Srebenica
I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know Enver. I knew him even before we both started at Camil Sejaric when we were five. We lived within a hundred metres away from each other in Dobrinja, near the river bank. He will tell me that he used to see me at Dostluq Park where our mums would take us on Saturday mornings, although I only recalled this after he told me. I had no clear recollection of him. The first time we talked was on our first day at Camil.
Miss Arambegovic sat us next to each other and we immediately got on. Ferida Aramgegovic, the most beautiful woman on earth! We were all in love with her. Even the girls. We imagined that in fifteen years when we would have turned into handsome swains, we’d rush to propose to the woman who had stayed in her early twenties.
‘Miro,’ she said to me on the first, ‘you sit next to Enver.’ I was quite happy, but there was one thing I needed straightening.
‘Mith,’ I lisped, ‘don’t call me Miro, call me Vuk.’ She looked at her register of names, but smiled and nodded.
‘Yes my little wolf, Vuk suits you much better, but I hope you don’t begin by eating your little class mates.’
The two of us soon became inseparables, but trust a girl to muddy the waters. Zlata Jablanovic was like a weather front, which can generate welcome soothing breezes, but which could also, on a sudden whim, turn into a squall. If there was hardly any animosity between us Srbi and Bosniaks, our family were always mildly suspicious of the Hravati, the Croats. I was suspicious of the red-headed Zlata because dad had said that her grandfather was an Ustashe. I didn’t really knew what that meant, but felt that it was beyond the pale. Her family lived three doors away from Enver’s, and Teta Sofija her mother taking a shine to my new friend, kept telling him to look after her little girl; treat like your sister, she urged. And kind, caring Enver took that as his mission in life. It was something which fairly irritated me, because girls are not supposed to climb trees, kick a ball, or wrestle you to the ground, but we soon got used to her. Fortunately she had a baby brother, Luka, three years younger than her, and often had to babysit him, which meant that we were able to get her off our back, but she was very good-natured, and we got on well with her on the whole.
In those days, no one even questioned your ethnicity, let alone your religion. We Serbs usually attended service at St Peter’s on Sundays, but as far as I know Enver only went to the Djamija mosque in Novi Sad for Behram twice a year. We did not explicitly arrange to walk to and back from school together, but we easily got into the habit of meeting just before we turned into Bracé Mulic, when we would pull our tongues out at each other and he would go, “Kram krom”, and I’d give the response “Katam Krom”; I have no idea where this came from. We would then dig our elbow in each other’s ribs, and our day would begin. We did not need our mums to take us to school in those innocent days before paedos were invented.
We would often share the contents of our lunch boxes, and he didn’t mind eating ham. He explained that they did not touch the forbidden meat at home, but he told me that his dad Daut was growing fat on account of his Serbian and Croatian friends taking perverse pleasure in forcing him to eat ham and drink rakija.
We were both good pupils. Although we were only expected to learn our times table up to 12 twelves one hundred and forty-four, , we both took it to the next level (to 15), and could spit out 14 times 15 is 210 without thinking.
We must have been nine or ten before we’d start going out together on Saturday mornings, mainly running or playing football with our local team of mainly Bosniak kids that Enver had formed. Green Star. From Red Star of course.
We had both yearned for a bicycle, and when we turned eleven, Chinese bicycles started flooding the country, and we both begged our dads to buy us one, and we became proud owners of our own means of transport. Flying Pigeons. From that moment, nowhere in the vicinity of Dobrinja was safe from the Two Musketeers. We would regularly cycle to Vogosca and spend hours at the Staracki Park, often getting back home after dark. Stealthily Zlata began forcing herself into our circle, and soon the Two Musketeers had become Three, after she got her own bike.
We were in our last year at the Camil, and the two of us would have been keen to go on a long cycling holiday for a week, and were equally attracted to Mount Trebovic and River Drina. I knew that Enver fancied Zlata, although he never breathed a word about his latent passion for her. Do you think of her when you wank? I asked him. Not when I have colorised pictures of Sonja Savic and Ana Sasso, he said. Personally I kept a picture of Ava Gardner from Life Magazine under my bed. The Hravati girl had obviously heard of our holiday plans, but I never gave a serious thought to the possibility that she might be joining us. What sort of mother would allow her young fourteen-year old daughter to go on a cycling holiday with boys? An uncouth Serb and a godless Bosniak to boot. But trust Teta Sofija! She cornered Enver. You are the only boy in Sarajevo I’d trust my Zlata with, she said, and persuaded him. I was not too happy. That was not the first time that I asked myself the question: Am I gay? Is Enver? Did I want him exclusively for myself?
It was many years ago, and so many horrible things have happened since those days that it has been painful to re-live them. One often makes a conscious effort to re-write the past, to obviate the pain associated with some past event, but I remember every detail of our odyssey.
