The Skinner's Revenge. Chris Karsten
been mowed down in the water queue, his grandma in the bread queue. But worst, until today, had been Jasmina in the last snow before summer, on the slopes of the Jahorina mountain, the site of the women’s skiing events during the 1984 Winter Olympics. His mother had grown quiet after Jasmina’s death. His father too. Everyone had become quieter. There was no more laughter in their apartment.
He didn’t know how long he had lain there. When he opened his eyes, night had fallen over Sarajevo. Against his hand, his father’s cheek was cold.
Milo sat up slowly. Here and there, far apart, streetlights were still burning. He grunted softly as he tipped the first sandbag from the cart, more loudly with the second one. His father, like everyone else, was emaciated, but Milo still struggled to get him onto the cart, on his back with his legs dangling down the back. Grasping the handle, Milo took one last look at the now dark and sinister shape of the building from which the shots had been fired. Then he dragged the cart with his father’s body off the bridge, around the sharp corner with its protecting wall, sandbags and warning signs, to the embankment and back along the river to the old town.
In Baščaršija, in an alley behind the Sebilj fountain, now dry, lived Dr Buzuk. Dr Buzuk would know what to do. He would help lift his father off the cart and carry him inside. Dr Buzuk would take care of his father and when that had been done, Milo would walk to Strossmayer, where his mother would be anxiously waiting. She and Kaya.
He thought of the fear on his mother’s thin face as he pulled the cart carrying his father’s body over the cobblestones, past the cathedral square, along Ferhadija, into the old town. His head lowered, he was unaware of the mute faces behind the lace curtains at the windows. Everyone knew Milo and his water cart; they had all known Tomislav Borić.
* * *
“You can wait here, Milo. Would you like some tea?”
Milo shook his head. Dr Buzuk had examined his father and summoned the hearse from the Kuševo Hospital over the citizens’ band radio.
“I’ll take the message to your mother.”
Milo shook his head again. “I will. I’ll tell her myself.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No.”
“Wait until I’ve finished.”
“No.”
“Well, take these two sleeping tablets. It will be a great shock to her.”
“She’s expecting it.”
“Give her the pills. See that she takes one tonight. Do you want one as well?”
“No.”
“Cry, Milo. It’s the only thing that helps. You must cry. Don’t keep it bottled inside.”
“I have to be strong for my mother. And my sister.”
“I’ll come to the apartment as soon as they’ve fetched your father. Wait there for me. Tell your mother I’m on my way.”
Milo walked out into the night. He pulled his empty cart through the narrow alleys, wondering how he was going to break it to his mother that his father wasn’t coming back, that she’d been right: not even a book of Serbian poems could fend off Serbian bullets.
But she’d know that immediately, he thought. She’d see it in his face, in the tears on his cheeks, the trembling of his body. His mother had expected it, and when he opened the door, she’d know she’d been right.
5. Present: Bujumbura, Burundi
The patient sat motionless, as if he had no vital signs. He hated strangers touching him. He especially detested fingers prodding his face. His face was sacred to him – more private than any other part of his body.
Without realising it, he was holding his breath as he endured the doctor’s fingertips. The doctor was the first person ever to touch his face. Not even his mother had done so, as far as he could remember.
It was only when the doctor leant back in his chair – so close their knees were touching – that he exhaled softly. The patient’s lazy eye blinked, like the recalcitrant shutter of an old camera. The eye had its own rhythm, out of sync with its partner. There was no remedy for it.
“The deterioration of the eye’s elevator and orbicular muscles is a congenital defect,” said the doctor. “It’s not ptosis, which could have been surgically rectified.”
The patient already knew that. He’d been ten when the diagnosis was made. He’d learnt to accept the condition, rather than risk losing his eyesight. That would be worse: a lazy eye was better than a blind one.
“Wear spectacles with dark lenses,” the doctor suggested. “If you’re embarrassed by the eye, get coloured lenses. Amber, mauve or blue, even yellow. Any colour you like. It’s foonky.”
The patient had to concentrate hard to follow the doctor’s conversation. Dr Lippens spoke English with an accent. His hard Germanic g’s and r’s were not unlike the language to which the patient’s ear was accustomed. But the oo was strange.
“You mean ‘funky’?”
“That’s what I said: foonky.”
Funky yellow spectacles rang a bell with the patient. He’d once tenderly removed such a pair of sunglasses from a woman’s face before laying her on his workbench and drawing purple lines with his felt-tipped pen where his scalpel was to cut through the soft skin of her stomach and groin.
“And the rest?” he asked the surgeon.
“The rest is a walk in the park.”
Dr Lippens sounded smug – almost disdainful – because his own face needed no modification. His features were in perfect proportion.
“A weekend facelift – that’s all it is. The procedure takes only a few hours. I don’t think you want the whole bang shoot of dewrinkling and rejuvenation and unnecessary surgery.”
“No,” agreed the patient. No unnecessary surgery. Even when the scalpel was in his own hand, he never made unnecessary cuts.
“I hate to say it, but when I’m done with you, you won’t recognise yourself. Guaranteed – or your money back.”
“How long is the recovery period?”
“Two nights in hospital to make sure everything is fine, that there’s no infection or anything. Then two weeks at home – at most, my friend. After two weeks the swelling will be gone, and no one will ever guess you’ve had work done to your face. Do you want to go ahead?”
My friend?
“Yes. Do it.”
“A good decision. You won’t regret it.”
Dr Lippens got up, returned with a camera.
“Photos?” The patient was worried. He didn’t like photographs of himself. No one had ever taken a picture of him, even as a child. There had been no album with baby photos; his childhood had gone undocumented. He knew of only one photo: him at the age of thirteen, standing between his mother and his granny, their faces severe, no smiles for the camera. That was the only photo.
“The photos are for the procedure – I use them as an aid on the operating table,” said the surgeon. “Artists follow the same method. Portrait artists and sculptors all work with models. It’s been the custom for centuries – no, millennia. Michelangelo used models for his huge marble works.”
“I’m