RED ROSES, SARAJEVO BLUES
Charming Hostess at the Sarajevo Jazz Festival, November 4-8
A montage of vignettes in two parts
Part 2 of 2
Read Part 1 here.
Outside/Inside
Jewlia paraphrases an essay from a book she's been reading on Bosnia -- Sarajevo is a city where opposites come together. It is a city in a valley, where the houses look in at the city center and the city center looks up and out at the residents in the hills. The outside/inside, feminine/masculine principles can also be found in Bosnian cuisine. Cevapi, or grilled meats, are roasted on a phallic stick, to be eaten on outdoor tables at restaurants, representing the masculine. But inside homes, Bosnians serve the feminine dolmas. Dolmas refer to all stuffed packages, usually filled with savory meat and rice concoctions but retaining their original flavors. These represent the feminine.
We find Asdz around the corner from the hotel, where such feminine wares are displayed in glass cases.
I love the stuffed pale green peppers with tender veal and rice filling. I love the cigar-thick stuffed cabbage leaves in rich red sauce. Stuffed grape leaves are some of the best I've ever had, though I think everything is stuffed with the same yummy filling. But the best are the flat golf ball-sized cippolini onions with their tender little meatball cores, melting, sweet and tender. Short, bullet-shaped stewed okra are less slimy but considerably hairier and throat-sticking than their American cousins. Everything is spiced with a light hand, but well-seasoned. We sop all the mingling sauces up from our stainless steel plates with the crumpet-like elastic flatbread. I think this is representative of Bosnian cuisine. And if it is, I think I love Bosnian cuisine.
Asdz
Mali Curciluk 3
Sarajevo
++387 33/238-500
A present for you
The four of us head into the old part of town where we can buy our souvenirs and leave our money with the locals. Jewlia, Anmarie and I try on several soccer zip-ups. One particularly insistent salesman ropes us into his small kiosk.
VENDOR: Hello! Try on, madam. Beautiful! [He hands us each little pens made of carved and painted balsa wood.] Present, for you madam. One for you, one for you. Please try, en le magasin. Universal size, fit perfect. 60 Marks. [He runs over and grabs a handful of acrylic football scarves.] You like football? Bosna I Hercegovina. Football. [He hands us each little matching balsa wood cigarette holders.] No, present, please, for you. Beautiful.
The call to prayer comes over loudspeakers. He turns towards the kiosk, wipes his hand over his solemn mien, puts his hands together in front of his face, then turns back to me as the prayer song continues overhead.
VENDOR: Not 60, not 55, 50 marks, very good. You like white, I have white. You like Sarajevo? Zeljo? Football, I have. Here, present for you. [He hands each of us a leather keychain with a picture of the bridge at Mostar.] Beautiful. Try on, try en le magasin.
Pierre, the Knight of Malta
Cynthia and I have decided to see Hans Bennink, the crazy Swedish drummer, on the final night of the festival. I head to the downstairs cafe to wait for Cynthia. A portly man leans up against the bar, his chest heaving in alarm as he cries, "Voda! Voda!", blustering and mumbling other indistinguishable words under his irregular breath. On the other side of the bar, the female hotel manager and two waitresses stare back with half concern, half disdain. Smoke curls up from the lit cigarette in one waitress's hand as the other waitress fills a glass from the soda pistol.
I take a seat in the empty restaurant and stare at him, wondering if he's drunk, wondering whether or not he's a regular, wondering how long it will be before Cynthia comes downstairs. He feels my eyes on him and slowly turns his gaze towards me, like a lighthouse bearing its beam down on a little ship. I don't look away as he stumbles towards me.
MAN: Where are you from?
GANDA: New York.
MAN: No. [Heave.] Where are you from?
GANDA: My parents are from Thailand.
MAN: Thailand. [Heave. He leans in.] You have a beautiful -- [Heave] -- beautiful face.
GANDA: Thank you.
He stumbles to my left and drops his 300 pounds in the too small space between me and the edge of the banquette. I slide 8 inches to the right to accomodate his girth. I can smell the alcohol coursing through his blood.
MAN: What is your name?
GANDA: Ganda.
MAN: I am Pierre. Nice to meet you.
I shake his hand. It's large, meaty, and soft. He heaves a few more times, staring at the table as he catches his breath, mumbling a few things I can't quite understand. His face is flushed, and he looks uncomfortable and on edge, as though he expects the rug to be pulled out from under his brown oxfords.
PIERRE: Why are you staring at me?
GANDA: I want to make sure you're okay. Are you okay?
PIERRE: No, I am not okay! [Heave. He gulps from his glass of water and clutches his chest with a meaty hand.] I saw a vision! Upstairs. [Heave.] I came downstairs. I tell them -- [Heave. He gestures to the hotel employees.] They know me. I need -- [Heave. He wipes his hand across his face.] Where are you from?
GANDA: My parents are from Thailand.
PIERRE: Oui, Thailand. [Heave.] Thailand, [heave] ugly country. I...the prostitution. See, I have been to Thailand --
Pierre's face crumples up like a piece of foil and starts to turn red as he begins to cry. He looks at me as the tears well up. He begins to sob in earnest. He removes his glasses to wipe away his tears.
PIERRE: [Sobbing] I am a Knight of Malta, you see, I am a royalist. I am a French aristocrat, the real Knight of Malta.
