Sarajevo Marlboro Read Online Free PDF Page B

such an image would somehow protect my building.
    It was already daylight when the shelling came to an end. The sun was dazzling. Glass crunched underfoot. The city was empty and shattered. I noticed that the traffic lights were no longer working as I made my way to the parking lot, where I found my Beetle among the wrecked and burned-out cars. She was covered in dust with a slight shrapnel wound, but I drove her home, opened the courtyard gates and parked the car inside. The war has really started now, I thought. It’s over – no more driving for you.
    At first I thought it was incredible that both my house and my car had survived the madness of that day and night of bombing. But as time went by, I began to realize that in fact nothing had been saved; it was just that the final moment of separation had been postponed. The delay was helpful in terms of getting ready and coming to understand that nothing was left for me in Sarajevo apart from the murdered andmaimed citizens, the demolished buildings, my forgotten childhood and perhaps a sackful of human flesh that lives off its nostalgia for other forgettable things until it comes face to face with what really matters, at which point it shivers like an engine before cutting out.

A Ring
    The doctor announced that my grandmother would die in the middle of the night. She was losing her battle for life, but we knew that anyway – it was the note of medical precision in his voice, or, at any rate, the utter denial of hope, that was so confusing. How could we prepare for her death? How could we get used to the idea before the awful moment when the telephone rings after midnight and another unfamiliar voice full of bureaucratic sympathy informs you that half an hour ago, while you were sleeping, a human soul much loved by you expired in the Oncological Ward of the Kosevo hospital?
    Every night my mother went to the hospital, where she stayed until the early hours of the morning. On her return she didn’t say very much. She just shook her head a few times and went to bed. It was thesummer of 1986, and the World Cup was being staged in Mexico. My grandmother’s long-drawn-out death throes began as the soccer teams were playing the various group matches prior to the knock-out phase but continued during the quarter-final matches which were broadcast live on tv throughout the night. With only soccer players and commentators to keep me company, I waited for my mother to return from the hospital each night. As soon as she came through the door I would switch the television off and scrutinize her in the few minutes it took her to say goodnight and go upstairs. Then I would sleep until midday.
    The whole city seemed to be relaxing in sidewalk cafés. Tired of winter and spring flu, everybody soaked up the mild weather before the heatwave. I used to drink my coffee on the sunny side of a street full of cars going south. I discussed the previous night’s matches with my friends or found other ways of killing time until nightfall, when the familiar cycle of waiting for death and watching late-night soccer games from Mexico would begin all over again.
    During the first semi-final my mother came back unexpectedly from the hospital and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. Of course I turned down the volume on the tv – the Germans were silently celebrating a goal – but neither of us said a word. So this is it, I thought – The End. Nevertheless we went to bed earlier than usual because we knew that in the morning, according to custom, the house would be full of family and friends who had come to ease our pain with hugs of comfort and funeral presents.
    In the pantry I neatly arranged the bottles of whisky, packets of coffee and sugar cubes. I welcomed dozens of familiar and unfamiliar faces and said a lot of goodbyes. I was polite, if a little cold, in response to the expressions of concern, hardly able to wait for the ordeal to end.
    The