Jasminka Petrović Everything’s all right
Jasminka Petrović
Everything’s all right
silvana, sixteen
lucky them they have a bathroom and can take a bath and wash their heads whenever they feel like it in the middle of the day or night but that doesnt matter i can only have a bath when i go to my aunts she married dragan and lives in great hygiene but that doesnt matter my aunt lives on zvezdara and trams twenty-eight and forty go there i prefer to go to my aunts on number seven tram it rocks back and forth and then i think about when i was small and my grandmother was pushing me in the stroller when the tram rocks a lot i fall asleep i go the red highrises but sometimes i go to the last stop and then i have to go back on foot but it doesnt matter i like going on foot best of all then people dont see me because theyre going about their business and thinking about their own worries and when i get on the tram everyone looks at me and they all say get away from me you have cooties but i dont anymore my aunt got rid of them but it doesnt matter my aunt is a hairdresser but dragan has forbidden her to work my aunt cuts and colors my hair and makes up my eyes and mouth but only when dragan is not there i like it the most when i come to my aunts and dragan is not there then my aunt first serves me lunch on a red plate with yellow flowers but it doesnt matter to me i don’t care about the 7
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meal but more the plate at home we have plates but we eat from the pot lid because there is no water in the house to wash the dishes but that doesnt matter and mama has a headache when she needs to go to the fountain and wash the dishes my brother erdjan would never go to the pump to bring water once mama told him to go for water and he overturned the table and broke the tv and now we dont have a tv but that doesnt matter my brother erman doesnt go fetch water either erman is never at home just sometimes he comes at dawn but only for a short while because he is afraid that the neighbors will turn him into the police but it doesnt matter ill go to the pump and wash the plates but mama says oh silvana forget the dishes go to school my clients are supposed to come but it doesnt matter i go out of the shack and i dont know where to go because its night and the schools are not open and i do not go to school anymore mama just says she doesnt have money to buy me books and children beat me but it doesnt matter that lana kicked me first she accused me that i stole her phone and i didnt even hear or see the phone, fuck her, but it doesnt matter after some others came to beat me up and most of all that dark guy kicked me may his mouth turn around to the back of his head but it doesnt matter blood was coming out of my nose and mouth and ears but it doesnt matter may their legs and arms shrivel up and may they step into shit and smell like a dump both lana and the dark guy but it doesnt matter the teacher wanted to call the police but it doesnt matter i ran away from school and never 8
Everything’s all right
came back may they all die like rats but it doesnt matter everyone except teacher dara let her stay alive and healthy for a hundred years and have all the happiness of this world for her and her family teacher dara had two sons but now she only has one but it doesnt matter after that mama wanted to send me to live with my aunt doesnt not have children but she has dragan and i dont like dragan but it doesnt matter i do not like to be at my aunts when dragan is there and i really dont like to be at my aunts when she isnt home and dragan is but that doesnt matter dragan then shoves his hands in my shirt but that doesnt matter i told that to mama and she told me that it is because i provoke him how is it that dragan never puts his hand in her shirt but i saw him do that but it doesnt matter i wont tell my aunt that would make her cry and when auntie cries her makeup smears all over her face and then shes not pretty but it doesnt matter i love it when my aunt is beautiful and when she is alone at home because we two then turn on some music and sing the neighbors bang on the walls and radiators but it doesnt matter when you have a song in your heart then youre like a bird and you can fly at aunties wedding there were five hundred guests and there was music but i was sad because auntie wasnt marrying elvis but dragan and my aunt was sad but it doesnt matter she made out that she was happy singing and dancing on chairs and tables and everybody thought she was happy but it doesnt matter she still sees elvis secretly i stand watch for them but it doesnt matter if dragan catches us he 9
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is going to kill us all he has a gun and sleeps with it threatens both me and auntie and elvis mother and my brothers and he threatens everyone in this world but it doesnt matter he doesnt have a song in his heart and cannot fly and thats the worst punishment for a man what good are his pistol and his bathroom with shiny tiles and shampoos but it doesnt matter when i wash my hair with this shampoo i smell very nice but it doesnt matter when i was little i had wounds on my hands because i used to scrub my skin with a brush but it doesnt matter i thought i was black because i was dirty and not because i was born that way but it doesnt matter when youre small then youre stupid and you dont understand what it means when they tell you your dirty get away from me but that doesnt matter teacher dara never spoke to me like that and