His shoulders roll downward as he sobs. Part of me wants to reach out and comfort him, but I know that it will probably be a slippery slope. I gaze with concern instead.
PIERRE: [Still sobbing] Because when I kiss the little girls...leprosy...I went to the leprosy camps...You see, I am a Knight of Malta...
He sobs a little while longer. I see Cynthia has come down. She chats with the hotel ladies at the bar. I wait for her to make eye contact with me and give me an out. After a minute or two, Pierre's sobs subside.
PIERRE: I am sorry. I am sorry. Thailand. What are you doing in this place?
GANDA: I'm just visiting. It's a beautiful country.
PIERRE: [Exhaling hard through his lips] This place? This is horrible place. You see, that is why I am here. I do philanthropic work. With the Knights of Malta. I am a true French aristocrat.
I catch Cynthia's eye.
GANDA: Shall we go?
CYNTHIA: Sure, we don't have to go right away.
GANDA: No, we should go. It was nice to meet you Pierre.
PIERRE: Thank you, I am very sorry.
GANDA: It's okay, I think there are ghosts here too.
PIERRE: I am very sorry for les larmes --
GANDA: No, it's beautiful. It's beautiful.
PIERRE: Ah! [Heaves.] You are very kind. Vous etes magnifique.
GANDA: Have a good night.
PIERRE: Merci. Good night.
Burlington
Over dinner at Jez, Anmarie mentions a gig in Burlington, VT. All of a sudden, I have a visual flash of the Burlington Coat Factory on the corner of 23rd St. and 6th Ave., with all the people moving swiftly in parallel and perpendicular lines. And in that moment, I know that I don't want to be on that corner of New York City. Sometimes traveling brings you a deeper appreciation of the place you will eventually return to. But sometimes, travel can remind you what a stranger you are in the place you call home.
Eldin the firecracker
We meet Eldin, a political and music writer for Dani Magazine, at the Karabit Cafe for multiple espressos. He swears that he has to be on his way in order to meet his editor's deadline, but he stays for much longer than he should. He is full of righteous rage and passion, and he waxes eloquently on war crimes, American independent hard rock, and communist humor. He wears his long hair in a ponytail and sports a short but unruly dark beard. In the hour and a half we spend over coffee, he chain smokes probably 10 Marlboro Reds. He is only 25 years old.
He brings us copies of the Dani Magazine that features his article on Sarajevo Blues, in which he writes that every self-respecting Bosnian should own a copy of this record. Prior to our trip, he was the owner of the sole copy of Charming Hostess's Sarajevo Blues in all of Sarajevo. Sem's book of poetry Sarajevo Blues has gone out of print in Bosnia.
Sarajevo Blues
Grbavica, from Sem Mehmedinovic's Sarajevo Blues, sung by Charming Hostess:
The snipers, at least those aiming at Sniper Alley,
Shoot from the Jewish cemetery
Covered by gravestones, they're safe.
Dear Lord, punish those who desecrate the graves
And punish me if it was a sin that I picked violets there as a child.
The Tunnel
800 meters underneath the old Sarajevo airport, 1 meter wide, 1.6 meters tall, traffic moving in only one direction at a time, with electrical wiring endangering the thousands of people who used the passage every day, this tunnel saved a population held hostage and laid bare as sitting ducks in their own city. As Jewlia has said of Sem's poetry, the tunnel is about love, resistance, and freedom under extreme constraint.
Jewlia asks the man who runs the museum what it's like to have people come in and out of his family home every day and see this piece of Sarajevo history. He half-smiles and replies, "It's a job."
Sarajevo roses
During the walk up to the main stage, we walk along the edge of the park, where we come across a Sarajevo rose -- a place where a mortar shell tore a crater in the sidewalk and killed innocent people. They have since been filled symbolically with red cement and are called roses. It is a morbid yet beautiful, effective tribute to the bloodshed and the hope that still grows out of Sarajevo hearts.
We run into Alma up at the Magic Malik show. Alma works for the Sarajevo Jazz Festival. She has high Slavic cheekbones and a willowy long-limbed frame. Her almond-shaped, kind brown eyes have long, dark lashes that point straight down like a fringe visor. She speaks four languages, and her English is impressively colloquial. She is the kind of wholesome, gorgeous young woman men must want to marry. We tell her what a wonderful experience we've had with all of the festival folks, how well-organized everything was, and how warm and welcoming Sarajevskos have been.
JEWLIA: Do people come from out of town for the festival?
ALMA: Eh...it is mostly Bosnians. I think that people are still scared to come to Sarajevo. But I hope that you tell them to come.
Alma sends us to one of her favorite hangouts, Ribica, just around the corner from the Eternal Flame. With its twinkling lights and curlicued mirrors, this gorgeous little sliver of a cafe looks like a Mucha drawing trapped in amber. We order miniature bottles of wine and choose our tea from a great selection along the wall. We eat dry Danish-style butter cookies and marvel at the knick-knacks strewn along the shelves and on our table. We laugh about how lucky we are to get to enjoy this beautiful town, where cathedral bells and Muslim prayer wake the city every morning, where fog settles with the haze of hearth fires over a fishbowl city, where crimson roses are still in bloom in frosty November.
For the pictorial version, visit my flickr set.
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