Pretty Birds (34 page)

“I want to thank the United Nations,” Sir Sasha began, and silenced a ripple of snickers with a sharp glance from his great rubber ball of a face.

“The United Nations,”
he repeated slowly. “For letting us in to this besieged city. The United Nations is only as staunch as the spines of its membership. Which seem to be made of that very same thin shitty gruel of a cheese which has been laid out for our delectation,” he said with a smart flick of his hand.

There were laughs and claps all around.

“The U.N. has assigned French soldiers as the protection force here in Sarajevo.” He paused, and jutted out his chin. “Protection,” he mused, and took another, longer pause. “Odd word. Don't seem to have protected much, do they?”

The tinkling of laughter was like the thrum of a motor for Sasha Marx. He shifted forward onto his right foot. “They seem first-rate lads. Taut and disciplined. I'm sure much like our British boys and girls assigned elsewhere in Bosnia. They haven't protected very much, either. We have our own experience with French soldiers, after all. Let me ask our Bosnian friends. Would you know why there are so many trees along the Champs-Élysées?”

There was a pause as small, speculative mutterings made their way around the room.

“Because the French Army is so very fond of retreating in the shade,” Sir Sasha declared.

Hoots and applause broke over the room as Sasha Marx made a show of trying to outshout them. “Oh, I'm so very sorry! There goes my chance for the Légion d'Honneur! Wait—what's that?
I already have one!
But I am not a political man,” he said sorrowfully. “It is not the world I know best. There was once a production in the provinces.”

Sir Sasha's associates rocked back in expectation of a story.

Amela leaned in toward Irena, her eyes glimmering. “I cannot believe,” she said, “that we are lucky enough to be here.”

“Macbeth,” Sir Sasha went on. “Portrayed by a saturated old stage star. When the King was informed, ‘The Queen, milord, is dead,' our star knew that the time for his turn had struck. He came downstage to deliver—can we call it the best-known monologue in theater? I think so. But he was terrible.
Awful.
”

Sir Sasha paused for a moment, and went on, “He intoned, ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.' And the audience booed. He proceeded. ‘And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.' The booing crashed across the stage in bloody waves. Yet our star went ahead.

“ ‘Out, out, brief candle!' he flashed. ‘Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage. . . .' But he had to halt. The booing was so bad, he couldn't be heard. The star crossed to the footlights. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, ‘I don't know why you're booing me.
I didn't write this shit!
' ”

The new wave of applause made the candle flames flicker. Sir Sasha put a beery arm around Ken and Emma, whom Irena recognized as members of Tedic's troupe, and explained that they wanted to sing a couple of songs inspired by the production the visitors were about to mount.

Emma was slender, with hair the color of amber honey. Ken had a thin bristle of a mustache that curled around his mouth, musketeer style. Emma patted her hand over her throat, as if stifling a cough.

“I will try to make our song heard,” she said daintily. “Sir Sasha is so hard to follow. We have reworked some lyrics for your consideration.” Ken and Emma softly began:

When the Serbs take over your house
And Boris aligns with Uncle Sam
Then Slobo will guide the planet
And they won't give a damn!
This is the dawning of the Age of Hilarious
Isn't it precarious?
Precarious? Hilarious!

Sasha Marx had been standing at a distance from Ken and Emma. But as their song took hold he came closer, so that the look of marvel on his face became visible as they moved into the chorus:

Serbia is expanding
Sniper shots and bombs abounding
No more food, lights, or water
Just hunger, blood, and slaughter
Chaos and dissolution
Fear and destitution
Hilarious!
Hilarious!

The applause that broke in was dense as a drum roll. Sasha Marx stepped forward to press his lips with suction force against both performers. Emma said they had one more song. Sigourney and Jean-Claude were waved up to join them. Emma, who seemed to own the sweetest voice, struck up the first notes:

Good morning snipers
Your shots say hello
Serbs shoot above us
We huddle below
Good morning snipers
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning running song.

