are very dangerous times to play those kinds of games,” said my uncle. “Don’t you know that?”
But we didn’t. Not really. We knew the politicians were fighting on TV a lot, that there was a lot of talk about what religion everyone was, about tensions between different nationalities, their constitutional rights—all foreign words to Adi and me, who were on the verge of crossing the border from the world of ninjas, marbles, and comic books into the world of new, curly hairs, cracked voices, and minds crammed with pussy, let alone Mehmed, who was only eleven.
“There’ll be a war,” my mother said, her lit cigarette as though forgotten in front of her face. Everyone looked over as though she had said that Venusians were about to land. But there were flickers of real fear in everyone’s eyes.
“God forbid,” yelped Grandma, shaking her head as her calloused fingers tapped against the plastic balls of her tespih and she continued to count off zikr prayers.
“I don’t think it will come to that,” said my uncle, though his words rang hollow.
Mother kept silent.
Father sent us upstairs. In bed I tried to imagine war and saw images from the Communist propaganda films in which the good guys, the partisans, machine-gunned Nazi dicks on their motorcycles with sidecars. I saw Rambo. I saw Arnold. As I understood it, war was good and exciting if you were a good guy and just the opposite if you were bad. But was I good or bad? Wasn’t it my idea to deliver the ultimatum?
Quickly I thought, She couldn’t have meant war . I rationalized that by war she probably meant something like a feud between the neighbors, the kind that Dad wanted to avoid by swallowing his pride and giving up his scythe. She was messed up from her concussion, I told myself. But I couldn’t fall sleep.
Soon enough even my father would realize that people were stupid enough to fling a hefty piece of wet Balkan shit right into the bladesof a turning fan and expect not to get soiled. The war would come just as prophesied, and for years a part of me would believe that by coming up with that bit of mischief, I had somehow caused it all, and I would feel guilty for all the dead and the dead-to-be, and sitting in the basement with my town groaning from destruction above my head, I would wish for a time machine and another go at that day.
By the next fall, scarred by the experience and about to start high school, I grudgingly put my ninja phase behind me. Solemnly, like an aging warrior with failing eyesight and unsteady hands, I retired my trusty mail-order swords to the cobwebs behind the ironing board and hung my nunchakus on the coat hook. I felt like something was ending, my childhood, perhaps, or the good ol’ times or pick your cliché, and something else, something forever foreign and foreboding, was coming to a boil in the country, in my city.
It crawled out of manholes and hissed out of pipes. It fell down with bloating rains. It blew in with stormy weather. It settled on souls, minds, concrete. We trudged upon it on the asphalt and in the grass. We kicked it around on dead leaves and trash. We breathed it in with dust and gulped it down with food. We washed it out of our hair and shed it with dead skin. It Freudian-slipped into our words and belly danced in our dreams. It was everywhere, yet we couldn’t recognize it, couldn’t see it for what it was. The best we could do was smell its ozone breath and sense its dead calm before the storm, attribute it to the changing seasons and blame it on the fall, then winter, then spring. All of us were fooled by it, by the war, except, of course, my mother.
The night Adi, Mehmed, and I pulled off our little stunt in Kovačevo Selo my mother dreamed of Chetniks, although she’d never seen one in her life. Her subconscious conjured them fromgrainy black-and-white photographs in books about World War II, pictures showing long black beards, black caps and uniforms, big knives, and X-shaped sashes
But we didn’t. Not really. We knew the politicians were fighting on TV a lot, that there was a lot of talk about what religion everyone was, about tensions between different nationalities, their constitutional rights—all foreign words to Adi and me, who were on the verge of crossing the border from the world of ninjas, marbles, and comic books into the world of new, curly hairs, cracked voices, and minds crammed with pussy, let alone Mehmed, who was only eleven.
“There’ll be a war,” my mother said, her lit cigarette as though forgotten in front of her face. Everyone looked over as though she had said that Venusians were about to land. But there were flickers of real fear in everyone’s eyes.
“God forbid,” yelped Grandma, shaking her head as her calloused fingers tapped against the plastic balls of her tespih and she continued to count off zikr prayers.
“I don’t think it will come to that,” said my uncle, though his words rang hollow.
Mother kept silent.
Father sent us upstairs. In bed I tried to imagine war and saw images from the Communist propaganda films in which the good guys, the partisans, machine-gunned Nazi dicks on their motorcycles with sidecars. I saw Rambo. I saw Arnold. As I understood it, war was good and exciting if you were a good guy and just the opposite if you were bad. But was I good or bad? Wasn’t it my idea to deliver the ultimatum?
Quickly I thought, She couldn’t have meant war . I rationalized that by war she probably meant something like a feud between the neighbors, the kind that Dad wanted to avoid by swallowing his pride and giving up his scythe. She was messed up from her concussion, I told myself. But I couldn’t fall sleep.
Soon enough even my father would realize that people were stupid enough to fling a hefty piece of wet Balkan shit right into the bladesof a turning fan and expect not to get soiled. The war would come just as prophesied, and for years a part of me would believe that by coming up with that bit of mischief, I had somehow caused it all, and I would feel guilty for all the dead and the dead-to-be, and sitting in the basement with my town groaning from destruction above my head, I would wish for a time machine and another go at that day.
By the next fall, scarred by the experience and about to start high school, I grudgingly put my ninja phase behind me. Solemnly, like an aging warrior with failing eyesight and unsteady hands, I retired my trusty mail-order swords to the cobwebs behind the ironing board and hung my nunchakus on the coat hook. I felt like something was ending, my childhood, perhaps, or the good ol’ times or pick your cliché, and something else, something forever foreign and foreboding, was coming to a boil in the country, in my city.
It crawled out of manholes and hissed out of pipes. It fell down with bloating rains. It blew in with stormy weather. It settled on souls, minds, concrete. We trudged upon it on the asphalt and in the grass. We kicked it around on dead leaves and trash. We breathed it in with dust and gulped it down with food. We washed it out of our hair and shed it with dead skin. It Freudian-slipped into our words and belly danced in our dreams. It was everywhere, yet we couldn’t recognize it, couldn’t see it for what it was. The best we could do was smell its ozone breath and sense its dead calm before the storm, attribute it to the changing seasons and blame it on the fall, then winter, then spring. All of us were fooled by it, by the war, except, of course, my mother.
The night Adi, Mehmed, and I pulled off our little stunt in Kovačevo Selo my mother dreamed of Chetniks, although she’d never seen one in her life. Her subconscious conjured them fromgrainy black-and-white photographs in books about World War II, pictures showing long black beards, black caps and uniforms, big knives, and X-shaped sashes
Similar Books