Zlata had an English bicycle, a Raleigh_ she would, wouldn’t she? I was surprised that although I resented her intrusion, I soon began warming up to her. I knew that she had a sweet-nature, and besides was very generous with the goodies Teta Sofija had provided her with for the trip. Although she knew Enver better, I was relieved that she never excluded me. At first I tried to tire her out by pedalling really hard, imagining that girls haven’t got the same sort of stamina as us, but, sweating profusely, she kept pace with me. If anything, it was Enver who lagged behind.
As it was a holiday we were very relaxed and the exhilarating and unending sequence of mountains on our right, on our left, ahead and behind us kept us enthralled and we were in no hurry. We don’t always remember we live in such a beautiful country. Nowhere else in the world would you find so many diverse peoples living with other in Majevika/ Gucevo mountains, in Visegrad, Drina and Rzav in such harmony. Was it to the Marshall we owed this happy state, or to the Nazis who by attacking us made us unite to defend our fatherland? Perhaps the happy fourteen-year that I was, had conveniently exorcised Ustashe collaboration from his subconscious. When the sun is shining and your Flying Pigeon rides like it’s got wings, it is easy to shed all unpleasant notions.
It was uphill all the way so far, but not ferociously so. We stopped at Sokolac for the night, and pitched our tent on a hillside, next to a peerless little stream. It was really meant for two, but we were going to squeeze in, leaving our bicycles and rucksacks outside. We never wondered if it was safe. We craftily placed Zlata between the two of us, and although we exchanged timid kisses, her tits and legs were out of bounds. My mum had made me promise that I would “show due respect to the Hravati girl,” and treat her as a sister. Over the years, my initial lust for her had evaporated, leaving residues of pure friendship.
We took three days to reach the Drina. I had never seen such an impressive landscape. The clear green water of the river like a gigantic emerald snake set in the beautiful Dinaric Alps, between the mountains of Majevika and Gucevo. The air was crisp and the water was cold although it was summer. The swim was exhilarating. We were cycling outside the town of Visegrad one morning, and we caught sight of a strange oak structure which intrigued us. We could not make up our minds as to what it might be, until Zlata remembered something she had read. In the sixteenth century, the Drina and its tributaries used to be navigable, and our ancestors used to make dugout canoes from the abundant oak forests around to go as far as Belgrade.
Everybody knew that River Drina was teeming with succulent crayfish, and we had included nets in our rucksack. We were scrambling on the rocky bank and thought we would try our luck. There was nobody else in sight. We had brought some tins of cat food, which we were told was excellent bait. It turned out that catching crayfish was lacking in excitement, as the moment you threw in your bits of bait in, the silly crustaceans just rose up and let you scoop them with your net.
We can light a fire and barbecue them, Enver said, at which Zlata opened wide her eyes in horror. We don’t want to roast them alive, she said. I pointed out that they were usually dropped in boiling water, which must be the same thing. Enver assured us that crustaceans did not feel pain. When you drop a lobster in boiling water, Zlata claimed, you hear it hissing in pain. Naa, explained Enver, that’s water rushing into the small crevasses. So what do we do? I asked, these creatures take days to die, and we’re starving. Let us vote, Enver suggested. Zlata’s hunger won.
We picked firewood and lit a small fire, and watched the flames dance and flicker and when the wood had all turned into embers, we placed our catch on them, turning our eyes away to avoid seeing them squirm. The scales gave out a plasticky smell, but soon they turned a beautiful chocolate brown. We each of us tasted one, and found it delicious, but after the second one, we looked at each other and shook our heads. There was something missing.
Salt, we chorused.
That was one thing we had all failed to include among our food items. And now the crayfish was inedible. Like idiots we all emptied the contents of our rucksack, in the strange belief that some salt might mysteriously appear. Strange beliefs rarely turn into reality. The sun was now, shining brightly, and we could see dark patches under Zlata’s armpits. She was a sweater. It must be true that redheads sweat more.
It was Enver who had the brainwave. We’re saved, he exclaimed. What d’you mean? We asked. Zlata, he said, she makes salt. And he pointed at her armpits. None of us hesitated for less than a second. Zlata gamely put her hands under her armpits and, now humid and glistening, she daubed some cooked crayfish with her sweat and passed the crustaceans around to us. She had solved our problem. We devoured our share with such speed that we were all panting. Our Hravati friend produced more salt, and in a matter of minutes we had polished our massive catch.
After the holidays, the family relocated to Banja Luka, and I lost touch with my two friends. Farewell childhood. I saw Enver just once when we came back for a wedding, but we were hardly able to talk. When he greeted me with Kram Krom, I had to make an effort to respond Katam Krom. I cannot remember seeing Zlata. Not until Vilina Vlas.