All the singers joined in, and motioned for the audience to do the same. Irena looked over at Amela, and saw that she was singing:

Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo
Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo
Doo-bee-doo-doo-waa
Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo
Doo-bee-doo-wee-doo-doo
Doo-bee-doo-doo-waa

Ken and Emma rang out the last stanza:

Run along
Don't guess wrong
Run and hide the whole day long.

By the time the ovation had died down, Tedic had sent Kevin before the crowd. He was a thin man with a mortician's neat mustache and slender, expressive wrists. “A man goes to confession,” he said. “He hems and haws—he is embarrassed. Finally, he says through the small screen, ‘Father, forgive me. But I fucked a chicken.'

“ ‘Fuck whatever you want,' says the priest. ‘Just tell me. Where did you get the chicken?' ”

Ken returned, sandy-haired and blue-eyed, blinking a smile like the keys of a small spinet. “I, too, have a religious experience,” he declared. “Just yesterday I was walking along Vase Miskina to the water line when I saw”—he allowed his voice to dip here—
“Jesus Christ.”

Low hoots and whoops whistled around the room.

“
Un
mistakably Jesus,” Ken asserted. “
Himself.
He looks just like his pictures. Long, sandy hair. Thin, scraggly beard. But if that wasn't enough, he was carrying a cross. Now, I don't believe in messiahs. Any more than I believe in Blue Helmets. But to be gracious I said, ‘Welcome to Sarajevo, my Lord Jesus. May I ask a question?'

“ ‘Of course,' Jesus said. ‘The loaves and fishes? Sleight of hand.'

“ ‘No, my Lord.'

“ ‘Water into wine?' he asked. ‘Basic chemistry.'

“ ‘No, my Lord,' I said.

“ ‘Rising from the dead?'

“ ‘No, my Lord.'

“Then I tapped the cross he bore on his back and asked, ‘Where did you get all of this wood? I'd like to heat a cup of coffee.' ”

Laughter scuffed across the sharp cement floor and rubbed against Irena's ears. Emma returned, eggshell blue eyes shining under her straw-blond hair. Her voice got soft as the flutter of a bird's wings. The room was rapt. “You have all been here for a day or two,” she said. “Let me ask, have you noticed? What is the difference between Auschwitz and Sarajevo?

There was an uncomfortable stirring. No one in the room wanted to hazard an answer.

Emma ducked her head against her chest. “Auschwitz,” she avowed simply, “had gas.”

Groans and guffaws took over the room.

         

JACKIE WAS MAKING
her way to Sir Sasha's impromptu stage. She wore a clinging sleeveless black dress that made a slinky, sliding sound brushing against her backside, audible in the immaculate silence of people watching a woman with no right arm advance into their gaze. Sir Sasha Marx received her with a delicate bow. He touched his hand to her remaining forearm and brought her head against his shoulder for an intimate whisper. Jackie turned around and whisked a wisp of russet hair from over her arresting chestnut-velvet eyes; it fell back. She smoothed it in place with her one thumb.

“The first thing that I want to say,” said Jackie, “is—sorry if I didn't get a chance to shake your hand.”

         

SHRIEKS PIERCED THE
room. Sasha Marx's great rump roast of a face opened with a roar. Jackie's face held, grave, tender, and benignly bemused. People were appalled and enthralled—Jackie held them rapt.

“Our visitors say, ‘You folks are so plucky,' she went on. “Isn't that how you put it?
'Plucky.'
Speaking for myself, I don't know how to be plucky. We have just done what we have had to do. All of this hiding, running, scrounging. All of this bleeding and dying—we don't come by it naturally. What's natural for us is a cigarette in one hand, an espresso in the other. A beer on the café table, some leftist rags at our elbow, and the whole afternoon to argue about captivating inconsequentialities. Michael Jordan. The Princess of Wales. Madonna. Sir Sasha Marx. The Pet Shop Boys.

“Well,” Jackie went on quietly in a hush so deep that Irena thought she could hear the sputter of candle flames. “It's been about a year now. The way we add up our lives has changed. It's not ‘Do you have a job? Do you have money?' No one does. Cigarettes are more precious than money, anyway, because we live in three-minute scenes—that's as much life as we can count on. A night like this—we should look around. Next year, next week, tomorrow—faces will be gone.”

