Sarajevo Marlboro by Miljenko Jergovic

to sentence Rasim to three months, for the sake of appearances. He served his time – down there by the forest above Skenderija – and when he got out it was as if nothing had changed. By day he still mournedthe death of his wife – and salted bread at night. One morning he was found dead with his head in the dough mixer. Apparently poor Rasim had been lying there for much of the night, with the result that his face had left a mould in the dough. His friends brought him back to his father’s house in Kovači and buried him just here beneath the patch of grass that you are standing on. In a way you can review his whole life, and pass judgement, merely by standing on this spot. Only thieves and children and people with something to hide are buried in valleys. There’s no trace of life in the valley – you can’t see anything from down there.
    When I was digging a grave for Salem Bičakčija, who was killed in the road by a sniper, an American journalist came to interview me. Perhaps he’d heard that I lived in California for a while, and had seen the world, spoke languages and knew important people. But now I was working as a gravedigger again, so perhaps he thought that I might be able to explain to him what had happened to the people of Sarajevo.
    So I’m digging away, and he’s asking me lots of questions. He wants to know everything, he says.
    â€œAbout the living or the dead?” I ask.
    â€œBoth,” he replies.
    I point out that you can’t talk about the living and the dead at the same time, because the dead have their lives behind them while the living don’t know what’s just around the corner, and in what way it could spoil or ruin their lives. In other words, it’s much harder for theliving, or so I tell the American, because they have no idea where their grave will be – in the valley or on the slope – or if anybody will remember whether they walked happily or unhappily through the dunjaluk.
    The American asks me to explain what I mean by the dunjaluk. I give him a wry look, because I really don’t know the English word for it. In the end I laugh and say, “It means something like ‘all over the world.’” For some people, of course, “all over the world” is just the distance between Marijindvor and BaščarÅ¡ija, and for others it’s five continents and seven seas. You end up happy or you don’t – and that’s all.
    The American nods his head. I can tell that he doesn’t understand or even care what I’m saying, but I don’t take offense. Why should I? I like to have a chat while I’m digging; it helps to pass the time.
    He asks me if I’m sorry that I ended up in Sarajevo under siege after having been around the world three times. I tell him that I didn’t end up here. I was born here – and God forbid that I’d ended up dead and buried anywhere else. Who on earth would remember me, or speak about me in respectful tones? Besides which, the graveyards in the rest of the world, and especially in America, are not like the ones in Sarajevo. Elsewhere they line the dead up in rows like soldiers in uniform, with identical headstones, as if their souls had been cast from a mould.
    The American continues to nod his head. I say that he shouldn’t hold it against me if I utter disparaging remarks about his country. But then the idiot asks me if I’m ready to die now in Sarajevo. I tell him that I’ve thought up hundreds of ways to stay alive, and I like all ofthem. Each one reminds me of the joys and pleasures of my life, because nobody’s happier than me when I escape a shell on my way here to dig graves in this beautiful spot for the unlucky ones. I know that the dead used to celebrate being alive too, and that they just happened to lose a life the way some people lose a pinball at the end of the game, having scored a hundred points a hundred times