Deep Black

odd pedestrian who just happened to be legging it behind.

Every bit of the city had been a danger zone. Bridges and crossroads were particularly vulnerable if you were on foot, and it paid to be a sprinter – but at least you knew what you had to do. In other parts of town, you were never sure whether to walk fast or slow. Were you going to walk into a mortar round as it impacted, or was it going to land on your head anyway because you weren’t moving fast enough? Signs saying ‘WATCH OUT – SNIPER’ had been painted on pieces of cardboard or UNHCR plastic sheeting, or just chalked on the walls. To a lot of Sarajevans, and me, UNPROFOR’s most important role was providing APCs to shield us from sniper fire as we crossed the street.

I felt myself break into a smile as we passed another bunch of fucked-up buildings facing the river. One night some madman had painted a big yellow Smiley face on the wall, and ‘Don’t worry, be happy!’ underneath. It got annihilated the following day. I was never sure if that meant the Serbs had got the joke or not.

Walking beside me, Jerry also seemed to have disappeared into the past again, back to the days he’d spent dodging from one piece of cover to another as he tried to get a photograph to pay the bills.

We hit the river by the Vrbana bridge, and everything looked familiar except the little monument that had been erected exactly halfway across it. Jerry pointed at the bunches of fresh flowers arranged below it. ‘I was here when it happened.’

He leaned his shoulder against the glass panel of a brand-new bus shelter, behind which a poster told us that if we bought a bottle of Coca-Cola Light, we could win an Audi.

‘Romeo and Juliet?’

‘Fucking nightmare, man. I was with Jason before the enclaves blew up. We were just cruising, looking for something different to shoot. But everywhere you went in Sarajevo was the same, wasn’t it? We decided to check out the front line a bit before going back to the hotel.

‘There was a stand-off, city guys against a group of Serbs just over there. This Serb tank appeared from nowhere and started firing. We ended up with the city guys. Next thing I knew, one was yelling at us to get our cameras. He was pointing at a young couple running towards the far side of the bridge.

‘They got the guy first. The girl was just wounded, and I got a shot as she crawled across to his body and put an arm round him before she died. Turned out she was Muslim, he was Serb . . .’ He had the sort of expression I probably showed every time I caught myself thinking about Zina or Kelly. ‘Fucked up or what, man? It was the first time I ever cried doing this shit. First time I ever wanted to put down my camera and pick up a gun.’

It was business as usual these days. Cars crossed the bridge, people walked around with bags of shopping. On the steep rising ground immediately the other side of the river, all the roofs were shiny, and all the mosques had new minarets. There seemed to be one every two hundred metres or so. It was easy to spot a Muslim house: its roof was pyramidal while the rest were gabled. Satellite dishes sprouted from just about every wall; these guys must have been as keen on The Simpsons as the Iraqis.

Just to the right of the bridge, flags of every description fluttered over a new steel and glass building. I pointed it out to Jerry. ‘That must be where our friend the general takes his meetings about meetings. I wonder how Paddy puts up with him.’ The Right Honourable Lord Ashdown was the UN’s High Representative in Bosnia. It was the sort of title you only expected to find in Gilbert and Sullivan, but in effect he ran the country.

We turned left and followed the river towards the city centre, but we hadn’t gone far when there was the dull thud of an explosion up on the high ground.

Everyone in the street looked up. A small plume of grey smoke floated above a square of trees, surrounded by rooftops. Two old women coming towards us, weighed down with carrier-bags, tutted to each other as if this was an everyday annoyance.

‘What do you reckon, Nick? A mine?’

‘Had to be.’

When the Serbs withdrew, they left hundreds of thousands of the little fuckers in their wake. There was no need for Keep Off the Grass signs in Bosnia.

70

There was some reconstruction in progress along the riverbank, but most buildings still hadn’t been patched up. A few of the places immediately facing the Miljacka had all but collapsed. Others had done so long since, their rubble cleared to make room for muddy car parks. At least the river was nice and picturesque these days. The last time I’d seen it, there’d been bodies floating downstream.

A tram stopped just ahead of us, brand new with a sign announcing it was a gift from the people of yet another guilt-ridden country that had done fuck-all to help when it was really needed. Passengers jostled to get on and off with their shopping, a very few in headscarves, some in grey raincoats, briefcases in their hands and cellphones to their ears.

Soon we couldn’t move for people and cafes. A coffee shop seemed to have sprung up every ten paces, but these were indigenous. George would have given Sarajevo the thumbs up: there wasn’t a Starbucks or skinny latte in sight. A lot of them had outside tables with canopies and butane heaters so the punters didn’t have to stem their nicotine and caffeine intake even when the temperature dropped.

Most of the buildings were still peppered with shrapnel and bullet scars, but at street level it was all plate glass and stainless steel, bright lights and rap. We even passed a Miss Selfridge, where women were holding up the new season’s collection against themselves, and teenage girls lounged around in Levi’s, smoking and listening to their Walkmans.

Our first stop was to buy us each a coat. We didn’t think that the Sunday Telegraph would stretch to Versace so we headed into one of the old local boys’ shops. I settled for a brown three-quarter- length number that didn’t look or feel remotely like leather, despite what the salesman said. But, then, what can you expect for about twelve dollars? Jerry spent about the same on a waterproof with a fleecy lining. We looked like dickheads, but at least we were warm.

Sarajevo isn’t big, but it’s teeming with different ethnic neighbourhoods. We moved into another Hungarian quarter. The pedestrian area, once cratered by mortar rounds, was now paved with flat stone.

The old black and red board was still where I remembered it, inviting us to visit the Cafe Bar Muppet. The Firm had had a room above it, which was very apt, I’d always thought. There was an archway through into a very small square, and the cafe was just off to the right. Even at the height of the war it had felt protected. A direct hit wouldn’t have been too healthy, although it would probably have been better than a bullet in the back. I’d preferred the Bodyguard Cafe up the road, for the simple reason that it was in a cellar. But you had to be quick, because every other fucker wanted to get in there too.

The smell of cevapcici, grilled sausages served with pitta bread, drifted through the streets, signalling that we were coming into the old Turkish area, Bascarsija. The Gazi Husrev Bey mosque, or ‘Gazzer something’ as Rob had called it, was the largest in the city, and now close enough to spit at.

71

When a mortar round explodes on a hard surface like a road or pavement, it creates a characteristic pattern. We came across a lot of strike marks that had been filled with red cement as a memorial to whoever had died on that spot. Bascarsija, a warren of narrow cobblestoned streets, alleyways and dead-ends, had more than its fair share of ‘Sarajevo roses’. The Serbs had been particularly fond of busy places like markets and shopping arcades.

The area was dotted with mosques and lined with tiny interconnected one-storey wooden shops, selling