Our Man in Iraq. Robert Perisic
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We’d have arguments over little things.
I’d blow up and then apologise: ‘Sorry, I don’t know where that came from.’
‘Perhaps we should break up,’ Sanja would say, offended, without looking at me.
That was how she spoke. For example, she’d say ‘perhaps I shouldn’t go with you to X’ – not because she didn’t want to go, but so that I’d assure her that she was going with me. So she said ‘perhaps we should break up’ so I’d assure her of the opposite. So I’d prove to her that it all made sense.
I had to make sense of things.
At some point things stop developing by themselves and you have to give them a boost. Think up a new project. Feel a new drive. Playfulness, joy, passion.
Now I watched Sanja ringing up adverts for flats.
It was her turn; I’d done the calling the day before.
She was trying hard to make a serious impression. The people on the other end thought her voice sounded immature – they felt she couldn’t be a serious buyer.
She smoked and periodically nibbled the nail of her little finger.
She rolled her eyes.
I saw that she’d hit on an another old lady who was going on and on and being a pain.
‘Yes, I know where the Savica market is. Yes, I know we need to come and look at it, but could you please tell me the price?’
She just wanted to finish the conversation, but sometimes it’s hard to.
‘We’ll probably drop in,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to see when my boyfriend gets back from work.’
‘Say “husband”.’
‘What?’ she cocked her head as she put down the receiver.
‘Why did you lie that I was at work?’ I laughed. ‘Do you think it makes us sound more serious?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said darkly.
‘If you’re going to lie, say “my husband’s at work”. The boyfriend bit is half-baked.’
‘Oh, shut up!’
* * *
Baghdad is burning, the Allied bombing has begun, yoo-hoo!
You saw it, and what can I tell you, the Alliedbombing tore us out of our depression, life has become sportive, dynamic, everyone is fighting to get a word in edgeways, everything is in motion.
The Allied bombing, bro, like when you pour sugar into coffee, night and white crystals, attractive images you see again and again. I watch the allied bombing from the Sheraton Hotel in Kuwait City and am looking for a way to attach myself to the troops, to be embedded, cuz, but for some reason they don’t trust me, which doesn’t surprise me cos I don’t trust myself when I promise myself things, and they can probably see it in my eyes: I emit it like radiation or it comes out of me like bad breath.
I hear the alarm sirens, in Kuwait City they take them seriously, you know how it is at the beginning: people call their families, turn off their hi-fis, suddenly everyone hurries home, and the traffic jams, bro, long lines of waiting cars, and all in big cars, everyone honks their horns from inside, out from everyone’s metal box, the windows are rolled right up, everyone is afraid of poison gas, people just breathe the air in their vehicles, they sweat and stare out like fish, and I don’t know what to do with myself, so I go out roaming in the gloaming in that city of tall, shining towers by the light of the silvery moon.
OK, it’s not silver, but never mind.
Everything here now depends on which country you’re from, and Croatia’s decided to be against the war, so Lieutenant Jack Finnegan, the officer in charge of liaison with journalists, doesn’t believe me when I say I’m on their side, he won’t give me a press ID card cos in his eyes I represent Croatia, so I go out walking around Kuwait City in the name of Croatia, I look at the shop windows in the name of Croatia; they say several missiles came down in the sea, and the government has closed the schools for seven days.
On TV kids yell in the streets, they party in front of the American embassy somewhere in Europe, I see them as they enter the public eye, they present themselves, everyone has a chance to be someone as long as the Allied bombing lasts, gravity increases, everything gains weight, your voice gains character, and character means enjoyment.
Otherwise I guess I’ve become mean in Kuwait City – I’ve lost weight and developed dark circles under my eyes. Do you remember the first sirens? You think something’s going to happen up there, right at that moment, things will be resolved, you think it’ll soon be over and last no longer than a war film. But it turns out more like a boring TV serial: you dash down to the shelter, stand around until the episode’s over, later you run there a second time, and wait for it to happen... Here people rushed to the shelters three times today, nothing’s happened and they’re crazy already.
I read these emails on my black laptop and kept things to myself.
‘Uh-huh,’ Sanja said, concluding another conversation. She noted down the address on the edge of the newspaper. ‘We’ll call again tomorrow, thank you.’
She put down the receiver.
‘Attic flat, quiet street, 55 m2... Now he mentioned there are sloping walls. I don’t know, we’d have to see it.’
‘That sounds good,’ I said. ‘How about straight away?’
‘I told him we’d come tomorrow,’ she objected.
‘Tomorrow is your dress rehearsal,’ I reminded her.
‘But I’ll have a break, and it’ll do me good to get out and stretch my legs.’
‘OK,’ I said.
A chance passer-by
Guys who cook were coming into fashion in those days and I bought a book by an English cook who had his own programme on TV. I opened it on the worktop as if I was about to chop it up.
I read and leafed through the pages with knife in hand: there are so many different foods, you wouldn’t believe it.
I put down the knife because I’d decided to make spaghetti after all (sensible as I was).
But, all the same, I kept muttering in English while I spun hyperactively around the kitchen. I adopted a nasal twang to try and sound English and spoke in a series of short sentences: ‘Itts veri fasst. Veri fasst. Naw wee edd sum beens.’
The spoken instructions didn’t match the cooking of spaghetti carbonara but helped create atmosphere.
‘Itts not big filosofi. Poteitous, poteitou chipps... Itts simpl, itts fantastik.’
I left mess wherever I went.
She laughed.
‘It’s a disaster,’ I said.
She joined in a bit. She hovered around me and made light work where I’d been clumsy; then I hovered around her like an overeager apprentice.
Although she took over everything, I kept playing the part of the guy who was cooking.
Everyone needed the illusion of the domesticated male, and I was providing an example. I dangled around like Pinocchio on his strings.
‘It’s ready,’ she said.
Then we ate the spaghetti.
‘Hmm, not bad,’ she said. ‘Well done!’
I smiled. I liked it when we were a good team, when we supported each other, regardless of the reality.
* * *
I ate my plate clean.
‘Oh, I bumped into Ela today,’ I said.
She