Zlata's Diary (16 page)

Dear Mimmy,

We got a letter from Keka, and Martina and Matea today. We were so excited. We laughed but, yes, there were also tears. They're fine. Martina and Matea are growing, living, eating... Ah, while on the subject of food, today I made Mommy, Daddy and Mirna laugh when I said I'd like to eat something oily, salty, sugary, in other words something “unhealthy” so that when my tummy hurts at least I know why. Something like a sandwich (but a real sandwich). YUM-YUM!

Mirna is sleeping over again tonight. I told her that I've had enough already (ha, ha, ha) and that she's really a pain (tee-hee-hee). She has to practice because tomorrow we have two piano lessons and solfeggio as well. Exams are coming up.

Dear Mimmy, I have more very, very sad news for you. OUR CAT IS NO MORE. Our Cici died. Awful. First Cicko, and now Cici.

I went to Auntie Boda's today and talked about all sorts of things. How I got a C in solfeggio, how I got a pair of trousers from Auntie Irena, how my piano exam was coming up. And I asked why they hadn't come over the night before.

Auntie Boda: “We had a problem.”

Me (stupidly): “Whyyy?”

Auntie Boda: “We don't have our cat anymore.”

Me (lost): “You, you mean it's d-d-dead???”

Me (a lump in my throat): “I have to go. I'm going home, I have to go home. Goodbye.”

And when I got home: BOO-HOO! SOB! SOB! SOB! OOOHHH!

Mommy and Daddy (in duet): “What's wrong??”

Me: “The cat, the cat. It died.”

Mommy and Daddy (again in duet): “Aaaaaah!!!”

And then an hour of tears. Can it be? Our cat, the most wonderful, most beautiful, most lovable, sweetest, best cat in the whole wide world—gone. My little cat. When I think of how lovable, sweet and wonderful she was! I cry my eyes out. I know terrible things are happening, people are being killed, there's a war on, but still... I'm so sorry. She cheered us all up, made us smile, filled up our hours. Yellow Cici. My friend.

Haris and Enes buried her in the yard next to Cicko. They made a little grave out of tiles. She deserved it.

I'm very, very sad.

Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Today is the first day without Cici. I miss her so much. We're all sad. We talk about her, remember how lovable and beautiful she was.

She died because she was pregnant and couldn't produce her litter. Oh, Cici, it's all that tomcat's fault. And I was looking forward to getting a kitten. Your Zlata

Dear Mimmy, The days go by without Cici. You have to keep living.

Today I got my report card. I finished the sixth grade with straight As.

On Monday I probably have my piano exam.

I'm nervous about it.

Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

We received a letter from Maja, Bojana and Nedo. Nedo is now in Austria—in Vienna. They're together there now. It's a short letter, their thoughts are with us just as ours are with them.

And now the news. Nedo is getting married on August 26. Maja is going to be the bridesmaid. Oh, I wish I could be there!

Your Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Journalists, television reporters, cameramen keep coming. I've already come to know quite a few of them. Some come back. There's Alexandra, Paul, Ron, Kevin ... I've become fond of them. Alexandra took my picture today standing next to the UNPROFOR building. I was with Mirna.

I forgot to tell you that we're in the grips of “gasomania.” We're getting a gas pipe installed. But will there be any gas???

Electricity is returning to the city. But our crooks, our criminals, our thieves stole the oil from the transformer station, and now almost no one has electricity. Can you imagine? They use the oil in place of gas to drive their cars.

Your Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Yesterday I heard some optimistic news. The “kids” have signed an agreement in Geneva on the demilitarization of Sarajevo. What can I say? That I hope, that I believe it???? I don't know how I could. Whenever I believed and hoped for something it didn't happen, and whenever I didn't believe or expect anything it did happen.

Today some Italian journalists asked me what I thought about the idea of “Sarajevo—an Open City.” I gave them some answer, but I think the “kids” are just playing and I don't believe them at all and I've had enough of everything. Because, I know there is no electricity, no water, no food, that people keep getting killed, that we no longer have even candles, that smuggling and crime are rife, that the days are getting shorter and soon it will be what the whole of Sarajevo fears most: WINTER. The mere thought of it gives me the chills.

Mommy and Daddy often say: “Post nubila, Phoe-bus, ” which is Latin, Mimmy, and it means: “After the clouds comes the sun.” But when????

Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Mirna had her piano exam today. She got an A. It looks as though I'll have mine tomorrow. I have to practice.

There's no gas again. But there is talk that the electricity might return tomorrow. We'll see. Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Everybody is in a bad mood these days. Mommy, Daddy, Braco, Melica, Grandma, Granddad ... I don't know, everybody's quite edgy.

Did I tell you, Mimmy, that Kenan (Melica's son) is in the hospital? Wait, wait, no, he's not wounded. There's no injury. He's sick. He has jaundice. From the water, probably, because they get their water from a spring and it looks as if that spring isn't “pure.” And there seems to be an epidemic in that part of town.

Mirna was here yesterday. Even she isn't quite right.

The day before yesterday I was at my cousin Di-ana's. We watched two movies:
Purple Rain
and
Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Audrey Hepburn is really cute. Do you know she died? Yes, she died about two months ago, maybe more.

Yesterday I got an A in my piano exam. Super.

The political situation? A STUPID MESS. Maybe that's why everybody is so edgy. The “kids” are trying to come to some agreement again. They're drawing maps, coloring with their crayons, but I think they're crossing out human beings, childhood and everything that's nice and normal. They really are just like kids.

There's no mail. I don't know why, but nobody has been getting any mail lately.

Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Our Nedo is getting married today. Yes, our Nedo. Today is what Bojana calls “Judgment Day.” Today he stops being a bachelor and becomes a ”family man.” Ha, ha, ha!

