The Carny

Rebuilding the carousel-1

Sarajevo, April 1997

I promised Nena that I would rebuild the merry-go-round. I promised a year ago before she disappeared from my life.

I looked at her for the last time. She was walking away down the narrow street of Gorica. She walked away with her bag slung over her shoulder, her arm swaying in tune with her skirt, dusk turning her into shadow.

She didn"t care what she left behind. She didn"t care how I felt, she wanted to leave quietly like a child thief, without a trace, without even looking back, straight as a marching soldier.

I have no idea where she was going, not even where she came from. I never asked her. I never tried to look for her. I never tried to enter the burden of her life. I never tried to overstep her identity. I never tried to violate her personal no-fly-zone; it was impossible to fly over her sky.

I only remembered the promise yesterday, walking between the new and old Marindvora. There was an inscription on a destroyed small wall next to the minaret of the great mosque: Welcome to Sarajevo. It was not a warm welcome, but it was a message of hope. Someone wrote it during the siege with a black spray can in big, cubical letters hoping to catch the attention of the international press.

I imagined a Bosnian woman with fuchsia-colored hair, highlights, with due sadness, secretly writing those words.

Rebuilding. I imagined a mason, a Sarajevan, an ordinary man in his prime rebuilding that little wall, brick by brick. I imagined him with a lime-stained hat and a sparse beard.

The Orthodox priest at Sunday Mass also urged the faithful to reconcile, call each other brothers, forgive offenses and rebuild the chapel on the occasion of Orthodox Easter.

Danijel whispered it to me as well. This morning he returned early to the camper. He surprised me at the sink, at the silence game, blindfolded me with his hands, and I recognized him immediately from the calluses.

He told me that he took expectations from the construction company, he wants to start the reconstruction of the ride.

"And how many days did they give you?" "One week."

"And you"re going to rebuild it in such a short time?"

He spreads his arms wide. He doesn"t. He deludes himself. He hopes it will be a short time.

I look at him. I am proud of my Danijel. He is a strong boy. He is a hill animal. I love the way he surprises me between my thoughts with his light touch and querulous voice.

Like the first time we slept together. He wanted to do it outside on the grass. He took me by the hand and I let his manhood lead me, his pale flesh. I love his way: the animal.

On those occasions I call it, "Životinja mojae. ". He wrinkles his nose and says, "Come gypsy, come! Now I"ll show you who the animal is!" He gets on all fours, foxes around, tells me to get ready to run away.

In the morning, however, he is anything but. Before going to work, with his eyes, he follows the flight of birds. He wears his favorite lime-stained hat and heads down the Gorica lane like a real man going to work. Instead, in the evening, I catch him at the little table, nibbling his nails like a little Sarajevite going to school.

We are the same age: seventeen, and when I remind him that we were born only two days apart, he spreads his arms wide and whispers, "It was meant to be "

We share a bet to win. It"s like a swallow, after a long journey has returned to my heart. To rebuild the merry-go-round, to make those seahorses fly again who have been stationary in a world of their own for too long.

The biggest problem is the wooden floor, too creased, as well as the carousel, next to us buried by climbing plants, boundless beyond its original colors.

"And how are we going to buy new planks? We don"t have enough money, you know!"

Danijel"s gaze elaborates a smirk with two dimples. "We"ll steal them!" "What? You"re kidding, I hope!"

I look into his eyes and sense that he is telling the truth. He has a plan in store. "There is a new hardware store in Grbavica that also sells wooden planks."

"So what?"

"The clerk I know. He is a supplier to my company. He works as an employee."

"So what?"

"It would help us do the theft!"

He looks at me as he looked at me three months ago, with a smirk too easy to hide. On that occasion we needed a new coffee table to replace the old one, and he had the fantasy of carrying out a theft. He kept a small checked notebook, like a schoolboy"s notebook under the sofa bed, with notes in it. One day I spied on him through the window of the motor home and discovered that he was carrying out a plan of his own. He had made a deal with his colleague; they wanted to sneak like two rats into the new shopping center in Grbavica.

I looked at him as one looks at a thief, with a sidelong glance and a wrinkled nose. I threatened him good. I told him that if he stole even a single edge, I would stop loving him.

He went back on good faith, worked overtime. In the evening, after editing, he confessed to me that he would do it for love. He was going to do it for me.

Now I threaten him again, "If you dare to do such a thing, I swear ... I won"t even give you a son!"

I think I hurt him. He looks at me with his mouth sideways in amazement, similar to a child who has been slapped in the face, leaves slamming the door.

