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SLAVENKA DRAKULIC
379
abstraction. As you see it on television, as you read about it, as people talk
about it, at first you imagine it as a mythical animal - distant and danger–
ous but somehow not real. As it comes closer, you can feel it
all
around
you, you can even smell its heavy breath, but you still think it is happen–
ing to someone else, not you. You have problems understanding it, you
ask why or how it is possible, but no one can answer your questions, be–
cause when people start killing each other, these kinds of questions be–
come unimportant. It seems as if the people around you, colleagues,
neighbors, are
all
behaving as though it is perfectly logical, perfectly clear.
You are left alone. Waiting. Waiting for the war to happen to you. Then
it grabs you. It could happen while you are in your kitchen or while
driving a car - one small detail, a sudden glance at the sandbags propped
up in front of your cellar window to protect the building's bomb shelter.
It
can be anything. That is when you realize that the war is happening to
you, too. I remember one morning in September when the air-raid sirens
in
Zagreb had already sounded the danger of an attack. I decided not to
go
down to the shelter, not even to get out of bed. "Let it happen here if
it must," I said to mysel£ It was a beautiful, clear day, and I looked at the
chestnut tree in front of my window. Its leaves had just started to fall.
Then I watched a beam of sunlight shining in the window. Passing
through the lace curtain, it formed a little patch of light on the bed. The
patch moved slowly, sliding through the room as time passed.
It
was nice,
peaceful. No cars or trams - during air-raid alarms traffic has to stop - no
voices ... I felt perfectly calm. I didn't think about my relatives or my
friends, about people at
all.
I thought about things. I took a good look at
my room; at the books piled up at my bedside that I intended to read; the
funily photos hanging on the wall; the cupboard, table, mirror, lamp - as
ifl were caressing them. The room looked as if! had never seen it before,
every detail illuminated by the morning light. Suddenly I realized I was
looking at the room as though I were never going to see it again. Only
then did the fear break out of me, in a cold sweat, as I lay in bed curled
up, sinking into nothingness.
This state of fear can't last for long. The next step is adaptation. How
can you adapt to the death surrounding you? You instinctively invent a
parallel reality. There is a war, and it is changing your life, it is happening
to
you, too. But in order to function, you have to behave as if that situa–
tion is normal, so you must continue your everyday activities, with a rou–
tine to keep you from going insane. Recently, it was reported in the
newspapers that the last animal in the Sarajevo zoo, a brown bear, had
died. All the other animals had died a long time ago. The zoo keepers had
brought them food while there was any at
all
to be had, but then one
keeper was shot, and it became too dangerous, because of the snipers, to