I knew that after matura Enver went to the uni of Sarajevo to become an engineer. He was always very good with machines. I gathered that Zlata’s family moved to Mostar. To become a nun, we joked. I could not find a place at Belgrade uni, so went to Novi Sad, probably a better choice anyway. I saw myself as a future attorney general of Yugoslavia, ha! ha! I joined the Alexander Rankovic Soc. There were so many things I did not know about Serbian history. In that intellectual desert that was Sarajevo, where folks just lived and had fun and never asked themselves questions, we thought of Bosniaks, Croats, Montenegrins and Serbs as being the same people, after all we all spoke (nearly) the same language. However, the Hravati Croats were always undermining Serbian orthodoxy, trying to spread popism, whilst the Bosniaks, although they ate pork and drank rakija, they had an Islamic agenda. Mind you, never once had I heard Enver speak of Islam to anybody, but he might have been an exception. But why did he call our football team Green Star when Muslims have a great fondness for green? All were out to do damage to Serbian culture. Tito should have paid more attention to Rankovic.
We had no alternative when the Bosniaks carried out their illegal referendum, turning the country into a Bosniak republic. What were the 40% Serbs living there going to do? Betray our Serbian culture and convert to Islam? So the civil war cannot be laid at Serbian door. I had graduated in 1991, but with the war I was drafted into the army of Serb volunteers, and became a White Eagle.
It was war, and atrocities were committed by all the factions. Ratko Mladic himself came to Visegrad where I was stationed, to give a pep talk to the two hundred men under my command. He wasn’t a war hero like his father who had died fighting the fascist friends of Adolf Hitler, but Neda Mladic was an inspiration to many. You fight the good war my friends, Ratko urged, you die for Serbia, you kill the Bosniaks, they are our enemies. It’s not a sin. When you fight a just war there is no sin. You are young and hot-blooded, true Serbians. We will give you plenty to eat, we give you guns, we will even give you women to fuck; in wars this is permitted. After we’ve thrashed those Muslims, you can go to your church and beg for absolution. God will understand.
True enough Milan Lukic had set up the Vilina Vlas station with Bosniak women captives. Our enemies call this the Rape Station. Young pretty chicks, not elderly hags. And our men were encouraged to make use of the facilities. And my men did not have to be begged. Personally I had some qualms, for no rational reason, and had hesitated for some time. But damn it, I am a full-blooded Serb, and one day I was determined to pop my cherry. I had heard the boys talk of the many young beautiful Bosniaks, all dying for the Serbian cock, but nobody had mentioned that there were a handful of Hravati chicks among their numbers.
And I caught sight of Zlata. The moment she saw me she turned her head away. Poor Zlata. I had a lump in my throat. She had been my friend, we shared some indelible memories. I took a few timid steps towards her, and she stiffened. Don’t be like that, I said, forcing her to sit on a large ottoman beside me. I put my arms around her and squeezed her. She recoiled. I imagined how awful it must have been for a girl like her to have to submit to those rough uncouth brutes, and resolved that I would make up for her torment by doing what I had to do with consideration and kindness. I kissed her, on the cheeks first, but she did not respond. I remember our less than full-blooded kisses in our tent in Sokolac. Although I was in a state of great sexual excitement, I tempered my ardour, and kissed her lightly on the mouth, but she did not respond. I cursed those rough brutes who had ill-used her. Here was a lovely fragile woman who needed to be worshipped and handled with consideration. I understood her disgust perfectly. I led her to the bedroom, and told her to undress, and she did. I’m sorry it has to be like this, I said gently, and she just stared at me. She lay on the bed and opened her legs slightly. Suddenly she started rocking with suppressed tears. I’m sorry, I said, I know it’s been terrible. I climbed on top of her and hugged her with great tenderness, but her sobbing redoubled. As I had a good erection, I put it in her, and made sure my thrusts were measured. She squirmed, but said nothing. I knew I could not expect her to respond to my movements, and she did not react to my climax. You did not come? I asked. She would not the first time, I guessed, but I was sure I’d visit her again, and perhaps arrange for her not to have to entertain other men. She had not said one single word to me. Do you remember how we salted the crayfish? I asked, and she stared at me vacantly, as if I had spoken a foreign language to her. I’m sure she did.
‘Zlata,’ I said after I had washed myself and got dressed, ‘I did this in the spirit of our old friendship, you know.’ For the first time she looked at me.
‘Vuk,’ she said in a near whisper, ‘I had hoped that in the spirit of our old friendship, you at least would have spared me.’
I never went back.