if she had been at school when lana and that dark guy beat me it would be completely different but thats not important she was working the other shift i would really like to see teacher dara but i don’t want to go to school i always dream of how they kicked me in the head and stomach fuck them when i wake up i touch my face to see if there is blood but that doesnt matter i don’t know where teacher dara lives but if i did i would go to her house to see her when i am in tram number seven i think all about how i might see her on the street and how i would wave to her through the window but it doesnt matter who knows if she would even know that its me waving to her and not to someone else but it doesnt matter when auntie and i are alone in the house auntie paints my fingernails the polish i pick i like because it sparkles when dragan 10
Everything’s all right
pushes his hand into my pants and i look at the polish and and everything glitters in front of my eyes but it does not matter may god wither his hand and may god send him to jail but it doesnt matter and may he never get out of jail but it doesnt matter if my aunt and i lived alone i would bathe and wash my hair whenever i feel like it in the middle of the day or night but it doesnt matter tonight its very cold my fingers are stiff mama told me to come home as soon as day breaks i know it will break soon but i don’t know when that will be its hard for me to wait any longer in this passage and wrap myself in cardboard but it doesnt matter in the end it has to dawn it always dawns
11
Admir, eighteen My name is Admir Hasanbegović. I was born on April 2nd, 1998 in Tuzla in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ... or, as I would call it, the Fageration. I’m a Muslim. Bosniak father, Croatian mother. My girlfriend’s name is Jelena Lukić. She was born on August 14th, 1998 in Bijeljina, Republic of Srpska ... or as my girlfriend would say, the Republic of Forests. Orthodox religion. Her father is a Serb, her mother is Serbian. Well, it has to be like that here with us in B&H. It’s good to write everything down, that way everyone knows exactly who everybody is, what he is, and where he is from. The Dayton Peace Agreement was signed long ago in 1995, but as far as I am concerned, it’s like it wasn’t. Here every family has its own history that is passed from one generation to another. In our country, history seems more like a fairy tale, myth, or legend. However, the way I get it is that the war has not yet ended in our country, only people no longer fire guns but words. And words can, as we know, and strike a man worse than a bullet. If there were a soul scanner and if world statistics on soul injury were done, I believe that there would be more wounds here in B&H than in the whole world. Yeah, it’s hard for us, but we like to make it even harder. If they hurt us, we will hurt them even more. 13
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We shut up only when we all fall to the ground. So it was at that camp on Igman. Foreigners organized a seminar entitled Love Does Not Know About (Entity) Borders for high school students from Tuzla, Brcko, and Bijeljina. The organizers thought, rationally, that the children will play in the fresh air, the professors will earn a per diem, and we foreigners will wash our conscience and… everybody’s happy. In my opinion, this is completely senseless, but okay, nobody’s asking me anything anyway. They assembled us in the hotel conference hall and told us to arrange the chairs in a circle. We sat down like that face-to-face, squeezed tight as a belt. Professor Benjamin took out his cigarettes and headed for the door, but the foreigners stopped him. They said he must sit in the circle along with all the other participants because only then would the project succeed. Professor Benjamin put his cigarettes back in his pocket and sat in the circle, man, he would not allow the project to fail because of him. Then the foreigners told us in detail how war was raging in our country, and that people have suffered a lot, and that we high school students are suffering great consequences, and that we are under constant pressure, and that we do not know how difficult it really is for us, but to our great fortune, they are here to explain everything nicely to us, plus to teach us how, despite all the troubles in life, we can love each other. Then we introduced each other and with a few jokes and psychological games, finished the first workshop. Throughout that day, I was always kind of 14
Everything’s all right
glancing at that beautiful curly-haired girl. I noticed that she was also looking at me. On the second day we divided into smaller groups with the task of finding out what Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina have in common. Already after ten minutes, a quarrel broke out between Professor Benjamin and Professor Milica. He persistently brought up Srebrenica, and she Vidovdan. She was trembling with rage and he lit a cigarette. Then the organizer told the professor that smoking was not permitted in the congress hall during the workshop, and the professor replied that no common foreigner would decide what to do in his country. Then Professor Dalibor managed to get a word in edgewise. He lit into Professor Benjamin and Professor Milica saying that they should be ashamed to argue in front of their guests, people who even came from Europe to help us and calm us down, and now see that we are acting like savages. And he could lament out loud that he lost both his wife and children during the war in the vicinity of Travnik, but he is moving forward, although he was left without a leg. As Professor Dalibor spoke, we looked at the floor and kept silent as if we were not there. And so, just after the workshop started, we got an unplanned break of fifteen minutes. After the break, the foreigners explained that our topic at the seminar was not politics but love, and also that we should put aside Srebrenica, 15
