SARAJEVO BLUES by Semezdin Mehmedinović

Author:Semezdin Mehmedinović
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: City Lights Bookstore

WAR PROFITEERS

We’ve begun to distance ourselves from those “social structures” that—during the first days of the war—allowed someone, with no sense of guilt or shame, to walk into a construction site, haul ceramic tiles out of an unfinished building, and simply walk off with them. A middle-aged guy could walk down the longest avenue in Dobrinja: on his shoulder, he’d have a box of ceramic tiles; with his right hand, he drags a long iron rod along the asphalt creating such unbearable noise that passersby just stop to stare at the carefree thief in amazement. Taking his sweet time, he’d move on with his plunder as a kid shuffled along after him. Amongst those not considering, or at least not thinking past the “Eternal Now,” are the four guys who pulled a truck up to Yugoplastika: two stood guard with revolvers while the other two methodically cleaned the place out, neatly placing school supplies and raincoats under a tarp on the back of the truck. Anyone displaying the slightest sign of protest, got a quick warning as shots fired into the air. Thanks to the lack of any control over weapons, in besieged Sarajevo the phenomenon of stolen cars simply got out of hand. Between the snipers’ bullets and the shelling, limousines became completely expendable, like paper towels. A more serious instance of war profiteering could be witnessed the day the city was inundated with Bordeaux two-door compacts. Someone had pulled a whole bunch of them out of storage, and the streets were filled with them. While the petty war profiteers were dealing unbottled beer, loaded into canisters that smelled like kerosene—so that by noon the stupified bodies of men and women lay by the empty containers—the more influential crooks dealt in the bodies of those willing to pay plenty for a way out of the besieged city.

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