Free Sarajevo Marlboro by Miljenko Jergovic Page B

looked petrified as she stood in the corner of the room, yearning for Dejan to leave and for the next chapter in her life to begin.
    Dejan soon got bored anyway. On the way out he’d shake hands with Dinka as well as Juraj, and leave yelling, “Your Dejo’s looking out for you, so don’t worry! He’ll save you, goddamit! A true friend ain’t just a button, see, and his wife’s not a zipper, either!”
    As soon as he’d gone, Dinka would begin to cry, and so Juraj would stroke her shoulder with the tips of his fingers, because there was nothing to be said. The couple had a sneaking suspicion that one dayDejan would honor one or the other of his promises, and yet it was hard to know if he was more likely to rescue them from murderers or to deliver the fatal blows himself.
    One day a gang of bearded men whom they didn’t know burst into the cellar. These anonymous thugs proceeded to beat up Dinka and to “draft” Juraj into what they called “the labor platoon.” As a result, he spent months on the front line, and only ten yards or so from the Bosnian line, digging trenches. Often he would recognize a soldier on the opposite side by the color of his eyes or the way he walked. Out of delight he would open his mouth to speak to his comrades, but they just ducked their heads, so he was left having imaginary conversations with their gun barrels. At first he panicked in case the warring armies opened fire, but as time went on he came to realize that the killing would not begin unexpectedly. There would have to be a kind of advance warning, he was sure, a portent in the sky, or perhaps a dawn chorus prophesying death, in order to distinguish the day of slaughter from the others that had preceded it.
    Dejan continued to visit Dinka. He brought her food and claimed drunkenly that only he could save Juraj, and that he knew Juraj would do the same for him if, heaven forbid, the tables were turned and the Ustashas were defeating the Chetniks. Dinka merely nodded her head, looking forlorn, so Dejan tried to get around her by telling jokes.
    One day he asked her, “Tell me, Dinka, would you let me fuck you if I managed to get Juraj out of the shit?”
    Dinka looked away, her lips trembling with fury, but she remained silent.
    â€œListen, sweetheart, I didn’t say I wanted to or anything. I’m just curious – would you let me? Don’t you see that I have to know what kind of person you are and how fond you are of Juraj? Take me, for example. I couldn’t be more fond of him than I already am. If I thought it’d save his bacon, I’d let you fuck me. Honest! Without a second thought. So it’s really a question of who cares more about your husband – you or me?”
    Dejan left the house volunteering to go to Pale, if necessary, in order to save Juraj. He warned her not to get upset about his teasing. We’re human beings, after all, not animals, he said.
    Dinka couldn’t help remembering that conversation as she was coming down the hill with the other women after identifying Juraj’s body. She was still trying to comprehend that her Juraj was no more, and that nothing was left of him except a hollow skull. As she wiped her eyes she saw Dejan beaming at her in the distance. He was running up the hill and waving a piece of paper above his head. Dinka prayed that he would just vanish into thin air. He stopped in the middle of a sentence but she couldn’t bear to look at him or to listen to what he was saying about headquarters . . . orders from the very top . . . the real important people . . . the necessary papers. . . . All she could think was, “How on earth does he wash that beard – does he shampoo it or does he just wash his face in the morning like everybody else?”

Chico the Seducer
    On a clear day, if you look hard enough, you can see a neat line running horizontally across Mount Igman as if it had been drawn with