Courage and Her Children was set on the ‘Eastern Front’; their enemies ‘didn’t like rock or the West’, so it looked like the band played a particular role in the clash of cultures. Impressions like this were required in higher spheres, in which the Council operated. The ‘Children’ had no idea about all this, of course, and the band performed in harsh environments in front of the troops, although the majority of the soldiers would have preferred to listen to cheerful music or sentimental songs ‘for the soul’ rather than their punk rock. Over time the band adapted itself to the audience and began to perform the songs they requested. Daughter Courage went along with it all just to keep the band together, since some of the band members wanted to join the army and get a taste of real fighting. She tried to get them to stay, even with sex, but the band fell apart, and in the end she remained alone with the drummer and performed a kind of punk striptease. At the end of the play she had to bare her breasts to a furious drum roll. And then everything drowned in darkness.
Ingo chose Sanja at an audition, at which the candidates had to bare their boobs at the end, and prominent actresses boycotted this indignity. Only a handful of unestablished actresses and a few female exhibitionists turned up. So it was that Sanja received her first lead role, and from the very beginning there were witty comments that this was the only role officially given on account of an actress’s breasts. Sanja knew she’d have to act brilliantly to counteract that humour, otherwise her career would start off on the wrong foot in this small country and she’d become a metaphor for bare breasts in the main role.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I repeated.
My hands rested on her shoulders.
‘Jerman and Doc and their horsing around – we’ve wasted so much time.’ She shook her head.
She’d told me about that: Ingo didn’t speak Croatian, so Jerman and Doc were slack from the beginning with learning their lines. They goofed around at rehearsals and played Brecht in a rendition of their own: ‘Where’ll we go for a few after?’ ‘I can’t hack this no more!’ ‘Well, how ’bout Limited?’ ‘Why ya lookin’ at me like that?’ ‘Just look at that German – as if we were playing extra time!’
Ingo barracked and gesticulated, he wanted them to dig their teeth in. He was convinced he was working with real professionals. But it just turned out that Jerman and Doc, in parallel, had both recently suffered marital shipwreck. Nursing their wounds, they spent whole nights dancing on a raft on the River Sava which had been declared a disco, and they came to rehearsals wasted. Somehow they managed the physical part of the acting, but they had no energy left for their lines. Sanja felt like a real nerd when she spoke her part to them: If he becomes a soldier he’ll end up beneath the grass so green, that much is clear. That will be the price of his bravery if he’s not sensible... Oh, will he be sensible? And she’d receive the answer: Don’t hassle me, OK? Just leave me, as of tomorrow I’ll be back to normal... Just keep going now, come on, just keep speaking as if I’d given you the proper answer.
Things went on like this for a while until Jerman and Doc let things slide just a bit too far and started slipping in modern and slang words like ‘debacle’, ‘no-brainer’ and ‘aspirin’; Ingo probably just twigged to the word ‘aspirin’ and started following the script. Although he didn’t know a single word of Croatian, he quickly realised something was amiss. From then on, he came to the rehearsals with an assistant to check the spoken text, and work proceeded properly to make up for what had been let slip.
Ingo had now lost faith in all of them, Sanja said. He’d become paranoid and considered her part of the conspiracy. He was growing a beard and had declared a dictatorship.
‘It’s a disaster,’ she groaned.
‘You do your bit and everything’ll be OK. Doc and Jerman are mental, but when the panic hits them they’ll get down to work.’
I knew them well from my student days.
‘OK, I’m off,’ she said.
* * *
Private Jason Maple removes his mask. He’s 20 years old and says he’s happy the war has finally started.
Everyone who’s squatted around in a dusty trench for months can hardly wait for something to happen, of course, it’s normal, since they’ve come here, otherwise nothing makes any sense, and sense is the most important thing. Even in war – sense is the most important thing. It’s incredibly important. Sense. You have to grasp for every scrap of sense, you just have to, for every propaganda of sense, for every lie of sense, cos... When there’s no sense, and there isn’t, you go round the bend, madness comes out of your ears, so you have to believe in sense, particularly in war, you have to believe in sense fervently, and even after the war you have to believe with the faith of a fanatic if you want it to make any sense, otherwise it doesn’t.
Jason Maple, twenty years old – I watch as the dust flies up around him, whirls up, but all that has fuckin’ sense, everything is infused with the power of sense. It’s the worst - nothing is crazier than sense and the wish to be imbued with it.
You have to have strong nerves, I said to Jason, I’ve got some experience, war has begun, and war is boring, boring, you have no idea how boring it can be, it’s never as concentrated as it is in a film, here you’re constantly on hold, and then when it happens you whack your helmet on and you can’t see, you can’t see even when you’re hit, you can’t see it at all, once when it was all over I looked at my wound, it was under my arm, and when I raised my arm it opened up, that was it, the most interesting sight of the war, cos war is boring, it’s not at all like a film, it’s so boring that it drives you to other things, to the fun of war, to all those things you didn’t think of doing, not in your wildest dreams, but now you want to, it’ll make you become someone else, and that someone else will make sense, you’ll know that it’s not you, that you’re not the one who enjoys it, but, in real terms, you will be the one, and you’ll be a no-one when it starts to be fun, and then ask me: where were you and what did you do?
Jason Maple is happy, he says, cos it’s started, and that happiness is an incredible thing: you’re dirty, exposed to diseases, the air is full of hot lead, you have to salute idiots, a whole pyramid of idiots sitting on your shoulders, but you’re happy. OK, you’re not happy all the time, you’re temporarily happy, but that too is incredible. I was so happy when we were cleansing villages there, it doesn’t matter where. And now I’m unhappy when I leave the flat, and I go back to check I haven’t left anything switched on, so nothing catches fire, cos I don’t trust myself and I know what it’s like when there’s a fire.
I was happy when we were cleansing those villages, and that’s why I don’t trust myself, cos today, when someone talks about it, you wouldn’t believe what stories there are, today when they just tell me how it was – they just need to mention it – I get unhappy, madly unhappy, aggressively unhappy. It’s enough for me just to remember why I was happy back then, and I’m unhappy now, and that’s why I don’t trust myself and why I’m happy, cos I don’t trust myself, and being like that I’ve come to see you guys, to see your happiness, I told Jason.
He didn’t understand me at all, of course, imbued, as he was, with meaning.
Worker and individualist
I read those pieces again, they got under my skin and made me feel strangely uncomfortable; I tried to relax my shoulders and kept stretching my arms. I heard my joints crack.
Fortunately I was interrupted by a call: ‘Excuse me, did you put in the advert: Former rebel, tall and swarthy, needs a guarantor for a loan?’
It