The UN, General Morillon, the Americans and all their aunts had given the undertaking that they would all defend the rights of the Bosniak Muslims, that Srebenica was a protected area, but Slobodan Milosevic put out his middle finger to them. As did Ratko, Radovan, the Yugoslav army high command. I was based near Potari with two hundred volunteers under my command, and we were given assurances that we could do whatever we thought best for our much abused fatherland, and that nobody would challenge us, notwithstanding all their undertakings . General Mladic did not mince his words when he came to talk to our men. We need Srebenica for strategic reasons, we cannot afford to have those worshippers of the big black rock there, every single one of them need to be removed. What do I mean by removed? You are patriotic Serbs, I don’t need to spell it out to you. We have not issued our best Zastavas and Scorpions to you to scratch your arses with!
Meanwhile, the White Eagles and Arkan’s Tigers were helping to round up Bosniaks from the surrounding villages. We were naturally heavily armed, by our allies, the Greeks, Mossad, the JNA. The Bosniaks, for all the money and weapons they were receiving from the Muslim countries, were a rag tag army of buffoons who did not know which end of their gun to fire from. Under the command of that corrupt clown Nasser Oric. Our men killed many and took many more prisoners, and as I was sure would happen, my friend Enver who had lost half his weight was marched in one morning. I had a lump in my throat as I saw the state my erstwhile best friend was in. I had him brought to my office.
He stared at me coldly as he took a few steps in my direction, then, with tears dripping from his eyes, he threw himself at me and embraced me. My tears joined his.
I ordered him coffee. He hadn’t had a proper coffee for over a year he said. We even have krofne, I told him. He smiled for the first time.
‘What happened to our country, Vuk?’ he asked. I knew exactly, but I wanted to spare his Bosniak feelings.
‘Was it wrong of us to get our own country? Are you going to kill us?’
‘We were living in our own country, why did you Bosniaks want to secede?’
‘You call it a secession? When Serbian nationalism was becoming rampant.’ At this point I failed to rein in my calmness.
‘What the fuck are you then? What is a Bosnian then? We’re all fucking Serbs. The Turks came into our country, fucked our women and the bastards who followed became Muslims like their lords and masters and called themselves Bosniaks. There is no Bosniak race. You are Serb converts and Gyppos.’
I suddenly remembered that one of the last things we did together before I moved to Banja Luka was to go see Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat.
‘D’you know what Kusturica said?’
‘He talked a lot of rubbish, so I probably don’t know.’
‘About Serbs and Bosniaks. He says that it was an aberration for his family to have been Muslim for two centuries. Their blood is Serbian. He’s thought of himself as a Serb. He is even changing his name to Nemanja.’
‘It’s his right,’ Enver said sheepishly.
‘Why couldn’t you chaps accept the fact? Nobody was stopping you worshipping your Mohammed_’
‘You’re oversimplifying matters. You know how Tito closed our koranic schools and demolished our mosques_’
‘Over-zealous part officials! But that was reversed, what does it matter to you? You eat pork, you never went to mosque_’
‘I do now.’
‘I’m shocked,’ I screamed. He understood that I was joking. Suddenly I had a brainwave.
‘Listen Enver, I’ve got a proposition.’ And although I had no idea if I was empowered to promise anything like this, I put it to him.
‘You and I can help your fellow Bosniaks. I can’t promise a general amnesty, I know bad things are in the pipeline for your guys, but if you give me Nasser, I’ll arrange for one hundred of your people to be sent to safe zones. Srebenica isn’t safe, you don’t need to be a genius to guess what our generals are planning to do.’
‘Nasser Oric? He’s the only leader we have.’
‘He’s nor exactly an asset, is he? The man’s corrupt, he’s an idiot. He will cost you.’ I put my plan to him. I will arrange to drive him to Potari. All he had to do was to persuade Oric to meet me. We will just talk, and search common grounds. In the name of our friendship I promise I wouldn’t touch a single hair on his head. Enver just looked at me saying nothing. I suddenly realised that he had seen through my game and would never be party to this. He had always been a loyal friend and the betrayal gene was not in his system. He would never in a million years have done to Zlata what I had done.
‘Have you heard from Zlata?’ he asked suddenly, as if reading my mind.
‘No,’ I shouted, ‘why would I?’
‘I heard that she had gone missing.’
‘Those Croats know how to look after themselves.’
I had a sudden urge to do something for Enver. For old time’s sake. Those eight thousand Bosniaks starving in the camps were waiting to become food for the worms. The end we were planning for them was a horrible one. We were going to gun them down like wild boars and bury them in mass graves. It was war, but I wanted to spare my friend that horror.
I left him for a while and went to talk to Momcilo. Drive him to his camp, I instructed, and when you’re on the mountain road, stop the van, pretend there is a problem with the engine. Give him a fag, and after he’s had a few puffs, use this. And I pointed at his holster.
I embraced him before he left.