Now I look at the door that has closed with a thud and heralds a disturbance between us, like a banner moving frantically when

wind is blowing. It is the same clutter where he puts his things, his corner where he eats or where he takes notes to plan our daily life; yet, in a corner of my heart, I feel as if this clutter is our best part.

It is the same mess as in Sarajevo. I only noticed it five days ago when I went down to Grbavica to go to the old school. I wanted to sign up for a botany mini-course to learn how to cultivate and keep my garden tidy. The secretary looked at me with an air that seemed naïve, hardly appropriate for the pink dress she was wearing and the porcelain vase of flowers she had beside her. She said, "Maybe you spelled your ethnicity wrong, baby. Besides, the name you wrote is different from this document you showed me...." I had the feeling that my hair looked to her like the dirt that collects along suburban streets. She believed my mulatto skin, my pitch-black hair. To my face that looked dirty to her. I looked to her like a gypsy running around stealing or begging. I had the impression that she wanted to send me back to Kosovo, where I was born, to a desolate neighborhood in Mitrovicë.

I tried to appear sweet, calm, serene to redeem myself from this thought. I flashed my best smile under her nose; my most beautiful profile, my cheeks flushed, my eyebrows turning into little butterfly wings. And I whispered to her, "You know? It"s because everyone calls me Carì." Katarina is only written on documents, so I rummaged through my purse, showed her my Serbian passport, and she believed the signature of a Belgrade municipality official.

Then I went for a walk. I walked as far as Baščaršija. I stopped in front of the kafanas. Next to the entrance of one was a kind of stove that glowed with the red of coals of different flavors. I followed the trail of smoke coming out of a hookah and found myself with my nose in the air, following the course of a NATO fighter jet that had come all this way to share Sarajevo"s absinthe.

I overheard a woman talking to another woman on my way back to Gorica. She was confiding to her that a few days earlier her grandson had lost a leg. His joy, his childhood, had flown away. He had put his foot in a wrong hole, on a mine in a nearby park. There was also the sign that said, "safe zone."

Danijel comes home that it is already evening. He smells of smoke from the drina.

I usually contort my mouth and wrinkle my nose. He knows I don"t like this smell so he doesn"t look at me, but I gather from the look in his eyes that he would like to convince me to steal the planks in the hardware store.

I stayed all afternoon watching the merry-go-round instead of thinking about stealing. I made beans with soup for dinner instead of thinking of a plan. And as a reward dwells silence between us. I don"t survive the silence for long. Moreover, at the end of the day, it smells of death like a tombstone, what remains is a remnant of ourselves. Even the merry-go- round was dead with silence.

"Love." Danijel turns, looks at me, "Let"s do it your way." I tell him, serving him some soup while breaking this oblivion.

"Do you agree with my idea?" "Yes, what is your plan?"

He clears his throat. He explains that the hardware store clerk will be loyal to whatever plan he wants to put into action.

"He has been in the war. He knows his way around." "What if we get caught?"

"The plan is perfect, no one will discover us." "What if someone snitches?"

"No one is going to snitch! Let"s go to Grbavica"s kafana tonight, he"ll be there and explain the plan."

Grbavica is even gloomier at night. The signs are only half lit, the rest are dangling cables waiting for money to rebuild them. The trees on the boulevards are bare. The war wrested them from life, from lime, from the earth. The buildings have windows made of plexiglass, they are still blackened by smoke from the explosions. They hang without a reason the rods from the apartment buildings.

The kafana has a small stage, where, before long, a rock band will play. They are called the "Sikters," and in their own way they have waged war by playing concerts.

One looks like an artist, sipping a bottle of beer: the Pivo. The other is a girl, has fuchsia hair and freckles. The other is the clerk at the hardware store. His hair is in a ponytail, his earring too big for his lobe. He gives me the impression that he prefers a rakija and drina instead of black coffee.

He recognized Danijel; he joins us. The "winning grip" greeting makes me uncomfortable. Danijel introduces me to him.

I watch him act tough. He drinks beer as if trying to disguise his voice by drawing out a radical truth. He fought in the Patriotic League. The two fingers he shows us are knife blades, his voice is a querulous whisper, "For two years "

His name is Željko and he has seen terrible things.

I look at his hands, they hold the drina embedded like holding a piece of memory anchored. Everyone was crazy, even they felt normal. And in this madness they built ideals of pulling up a life of mansions, dreams and belonging to a flock of any race, any culture, just as God created them.

His family includes Croats, Serbs, and Muslims. He hopes that the multiethnic and multicultural spirit of Sarajevo can remain preserved and unchanged.

His girlfriend"s name is Jasmila, she is the one with the fuchsia hair. She also waged war, in her own way, stealing electricity to run a pirate television.