Our Man in Iraq. Robert Perisic

where he was coming from and could imagine his life, but he couldn’t imagine mine; that’s why he looked at me like an apparition which had been magically beamed from the summertime shallows where we played ‘keepy-uppy’ in our swimming trunks, into the actors’ jet set, and from there had skydived down into a newspaper office overflowing with cash that was occupied with things arcane.

      Once, long ago, we listened to the same records and were so alike in dress and behaviour that old grandmother Lucija could hardly tell us apart; and now look at us... If I hadn’t gone away I would’ve got stuck in a rut like him, I thought. I recognised myself in him like a parallel reality, but he sized me up as if asking himself what made me better.

      It seemed I reminded him of some form of injustice.

      ‘I could write what no one else will,’ Boris said and laughed for no reason. ‘It’s no sweat for me.’

      ‘Hmm. Shall we have another drink?’ I asked, not knowing what else to say.

      ‘I’ve only got twenty kunas,’ he warned me.

      ‘It’s OK, it’s on me,’ I said so it wouldn’t be awkward for him.

      ‘All right,’ he sighed, as if he’d needed persuading.

      I ordered another beer and he – I couldn’t believe it – another juice, and I realised that the conversation wasn’t going to get more fluid. I began to feel time pressure.

      ‘Don’t you drink?’ I asked.

      ‘Now and then,’ he said and fell silent.

      Then I launched into a spiel about when, how and how much I drink – an inane, incoherent story that soon got on my nerves, but I had to say something so we wouldn’t sit there like two logs; he obviously hadn’t developed a talent for small talk.

      We sat there for a little longer and finally he mentioned his degree, which he hadn’t been able to finish. I could tell he’d planned to mention it and had thought about how to present the topic.

      He obviously thought I knew what he’d studied.

      We were supposed to behave like we were really close, so I nodded. Still, after things ground to a halt again I said: ‘Sorry, what was it that you studied again? I just remember it was pretty exotic.’

      ‘Arabic,’ he laughed and slapped his hands on his knees. It seemed he was laughing at himself. Probably because he had studied Arabic instead of a more pedestrian subject.

      Bingo! It suddenly dawned on me. I was probably a bit sloshed already, and I pointed a finger like Uncle Sam and uttered: ‘Iraq!’

      Rabar, the only true go-getter on the staff, had defected to GEP a month earlier, and there he was now reporting for the competitors in Kuwait, so... Unbelievable but true: here was a job in the offing!

      Boris smiled sadly and said: ‘Morocco.’

      ‘What about Morocco?’

      ‘We were in Morocco, not Iraq.’

      ‘Uh-huh –,’ I made the connection. ‘I know.’

      ‘Six years... You know how it was: dad was chief engineer; we had servants and a pool. Then – wham! – the old man had a heart attack.

      Right there by the pool.’

      ‘Yes. I know.’

      Now he’d finally found his topic. He’d gone to the international school, but they also learnt Arabic. Later, when they returned, he had ‘the language in his head’. Every time he thought of something in Arabic he’d remember his old man. But he had no one to converse with and started to forget the language. He mentioned that once he’d overheard two Arabs talking in the street; he followed them to a café, sat at the next table and listened to them. ‘They noticed I was following them, and I had them guessing whether I was a spook or a poof. I understood everything they said,’ he grinned. Afterwards he enrolled in Arabic in Sarajevo but couldn’t finish uni because the war began.

      ‘OK, and now have a think about this –,’ I said, ‘Would you go to Iraq? The Yanks are going to attack any day.’

      ‘Sure!’ came the answer as quick as a shot.

      I’d thought he’d be interested in finding out more about the proposal. I continued, watching his reaction: ‘Now, our guy who went to war zones had his ways of doing things. I don’t know how, but he always coped. He sent things by mail – the photos and the texts. There are also these satellite phones...’

      ‘No probs, I’ll get the hang of it.’

      ‘Have a good think. It’s war.’

      ‘No sweat.’

      ‘Sure?’

      ‘Peace has become a problem for me.’

      Hmm, right at the start I’d caught a whiff of Vietnam syndrome. It was in vogue after the war among demobbed soldiers. That typical defensive shell: taciturn, phlegmatic face, the occasional long look in the eyes.

      I didn’t know where to stand on that. Back at uni me and Markatović had perfected that veteran habitus – here around Zagreb I could have stood in for Rambo if needed, but Boris knew that my experience of war amounted to hanging around up on a hill with an anti-aircraft battery. Nothing ever came anywhere near us, and after a month and a half my old man got me out.

      Maybe that was why Boris behaved as if I owed him a favour: because he didn’t have a dad to get him out but followed Arabs down the street.

      ‘All right then. If peace is a problem for you you’ll have a great time in Iraq,’ I said.

      He glanced furtively at me. ‘I think it’ll be great,’ he answered.

      Everything should have been clear to me then. But I felt I had to help him in order to return some kind of irrational debt.

      When he started to send me his psychedelics, I called him by satellite phone. He acted as if he didn’t hear me well. A bad connection, and pigs can fly... Since then he hasn’t been in touch by phone. He wrote that it’s dangerous, they can be located, but he continued to send mails every day – he didn’t care that we were a weekly. Then I wrote him a mail telling him to come back, afterwards I warned him politely that we expected him to return, and in the end I thoroughly insulted him.

      No result.

      Now he’d been there for a month already, was probably having a great time, and didn’t reply to any of my mails.

      I say all of this to an imaginary listener.

      Sometimes that helps me plan what I’m going to say, like a lawyer about to defend himself.

      * * *

      I tried to occupy my thoughts with something else. I was holding Jimi Hendrix’s biography and trying to read when Sanja entered the flat.

      I probably looked dejected.

      ‘Are you angry? Listen, I really couldn’t go and see the flat,’ she said straight away. ‘I ran into a journalist – from The Daily News.’

      ‘You’re joking, from GEP? How long did you talk for?’

      ‘An hour maybe. Plus the photo-shoot.’

      ‘Hang on,’ I looked at her. ‘That’s more than a little statement. Was it a proper interview?’

      ‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ she said, as if she didn’t believe it could be. That’d be the first interview of her life.

      I felt all this was happening to me. I wanted to be involved too.

      I paused. ‘Did they also ask you about, like, personal things?’

      ‘Don’t worry, I was careful not to let any cats out of the bag,’ she smiled.

      She saw the remnants of the pizza on the table.

      ‘I’ve