We had a little celebration here in honor of Nedo's wedding. Mommy made a cake (hey, a cake?) in the shape of a heart. Sweet. Auntie Boda and Alemka made the rest, whatever you can make in these wartime conditions—sandwiches, little rolls, a savory pie (a little rice, a little mangel and you've got yourself a good pie) ...

We all got together at Auntie Boda's. Nedo was in Vienna. But we were with him in our thoughts and wished him and Amna every happiness. An imitation wedding, Mimmy, that's what it was—an imitation of life. People in Sarajevo do it all the time. We imitate life to make things easier.

I find it so strange, so odd that Nedo is getting married. Auntie Boda sent a card with the names of all his neighbors and friends from Sarajevo, and at the end she wrote:—“Just our little yellow pussy-cat is missing. She has passed away.” Yes, but we're learning to steel ourselves, this war is teaching us, and we're slowly suppressing everything that hurts us.

Your Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Yesterday Nedo got married, and yesterday Auntie Radmila and Uncle Tomo left Sarajevo. They left Sarajevo forever. They had lost their apartment and everything in it. They were living in somebody else's apartment, then they got lodgers. They've been separated from their children from the start of the war. They have gone to join their daughters and start a new life somewhere. I'm sorry Auntie Radmila has gone. She was wonderful to me. She'd often surprise me with a sweet, chewing gum, powdered milk, fruit, a warm word and, of course, there was that wonderful “bouquet,” the tomato in the flowerpot.

Mommy is very sad. Now Auntie Radmila has also gone. Mommy has only Auntie Ivanka left now. But I think that she and Uncle Mirko will be leaving soon too. And so, Mimmy, our friends are leaving. We say goodbye to them and we stay behind. Ciao!

Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Alexandra (the reporter from Le Figaro) came. She came to say goodbye and to take a few more photos. I've grown very fond of her and in these few meetings we've become real friends.

She was in Mostar and she's very sad. She says Mostar looks terrible. In fact, it doesn't exist anymore. Such a beautiful town and it doesn't exist anymore. She was very upset by what she saw in Mostar.

The talk in town is that Sarajevo will suffer the same fate. I'm afraid, Mimmy. You see, other things are now important. Now force rules and it can do anything. It can wipe out people, families, towns. I keep asking myself for the hundred millionth time: WHY? WHY ME? WHY? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING???

Alexandra is going home, she's going back to her peaceful country, her peaceful town, to her friends and her job. She has so much. AND ME? I have a burned-down, destroyed country, a demolished town, friends-refugees all over the world ... But, luckily, I have you Mimmy, and your lined pages, which are always silent, patiently waiting for me to fill them out with my sad thoughts.

I went with Alexandra to the old Sarajevo library, the Vjecnica. Generations and generations of people enriched their knowledge by reading and leafing through its countless books. Somebody once said that books are the greatest treasure, the greatest friend one has. The Vjecnica was such a treasure trove. We had so many friends there. But now we've lost the treasure and the friends and the lovely old building. They all went up in the destroying flames.

The Vjecnica is now a treasure trove of ashes, bricks, and the odd scrap of paper. I brought home a piece of brick and a fragment of metal as a memento of that treasure-house of friends.

I said goodbye to Alexandra and said I hoped to see her again.

Your Zlata

Dear Mimmy, Yesterday was a bit iffy. A man was wounded on the bridge by a sniper. Perviz's gas-pressure regulator got stolen. The apartment now has gas (pipes, not the gas itself). I'm worried about the electricity. Food—? When the real winter starts we'll turn on the storage heater. Absolutely no mail is coming in, not even through UNPROFOR. Aaaaah. Samra got married yesterday. The lucky man is Zijo (his only fault: a limp handshake)! Mommy and I went to attend the “solemn act of marriage between Samra Kozaric and Zijad Pehid,” as the registrar would say.

The registrar rushed everything so much that I couldn't get what was happening. Afterward everybody went to lunch at the Premier, and Mommy and I went home to our MISHMASH, but it was a good “mishmash,” a good one.

Well, Mimmy, that's it!

Lots of love,
Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

All eyes and ears are turned on Geneva. More agreements, negotiations. I don't think this will ever end. My childhood, youth and life are slipping away while I wait. We stand as witnesses who didn't deserve to have to live through all this.

Today we heard that letters aren't coming into Sarajevo anymore. There's something worse than not having electricity, water and gas, and that's not getting letters, which are our only contact with the outside world. Now we've lost that as well. It's just too much!

Zika brought me something wonderful today. A real live orange. Mommy said: “Let's see whether I remember how to peel it?” And, and ... she remembered. She did it. It was so nice and juicy.

YUMMY!

The other day we went to Djoka's (Bojana and Merica's father). I went to see whether any of their shoes would fit me, because all of mine are too small. I didn't find any. Everything is standing still, it's just me that's growing, Mimmy.

We heard some sad news from Djoko. Slobo's condition is deteriorating and he's been moved to the Military Hospital in Belgrade. Doda and Dejan have left for Slovenia. They've split up on various sides again. The sad fate of a family.

Ciao!
Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

The first day of the new school year. I'm starting seventh grade. New subjects, new knowledge, new obligations, new school days, but I don't feel the way I used to. It's probably the war again.

Pupils from four years are all in one classroom. Some listen to their language lessons, others to biology, others to English and still others to chemistry. It's awful, Mimmy. It makes me sad. Don't I deserve to go to a normal school? What have I done not to deserve it?

Your Zlata

Dear Mimmy,

Today, today I received a letter. A letter from my friend in Vienna. A letter from my Nedo. It made me so happy! I don't have to tell you, you know what it's like.