gate and they were allowed to leave. Srdjan laughed at him.
“Look, Goran is crying. He met a girl and he had to leave her behind.”
They drove through the Serb-controlled region around Banja Luka and into Croatia, and then to Vienna where they sold their car for close to nothing, and then went to the US Embassy and got their papers to travel to the US.
Goran had given Nikoleta his father’s address in Sarajevo, and she had given him the address of her grandparents’ house in the countryside near Mostar. They knew it was likely a hopeless gesture but it would have felt unbearably sad to part without trying.
◆ ◆ ◆
There was no girl for many years who captivated Goran the way Nikoleta had. He was used to stuffed paprika, borek with yoghurt sauce, Turkish coffee, curse-filled conversations with lots of wine, adults who spoke with their hands and with big facial gestures, and going to smoke-filled cafes and outdoor restaurants at the end of the day. His first moment of understanding the mysteries of the female body had been in that red Yugo. How could suburban American girls compare to that?
He met girls in high school, of course. He was cute and articulate enough that they would allow him his few minutes to make his case. Some went out with him; some went out with him a few times. But it was always the girls he had no chance with that he obsessed about.
Girls like Isabella, whom he noticed in his world history class. In a discussion about World War II, he heard her tell a story about her grandfather, who had survived an internment camp for political dissidents in Italy. He thought he saw in Isabella’s eyes and felt in her voice that she might understand what the war in Yugoslavia meant.
Plus, he knew Isabella had a boyfriend, an inseparable, permanent boyfriend. The running joke was that they had been dating since pre-school. They stayed in their circle of two most of the time and were so nice, beautiful, and good in all they did that no one seemed to care.
He walked out behind her that day when she mentioned her grandfather’s experience in World War II and started a conversation. He guessed he had about three minutes before her boyfriend would appear.
“Do you still have family in Italy? Like, who survived the war? Sounds like it was hard for them.”
Isabella looked at Goran as if he were speaking another language.
“I never even knew my grandfather. He died before I was born. My mother just talks about that sometimes and what happened to him.”
Goran nodded.
“Yeah, I just … um,” he started. “My family had to leave Yugoslavia because of the war and, so, your grandfather’s story made me think about that, you know.”
“Oh,” she said, pursing her lips as if chewing imaginary bubble gum. She turned away, her eyes scanning the hallway.
Goran imagined dozens of gestures he might have tried and things he might have said. He imagined reaching his arm out to hold hers as he had with Nikoleta. He imagined handing Isabella his earphones to listen to his new favorite R.E.M. song. He imagined mimicking Michael Stipe’s dance moves and making Isabella smile. For that one moment his most urgent desire was to know what it would take to make her truly look at him, to whisper something sweet and secretive in his ear.
Isabella smiled the smile that girls learn to extricate themselves from unwanted advances and walked off without saying any more. Goran thought about her for several days, weeks even, discretely watching her, imagining what it might be like to be with her.
◆ ◆ ◆
A few years later, Goran wrote his senior thesis at university on the Yugoslav War. He found articles about the social construction of masculinities in the Balkans and used those to come up with his own reflections on masculinity, xenophobia, and homophobia. He did rudimentary research on Balkan newspaper articles and popular music with nationalistic messages from the time of the war. He graduated with honors and his advisor suggested he continue this research in graduate school.
With a scholarship letter confirming funds for his doctorate, he decided to use his savings to travel to Bosnia to see his father. The war was over, and although ethnic tensions were alive and well, it was safe to travel there. He called his mother to get information on how to contact his father.
“I think he’s still in Sarajevo, last I heard of him. Still in the military, or maybe working with the government, I think. Are you sure you want to go …”
“I thought he fought with the Serbs. I thought he would be in Serbia or at least in the Republika Srpska.“
His mother was silent, then responded.
“No, he stayed in Sarajevo.”
“My father’s a Serb from Sarajevo who fought on the side of the Bosnian armed forces against the Serbs in the war?”
“You remember that he worked in the education ministry before the war? Then he was drafted by the Serbian Army when the war started, back when it was still called the Yugoslavian Army.”
“Yeah, I know that part.”
“He joined the Bosnian side. He thought it was the right thing to do. That he was from Sarajevo and should stay and fight for Sarajevo.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Because he wasn’t on the side that was carrying out mass rape and slaughtering civilians. He didn’t buy into the ethnic bullshit that fueled the war.”
“Do you think they were growing flowers and raising baby rabbits on the Bosniak side?” she said.
“You know it’s not the same.”
“When you have two teenage sons who you want to keep safe, it’s the same. If we had stayed, assuming we made it through the siege of Sarajevo, you would have been drafted. Do you think I cared which side your father was on? Have you ever stopped to think about why I did that? Bring you and Srdjan to the US?”
Goran was silent on the other end of the phone. He rarely spoke back to her because he knew she would throw this question at him.
“It matters to me which side he was on. Of course it matters which side he was on. You should have told me,” he stammered.
“You never asked.”
“I just thought …”
He stopped. The words passed through Goran’s head but he didn’t say them. You’re both fucking goats. You and my father.
“Goran …”
He hung up.
-
MUSEUM SUBMISSION 7-2009
A lot of my friends on the island, professional women like me, have taken to working class men. There is no shame in it.
Mine was a solid man. Caring. Finished his secondary
