Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482) by William T. Vollmann Page B
Authors: William T. Vollmann
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unless he asks you something.
Sure, said the American, wondering how this would turn out.
A man in cammies and a black leather jacket, with his arm in a cast, strode slowly down the hall, his free hand on his gun. They followed him.
At a card table beside the city police commander, Bald Man sat reading some letters, playing with the trigger of a silver Sig Sauer which looked to be a new toy. The pistol was on safe. Whether it was loaded was not, of course, the Americanâs business. Bald Man, handsome and huge, with long hair like a Chetnik and bloodshot eyes like a heavy marijuana smoker, appeared to have woken up late. Gazing at Enko, the American saw in him the glowing face of a little boy who adored his father. A queue of sad women, shabby businessmen and old men with shaking hands stood in the attitudes of petitioners. The city police commander was watching Bald Man.
Bald Man raised his head. He saw Enko. Then he smiled.
17
Vesna lit another cigarette while he asked how she was, and she smiled at him; he feared she might be tired of him. But then Marina, another of the young Serbian women, said to him, her blonde hair tucked back, her teeth as white as the cigarette between them: Last night you were asking for my first memory of this situation, and the first memory is that I was in the club and I was coming back home really really late in the taxi, because my home is up in the hill by Mojmilo, not that I can go there anymore. The driver said: I donât know why we are stuck here, because the light didnât change.â So I paid him and got out, and then I recognized some of my neighbors, waving their arms, and I was embarrassed that they would see me, and I said to myself, why did I dress in this ugly yellow jacket like a life jacket? And my parents were watching some movie on the television, and I said to them, laughing and crying: There is a war in Sarajevo! There is the first barricade . . .â We were all expecting that this madness would stop. We could walk in and out. And then when the first grenade came in . . .
And the telephone lines were cut
from this side,
said the poet.
Let her finish, please, said Vesna.
No, said Marina. Thatâs all.
They waited for her to speak, but that was truly all. So the American, knowing this exchange between Marina and the poet to be significantbut not on that account prepared to stop, for his mindâs predisposition to keep stories was as ready and partitioned as the narrow golden-buttoned side-leg pockets of Amirâs trousers, in which that person kept his wallet and a loaded magazine wrapped in paper, turned to Anesa, who almost tonelessly told how the siege had begun for her; and he wished he could listen to their stories forever, because it now seemed that he almost had what he wanted, which was to say the jewel of horrible meaning whose coruscations might dazzle some would-be murderer into holding his fire, or even help some fugitive from a rape camp to remember why she was damaged; his aspirations were ready to flow through Sarajevo and away, like the rippling, shallow Miljacka. Amir, whoâd sent his children to Austria, drummed his fingers in time with the cassette player. The girls were black-eyed and smiling, turning their heads drunkenly, leaning chins on hands.
And on the following afternoon some of them and a few others were in a basement apartment with a Jim Morrison poster and sandbags halfway up the windows, the clock ticking, the pendulum swaying, a certain blonde lost in her own hair as if there might be a place where women rode slowly on bicycles along the summery riverbank, thrushes sang unsilenced, and people in cafés never needed to look away from each otherâs eyes, straining to gauge where the shell might land; and Anesa was singing, with her cigarette aimed at the sky like a gun; maybe tomorrow sheâd be dead. A balding fighter grinned, stubbed out his cigarette and said:
Za dom
Sure, said the American, wondering how this would turn out.
A man in cammies and a black leather jacket, with his arm in a cast, strode slowly down the hall, his free hand on his gun. They followed him.
At a card table beside the city police commander, Bald Man sat reading some letters, playing with the trigger of a silver Sig Sauer which looked to be a new toy. The pistol was on safe. Whether it was loaded was not, of course, the Americanâs business. Bald Man, handsome and huge, with long hair like a Chetnik and bloodshot eyes like a heavy marijuana smoker, appeared to have woken up late. Gazing at Enko, the American saw in him the glowing face of a little boy who adored his father. A queue of sad women, shabby businessmen and old men with shaking hands stood in the attitudes of petitioners. The city police commander was watching Bald Man.
Bald Man raised his head. He saw Enko. Then he smiled.
17
Vesna lit another cigarette while he asked how she was, and she smiled at him; he feared she might be tired of him. But then Marina, another of the young Serbian women, said to him, her blonde hair tucked back, her teeth as white as the cigarette between them: Last night you were asking for my first memory of this situation, and the first memory is that I was in the club and I was coming back home really really late in the taxi, because my home is up in the hill by Mojmilo, not that I can go there anymore. The driver said: I donât know why we are stuck here, because the light didnât change.â So I paid him and got out, and then I recognized some of my neighbors, waving their arms, and I was embarrassed that they would see me, and I said to myself, why did I dress in this ugly yellow jacket like a life jacket? And my parents were watching some movie on the television, and I said to them, laughing and crying: There is a war in Sarajevo! There is the first barricade . . .â We were all expecting that this madness would stop. We could walk in and out. And then when the first grenade came in . . .
And the telephone lines were cut
from this side,
said the poet.
Let her finish, please, said Vesna.
No, said Marina. Thatâs all.
They waited for her to speak, but that was truly all. So the American, knowing this exchange between Marina and the poet to be significantbut not on that account prepared to stop, for his mindâs predisposition to keep stories was as ready and partitioned as the narrow golden-buttoned side-leg pockets of Amirâs trousers, in which that person kept his wallet and a loaded magazine wrapped in paper, turned to Anesa, who almost tonelessly told how the siege had begun for her; and he wished he could listen to their stories forever, because it now seemed that he almost had what he wanted, which was to say the jewel of horrible meaning whose coruscations might dazzle some would-be murderer into holding his fire, or even help some fugitive from a rape camp to remember why she was damaged; his aspirations were ready to flow through Sarajevo and away, like the rippling, shallow Miljacka. Amir, whoâd sent his children to Austria, drummed his fingers in time with the cassette player. The girls were black-eyed and smiling, turning their heads drunkenly, leaning chins on hands.
And on the following afternoon some of them and a few others were in a basement apartment with a Jim Morrison poster and sandbags halfway up the windows, the clock ticking, the pendulum swaying, a certain blonde lost in her own hair as if there might be a place where women rode slowly on bicycles along the summery riverbank, thrushes sang unsilenced, and people in cafés never needed to look away from each otherâs eyes, straining to gauge where the shell might land; and Anesa was singing, with her cigarette aimed at the sky like a gun; maybe tomorrow sheâd be dead. A balding fighter grinned, stubbed out his cigarette and said:
Za dom
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