Sarajevo Burning

Breakfast is a quiet affair.

We eat in silence, my wife and I. She has cooked us what she can with the little ingredients that she has managed to save, a mighty meal of poached eggs and toasted bread. The breakfast of champions, I think wryly, choosing not to share my criticisms. Iva has done nothing but try her hardest and she survives with what she can find. The war has been harsh to her. She has lost a brother, a father and a cousin to the fighting already. I do not wish to give her any more of a burden to carry. She carries enough on her lithe frame.

The bread is burned at the corners and the eggs have a rubbery texture to them, but it is food all the same. We are fortunate — our street is manned by vigilant Croatians, a small group of men from our neighbouring country who have stayed to defend the land that they think is rightfully theirs. They will fight both Bosnians and Serbs but will unite with anybody who stands against Milošević’s great Yugoslavian army. They wish to see the demise of the communist pigs as much as we do, and they will not attack unless they wholeheartedly believe that you are an enemy against their cause. They have already declared their independence, the Croats, a nation full of men and women who rightfully bear their own government. They are no longer a series of puppets under the rule of the Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija; this they are proud of, much as they are proud of their involvement in releasing their own areas of Bosnia from Yugoslav rule. We do not know how far they will go to fight or if they will turn around and stab us in the back if we manage to fend off the Serbian forces. For now, however, we know that they are a worthy ally.

Immigrants and refugees from other areas of Yugoslavia are rife in our small area of the city. Iva herself is of Croatian descent, her parents moving to Sarajevo when she was merely a baby. Even I am not of full Bosnian ancestry — my mother’s father was a native of Montenegro who was pushed out after the second World War and was forced to take solace in the city of Banja Luka. Most of us come from bloodlines outwith those of our great country, and this is why some of the Croats see us as a danger. They believe that we hold no allegiance to any country and will turn our backs on our nation in a heartbeat. They have not said this aloud, but the warning glances they shoot at each other on the streets say more than any words in their clipped tones ever could.

Iva’s silence is unnerving to me. Before the city was boxed in by military personnel, she was bright and full of laughter, a genuine joy to be around. Now she shuffles from room to room, scared to make a noise in fear that she may alert some hidden sniper to her presence. She is terrified of stepping foot outside the door in case someone tries to blow her head clean off of her shoulders. No person should have to live like that, but it is the sad reality that this city now faces every single day. We must be constantly vigilant, for the pigs get everywhere and once they have it out for you, you are almost guaranteed to be dead within the day.

We were a happy family before this mess occurred. My work consisted of packing boxes ready for delivery, not shooting at boys who were probably as scared as me. Iva did not hide in our miserable apartment — she worked day shifts at a supermarket to help with money and in the evenings, she would go to classes in order to get her degree. She dreams of being an English teacher, of working with children and teaching them the beauty of languages. She wants to educate, to enable.

Now all she can do is watch on as her home crumbles around her ears.

Iva is quiet even now as she pushes her breakfast around her plate with her fork in what I can only assume is an attempt to look busy. She does not look busy. She looks exhausted. Her eyes are circled in black, her skin sallow. I know that she has not slept; she never does when I am not here. She worries, no matter how many times I promise her that I will come home — she is scared that I will become one of the names in the local newspaper, a ‘hero’ who died for a good cause. She has watched the other women in the apartment block crumple into nothingness as they realise why the military-clad men are at their door. She has seen the hollow look in their eyes, the way that they look in despair as every man -- child or otherwise -- walks away, unsure of whether they will make it home again.

Iva clears her throat, and I jump. The sound is like a firecracker through the apartment, loud and altogether too close. She smiles sheepishly -- her way of apology -- and places her fork carefully on the table.

“How was your evening?” she asks. I know she does not want to know, but conversation is scarce when you have nothing but war to talk about. She stares at me, her eyes boring into my skull as if she could read every single thought that is going through my head. I mimic her actions, sitting my fork delicately on my plate and clasping my hands together. She scowls momentarily as I place my elbows on the table, but does not curse me out as she normally would.

“Fine,” I reply, using my fingernail to pick a crumb from one of my molars. “Quiet. They didn’t bother us.”

She nods, breathing out a soft sigh as she does so. She has left the kitchen window open, and I can hear the early-morning bustle of people going about their business -- children singing on their way to school pierced the low grumble of chatter and the call to prayer from a nearby mosque. It is reassuring, the sounds of life continuing through the harsh realities of war. We continue as normal, trying to keep up the pretences that show that everything is fine, that we are not affected by the Serbian forces that block our commute out of the city. We pretend that we do not need clean water, that the lack of fresh food does not bother us. We ignore the blasts of shellfire in the streets and the screams of civilians who have been gunned down on the way to the airport. We act as if nothing has happened, because if we admit that something is happening then Milošević’s campaign of fear wins.

He has already won, though. From the handmade signs that warn ‘Pazite, Snajper!’ to the way that the light has been dashed from my Iva’s eyes, I know he has won.

But I’ll be damned if I’m going out without a fight.