Irena felt Amela's hand settle softly around her waist. She reached over with her own hand and rested it on Amela's forearm.

“Something called Sarajevo will survive. It will never be the city we knew. But there is still a chance for it to be open-minded, curious, frivolous, and free. Not a smelly, vanquished little capital for strutting bullies, bigots, and thugs.”

There was flesh-colored gauze freshly wrapped where Jackie's arm had been. Carefully, she twisted her right hip forward and stamped her foot slightly, so that the stump of her arm was visible throughout the room. “Just let us use our
own arms
to fight,” she declared, “and we will save our own city.”

Those who were sitting on their haunches in the front of the room began to rise. Those who had been standing behind them, including Irena and Amela, sank to their knees under the weight of emotion. Sir Sasha gathered Jackie into his embrace, lifting her high against his chest. Then, sobbing, he took another step back so that Jackie could stand alone in the ringing adoration.

At last Sir Sasha stepped up and slid his arm around her shoulders. In his free hand was a handkerchief, which he made a show of wringing out. “You know,” he said as the room began to settle, “we like to think that when barbarians storm the gates, and lesser peoples fall back from the fray, a distinctly British voice will ring out above the battle: ‘I say, old chap. You don't really believe that we will permit this, do you?'

“But we have nothing to teach Sarajevo about holding back barbarians. We have nothing to teach you about blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We poor players, strutting and fretting upon your stage, are ennobled to stand alongside you for a few minutes. When we return to our slumbering, green island, we will grab every passerby we can find. We will peal from every stage on which we appear, that the people of Sarajevo”—he offered a polite, beautifully restrained bow in Jackie's direction—“have single-handedly held back the fist of tyranny. It is time to lend
our hands!
”

         

THE HOME MINISTER
searched the assembled, shining faces and found Tedic. He was standing darkly next to one of the brewing vats, and had just taken a long draw of his Marlboro. The Home Minister followed the glow up to Tedic's eyes. When he was sure that Tedic had caught his gaze, the Minister nodded his head ever so slightly.

         

TEDIC HAD A
tape player plugged in, and soon Peter Gabriel, Madonna, Joni Mitchell, the Clash, Peter Tosh, and Sting joined the festivities.

Irena took Amela over to meet Jackie. Jackie swirled smoke out of her lips and leaned in to throw her arm around Irena (who was reasonably sure that Amela didn't hear her greeted as “Ingrid”) and kiss her, and then, because she was Irena's friend, brush a more than reflexive kiss against Amela's cheek, too.

Molly seemed to have had a better briefing, and merely put his head against Irena's and called her “little sister.” “I'm not sure Irena has told me about you,” he shouted down to Amela from his streetlight height.

“I'm not sure she has mentioned
you,
” Amela returned.

“Bitch,”
Molly hissed. “She's been saving you!”

Molly was childless, womanless, and friendless. Yet somewhere along his surreptitious journey he had learned that teenage girls could be diverted and amused whenever a grown-up stooped to share a profanity. It was as if someone had leaked a code.

Jean-Claude, whom Irena had barely met, made a point of meeting Amela. “Irena did not tell me she had such wonderful friends,” he shouted.

“It should be assumed,” Amela answered with a smile.

Sir Sasha had one of the few voices that could pierce the din. He upbraided one of his players with Falstaffian ferocity when he thought the man had poured himself too large a cup of a Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits.

“Drink bloody
beer,
bloody wanker!” he sang out. “Not the bloody fifteen quid Burgundy! As if you had discriminating tastes. Leave the wine for our hosts!”

         

ZORAN FOUND THEM
shortly after midnight. The actors had slipped back to Mel's loading dock to light fat, ashy joints rolled in newspapers as Tedic and Zule helped them onto brewery trucks for the ride back to the Holiday Inn.

Zoran was holding his stomach and joggling his head. “In ordinary times,” he told the girls, “I would say I'm too fucking drunk to drive.”

“What do you say now?” asked Irena.