The Skinner's Revenge. Chris Karsten
with them when they’d gone to get the rosary. He was two years old and couldn’t remember that trip, but he was familiar with the story of his parents’ pilgrimage to the village of Medjugorje in Čitluk in the west of the country, near the border with Croatia.
“Five o’clock,” said his father. “I have to be at the bridge at five.”
“And you’ll come back straight after your discussions?” asked his mother.
“Straight after,” said his father.
“Straight after,” said Milo.
Milo’s father had helped him with his handcart – his water cart, as Milo called it. One day after work his father had arrived at the apartment in Strossmayer Street with two bicycle wheels. The next day he’d brought the axle, the day after that the wooden planks and draw bar.
In the boiler room in the basement of the building, Milo and his father had assembled the water cart. It was a good cart, even though it was just a wooden platform with two wheels and a handle which Milo used to pull it through the streets. His grandpa Juro had liked riding on it. They’d put the empty containers and plastic bottles on the trailer bed and his grandpa had sat at the back, his legs dangling, waving at everyone he knew as they’d made their way to the water pump.
On that fatal day his grandpa had joined the water queue in Bistrik in the morning, before Milo had come home from school. They’d buried him in the Lav Cemetery, between the Olympic stadium and the Kuševo Hospital.
He had also helped his grandma onto the back of his water cart and taken her to the bazaar in search of vegetable scraps: beetroot, potatoes, parsnips. That was before food ran out entirely and the residents of Sarajevo began to eat grass, like beasts of the field. He was at school when she’d joined the bread queue near the Planika shoe store in Vase Miskina. They’d buried Grandma Brana next to his grandpa in Lav.
When the bomb had exploded on a snow-covered slope, he’d been on his way to fetch Jasmina from where she and her school friends had been playing with their sleds in the snow. He’d brought her back on his water cart. Jasmina’s grave was in Turbe.
Milo went nowhere without his cart. If you had contacts on the black market and knew where to look, you could always find coffee and cigarettes, flour and rice and liquor. Even petrol, stolen from UNPROFOR’s warehouses and depots.
His father never rode on the back of Milo’s handcart, not even after he’d sold their tiny Yugo Sana. It was a small car, the capacity of the engine only 1300cc, yet it had been big enough for an outing to the mountains for the parents and their three young children. But his father hadn’t been able to afford the car since the war.
They would have to walk to the bridge today. If the trams had been running, they could have taken the No 4 to Skenderija. But nothing was running any more. So that afternoon they walked along the river bank, chatting, past other bridges crossing the Miljacka River, the water cart’s handle in Milo’s hand.
“The bridges of Sarajevo are treacherous,” his father said conversationally. “On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife at the Latinska bridge and set off the First World War.”
It was summer and the water in the river was shallow, brown and smelly.
“At the Vrbanja bridge, Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić were shot and killed – the first victims of the siege of Sarajevo.”
Milo had a bad feeling. He thought of his mother’s rosary and was comforted by the idea of the string wound around her fingers. She said the Gospa rosary held a message of peace. They paid regular visits to the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, only a few minutes on foot from their apartment at the top end of Strossmayer. While his mother held the rosary between her fingers, Father Trtić preached and prayed for peace. Milo saw no peace around him, only violence and bloodshed.
“Tata,” he said, “tell me again about that vision you and Mama witnessed.” He’d often heard the story, but could never get enough of it.
“You mean the story of your mother’s rosary?”
Milo nodded. It would be good to hear the story of peace again, especially as they were on their way to a treacherous bridge. “Did you see her yourselves?” he asked.
“No,” his father said. “She has appeared only to six children. The first two were Mirjana Dragícevíc and Ivanka Ivanković. It was at about six on the evening of June 24, 1981. The two girls were just outside Medjugorje, on a hill known as Podbrdo. Suddenly a beautiful young woman with a baby in her arms appeared to them. During that first meeting she didn’t speak, but beckoned, as if she wanted to be sure that the girls had seen her. After that, she appeared to four more children. The six children say they see her regularly. She brings them messages of peace to share with the world. People believe the young woman is the Holy Virgin Mary – that’s why they call her Gospa.”
“I wish I could see her.”
“Perhaps we’ll go back to Medjugorje when the war is over … ”
They followed the northern bank of the river until the bridge came into view. Then Milo’s father stopped and put his hand on Milo’s shoulder.
“No further, Milo. Wait behind the sandbags at the wall, the one with the bullet marks.”
“Tata … ”
“Yes, Milo?”
His father took off his spectacles and polished them with a white handkerchief. Milo noticed beads of sweat on his father’s forehead, saw the trembling muscle in his cheek.
“I’ll wait for you, Tata.” He had wanted to say “pray”. He wished he’d brought his mother’s Gospa beads.
“Thank you, Milo. You’re a brave boy.”
“Tata … ”
“Yes?”
“You will come back?”
“Of course I’ll come back, Milo. Don’t worry. I’ll be back before dark.”
His father was doing his best to smile, and he squeezed Milo’s shoulders reassuringly.
“Maybe Mama is right,” Milo said. “Maybe you shouldn’t go onto the bridge, Tata. It’s not your job.”
“Your mother is right – I’m no hero, Milo,” his father comforted him. “So, don’t worry, I’m not going to pull any stunts. I’m just going to ask them to think carefully before they shell the National Library. That’s all. I’m going to show them the volume of poems and tell them we shouldn’t destroy one another’s cultural heritage. If they refuse to listen, I’ll come straight back. I won’t start arguing.”
Milo looked over his father’s shoulder and saw a sign riddled with bullet holes warning the public against snipers: PAZITE, SNAJPER! The signs had been erected all over the city in places regarded as danger zones, or snipers’ alleys.
“What’s the time?” asked Milo, his eyes on the façades of the buildings on the opposite side of the river.
“It’s time,” said his father. “It’s five.”
He used his white handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow, and then peered around the sandbags at the road over the bridge. Milo’s father turned back to him, put his arms around him and hugged his son tightly. Then he took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the protection of the sandbags.
Milo took another look at the buildings across the river. “Here’s the book, Tata,” he said.
“Ah, thanks, I almost forgot the most important thing.”
“The handkerchief is the most important thing,” said Milo.
“Stay behind the sandbags, son. I’ll be back before dark.”
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