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Vidovdan, and Travnik. Find what is common in B&H, the foreigner said, for example, food. Professor Benjamin did not participate to the end of the seminar, but he smoked like the chimney. He lit one after another. We all suffocated in the smoke and fell silent, who would say anything to him when his entire family in Srebrenica had been killed... Professor Milica went to her room after the break and did not come out until the end of the seminar, and who would say anything to her when they had killed her sister and mother in front of her eyes ... Anyway, we gathered ourselves together somehow and continued with the workshop, but the devil does not give peace, everyone pulls to their own side. We cannot even agree on ćevapi. Some people say for Bosnia they’re typical Tuzla kebabs with meat drippings and that there’s nothing more to discuss, others are already on their feet and claim that B&H is better and that it does not exist without Sarajevo ćevapi, the ones at Ferhatovic’s. Others climb up on chairs and from the top shout that Banja Luka’s ćevapi are the only ones, and all the rest pale in comparison. There are also those who say again that Travnik’s ćevapi at “Plava Voda” restaurant are the most delicious. At that moment, a thought flew through my head that the foreigners are viewing us like primates in an experiment, fuck. They have moved aside and are trying to establish the problem that we have. This seminar was held in a number of other countries and it always ended well, and here with us, it won’t even start. So we spent three days on Igman - we were either quarreling about ćevapi, or about a pastry, or a poet, or, about a 16
Everything’s all right
scientist, and most of all if the word ‘butt’ should be in an elementary reader or not. I swear, I felt like some puppy that never got involved in anything. I just watched and thought to myself I swear on my mother, what kind of patients are we…? In the name of merciful Allah, there was no task that the foreigners assigned us that we did not turn into a minefield. And in the evening, everyone hugged each other, sang, danced, and reveled until dawn. The foreigners were even more astonished. With a few beers, a guitar and a lot of tobacco smoke, they had a better time than anywhere else in the world. They asked: How is this possible? We were just silent, because who’s going to explain it to them now when it’s not even clear to us. Well, now I come to the main reason why am I telling you all this. I am sitting next to that girl with the curly hair. We’re singing, exchanging glances and smiles. Before midnight I hug her. After midnight she hugs me. During the next song, I kiss her. In the next song she kisses me. Before dawn we hold hands, we can’t stop looking at each other. And so Jelena and I saved the seminar. The foreigners are overjoyed, the professors are satisfied, our friends are happy. I posted on Facebook In a relationship with Jelena, she published In a relationship with Admir. But, as we all know, nothing happens in Bosnia without pain and strife, not even love. Jelena’s parents and mine don’t want to hear one word about our relationship. Either we break it off or we leave. Dude, you can’t give orders to your heart. Now go a little 17
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bit to the left, a little more, that’s right, that’s right, now it’s too much, stop, stop, it’s good, now a little higher, a little more, stop! There you go! Admir, this is Almedina Hasanović and now you will fall in love with her. Go, three, four, now! That’s what my mother wanted, but that, man, you can’t do it that way. That’s why Jelena and I are making plans. We are going to apply at colleges both in Sarajevo and Belgrade, so we will see where we will be accepted. When we finish our studies, we will travel together out into the wide world, as far away from the Balkans as we can. We want to go to New Zealand. There, we will marry without relatives and without any religious, political, or ethnic distinctions. That’s the best way for all of us. My dear ones, you argued about borders, religion, victims, war criminals, graves, neighbors, deputy positions, about bridges and roads, about ćevapi and pastries, and I don’t know anything you didn’t argue about, and I listened to you nicely but, people, I will not allow anyone to utter a word about love. I love Jelena Lukić. I won’t leave her just because my parents want it so, even if Bosnia and Herzegovina turned their head. But not only Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the Balkans, Europe, and the whole world. My dear ones, if you knew what love is, you would not, man, create so much cruelty.
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Sometimes it’s not easy to be young. There are many challenges, dilemmas, emotions, misunderstandings ... The heroes of this book do not consent to distress and darkness. They choose love instead of fear. They’re looking for a new day, for freedom. Listen, it’s OK if you agree and if you don’t agree with me. Everything is all right.