. Kamenko and I both let the song distract our attention, and when I look at him again the fathers have got him down on the ground and my father is kneeling on Kamenko's pistol arm until he lets go:

S grana vjetar duhnu pa niz ple
ć
i puste
rasplete joj one pletenice guste . . .

The wind plays in Emina's thick hair. Only one person is heard above Great-Grandpa's singing, Petak's howling, and Kamenko's scream of pain when the fathers turn him over on his stomach, face to the ground, and that person is Uncle Miki. Not because he raises his voice, but because this is the first time he's said anything at all since the pistol first went into the trumpet—

zamirisa kosa ko zumbuli plavi,
a meni se krenu bururet u glavi . . .

Emina's hyacinthine hair has my enamored Great-Grandpa totally confused, and Miki says: let him go at once!

Good heavens, Miki, the man's sick! Nataša's father, an unshaven farmer with bushy eyebrows, twists Kamenko's arm behind his back. My father picks up the pistol between his thumb and forefinger—

. . . malo ne posrnuh, mojega mi dina,
no meni ne dode lijepa Emina.

Emina smells so sweet that you can hardly keep on your feet when she comes close.

I said: let him go! shouts Miki, bending over his friend. Kamenko, you wouldn't really have shot anyone, would you?

But there's no time for questions and answers. The fathers look at each other, pick Kamenko up, hold him against the wall, there's saliva and blood on his chin. Cheek pressed to the wall of the house he gasps: it's okay . . . let go . . . it's okay!

Great-Grandpa needs no music, the amateurs wouldn't be able to sing for him anyway now, they're looking at their trumpeter's ear with concern. Great-Grandpa has risen to his feet, he's singing the last couplet:

samo me je jednom pogledala mrko,
niti haje, al
č
ak,
š
to za njome crko'!

And he's dancing: Emina has nothing but dark looks for Great-Grandpa; she doesn't want his love. Great-Grandpa dances around the table and snatches Kamenko's pistol from my father. He dances to the stables and shoots at the big muck-heap until the shots are mere clicks. Then he pushes the pistol into the muck with his boot until it's out of sight, straightens his back and says: that's it!

There's no explanation for a lot of things, there's the
that's
it;
there's a furious Kamenko on a tiny veranda in a tiny village in the mountains above the little town of Višegrad; there's longhaired Kamenko holding his painful arm, as they lead him away from the veranda and throw his camouflage jacket on the floor; there's Kamenko breathing heavily as he rummages around in the cow dung for his pistol; there's Kamenko bellowing: I'm rummaging in the shit now, but when our time comes it's the traitors who'll be eating shit! There's a sudden shower of rain, a two-minute summer shower, there's the fat amateur singer wanting double pay from Great-Grandpa Nikola, and he'll get it too if, says Great-Grandpa, with a hand to the fat man's cheek, if you wake my hyacinth tomorrow morning with—and he whispers something in his ear. Great-Grandpa drops a kiss on his hyacinth's face below the eye patch. Ahead there's the army for Uncle Miki. There was a quarrel in spring between father and son, Grandpa and my uncle, and an order: Miki, these are not times to become a soldier. We'll have no discussion about it. I was in the next room, and now Grandpa Slavko is gone. I didn't tell anyone about the quarrel, you don't tell tales on your own family. There's been a party, there were threats, there was a brawl, there was a shot, maybe that's how it has to be when someone joins the army; before you even really get there the war comes after you. There's the fear of Miki being sent somewhere they don't just shoot into muck-heaps, there's a sad good-bye to Miki, there are tears for Miki and a slap in the face for Miki: you shameless brat! The slap is because tomorrow's soldier says: Kamenko is right, we don't have to take this kind of thing, it's high time we faced up to the Ustashas and the mujahideen; that's the reason for the slap, and there are surreptitious glances at my mother and my Nena Fatima, deaf mute Nena Fatima who looks around, ashamed and sad, as if she's understood every word, every gesture and every shot. Sides are taken, you belong or you don't belong, suddenly the veranda is like the school yard where Vukoje nicknamed Worm asked me: what are you, really? The question sounded like trouble, and I didn't know the right answer.

There's no Kamenko on the veranda now; only his threats are left, he went off without finding his pistol, which GreatGrandpa takes out of his boot, all nice and clean now, as he says to Miki, but what you are doing is not right. There's such a thing as shame. I'm ashamed of myself, and not because Uncle Miki says a man who doesn't have all his marbles is right. I'm ashamed of myself on my own account, because I thought it was brave of my uncle to stand up for his friend. But I'm also ashamed because Mother is ashamed, and is stroking Nena Fatima's back as if she were a cat. Across the table Mother says, so quietly that I don't think Miki can hear her: oh, Miki, what's all this . . . ? There's my father, saying nothing as usual, there's the color of his face—if I looked like that they'd give me a penicillin injection. There are the Ustashas, there's the history book that says the Partisans defeated those Ustashas the way they defeated the Nazis and the Ce" tniks and the Mussolinis and everyone who opposed Yugoslavia and freedom. And there are the mujahideen, they ride through the desert wearing sheets. There was that question from Vukoje Worm in the school yard, I thought it was a threat and I thought my mother's explanation was a joke. I'm a mixture. I'm half and half. There was everyone in the school yard wondering how I could be something so vague, there were discussions about whose blood is stronger in your body, male or female, and me wishing I could be something not so vague, or a made-up thing that Vukoje Worm didn't know about, or maybe something he couldn't laugh at, a German autobahn, a flying horse that drinks wine, a shot in the throat of a house.