فصل 09

CHAPTER NINE

Good guys, bad guys

Katy went back to the basement to watch Zeljko play with his quartet more than once in the weeks that followed. Each time she saw him her heart seemed to stop. He was so passionate, so intense. The sight of his strong face and dancing fingers made her feel real and happy. It added to the excitement of the situation she was living and working in. Shed become used to the danger of life in Sarajevo, used to the sad stories from the people who lived here. Each day, she felt she was becoming more professional, a better reporter, like Carla, cool and effective. And the life she was leading was good, she had to admit, despite the terror all around her. She wrote her pieces for the paper, played with danger and sat in the hotel bar exchanging stories with the other journalists. In a few weeks shed begun to feel as if she might even be their equal.

Zeljko wasn’t nearly as interested in her as she was in him. True, he came over to speak to her when she went to see him play, but he only stayed for a minute or two each time, often shorter - she noted, than the time he spent with some of the other women there. There was no repeat of his magic touch or the direct intensity of his beautiful eyes.

Colin enjoyed joking about the musician with her. ‘You’re just another girlfriend to add to his collection,’ he said. She told him, yet again, that she wasn’t a girlfriend, or anything like it. But occasionally, when Colin joked, there was sadness in his eyes. He looked at her in the same way that Benjamin had sometimes done.

Now that they were friends - and they were friends, she realised with a smile - Colin no longer shouted at her and made her feel stupid even when he’d had too much to drink. He would still disagree with her, but there was no unpleasantness in his voice. He no longer treated her as a young reporter who knew nothing.

But it was probably Colin’s arguing and her own curiosity about the ‘other side’ which made her agree with Carla’s suggestion that they should go and interview some Serb soldiers. It wasn’t, she told herself, a crazy idea. Journalists had a responsibility to inform and to explain - whoever they were writing about. It would be a good thing if she was able to tell her readers about some of the people who were turning Sarajevo into a living hell.

Not many journalists had gone up into the mountains that overlooked the city. Mostly this was because of fear. A cameraman and a news reporter had been killed three months ago because the soldiers had thought they were working for the enemy. Even when they’d shown their press passes, so the story went, the soldiers hadn’t believed them and had shot them on the spot.

‘But that was three months ago,’ Carla protested when they were talking about it in the bar. ‘A lot has changed since then. They’ve woken up to the fact that they don’t have international support. We’re just what they need.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ Katy said with feeling.

‘Look,’ her Italian friend said excitedly. ‘It’s going to be OK. I got my boss - all right, my husband - to get an Italian officer on the peacekeeping force to make contact with the Serb general up there, a guy called Milosevic… No, not the Serb leader,’ she said when they all laughed.

‘Just another guy with the same family name. And Haris says he’ll drive us up there. So everything’s all right. Alberto says he’ll come, and you know what he’s like.’

Katy did know what Carla’s cameraman was like. He was silent. Serious. Professional. If he was prepared to go up into the hills, then she couldn’t say no. Anyway, she told herself, Caryl Jones would approve. She’d loved some of Katy’s earlier reports, but she’d told her by email that her last two or three reports had lacked the interest of the first few. Perhaps this was a chance to make things better.

‘All right, I’ll come. Yes, I’ll definitely come,’ she said, suddenly liking the idea. ‘Only, don’t tell Colin. He’ll be furious.’

‘Of course he won’t,’ Carla laughed. ‘He likes you.’

But Colin was furious when he found out. Katy tried not to tell him, but it was impossible to lie to him.

‘Are you going to hear the quartet tonight?’ he asked her when they met at breakfast two days later.

‘No, not tonight,’ she said, trying to look innocent.

‘Why not? They’re moving out of the cellar.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re playing on the steps of the old concert hall, for a change,’ Colin told her.

‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘Well, sure, but everything’s dangerous with the Serbs up on the hills. Your Zeljko-‘

‘He’s not my Zeljko!’ Katy protested.

‘Your Zeljko says he’s tired of playing in dark cellars,’ Colin went on as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘Everyone in the quartet - and all the other musicians - are tired of playing in cellars.

It’s time they took a stand, he says. So they’re going to play in the place where they used to perform in their money earning days before all this started.’

‘He’s amazing, isn’t he?’ she said, thinking of the handsome Bosnian.

‘Whatever you say,’ Colin replied. ‘So are you going?’

‘No. Not this evening. I can’t,’ she said guiltily. ‘I’ve got something on this afternoon, you see. I don’t know if I’ll be back in time.’

‘So it’s true,’ Colin said quietly.

‘What? What’s true?’ She wanted him not to know.

‘You’re going up to Mount Trebovic.’ He was accusing her.

‘Who told you?’

‘That doesn’t matter. Please don’t do it.’ He was almost begging her.

‘Oh, come on, Colin, I’m a reporter,’ Katy protested.

‘Yes, but you’re a human being too.’

‘Of course I am. But it’s my job, surely, to tell both sides of the story.’

‘Both sides? Both sides! How many times do I have to tell you? There are the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys are down here with us. The bad guys…’ he pointed out towards the hills, ‘the bad guys are up there. They’ve developed what they call modified air bombs, a mixture of shells and bombs - and they’re designed to kill as many people as possible. Crowds of people. That’s how bad they are. Don’t you see? That’s the story, that’s the only story. You don’t have to go up there to tell that story.’

‘Well, I think I do.’ She wasn’t going to let him change her mind.

‘The confidence of youth! No, I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean that. But surely you must see how it is.’

‘I understand that the people down here are in a terrible situation, yes.’ She really wanted him to understand. ‘I know there’s fighting on the streets and it’s not just one side that’s doing it. I know there are Serbs up there in the hills and they’re the ones who are shelling the city. But I want to know why. I want to tell my readers something about why - about what the people down here and up there are like.’

‘Ha! My readers! How quickly you’ve changed. All right then, go. Go and talk to those murderers. If that’s what makes you happy.’

‘It doesn’t make me happy, Colin. It’s my job. I’m just trying to do my job, all right?’ Now she was angry with him, angry that he was trying to make her feel bad. She got up and headed for the door.

‘Katy,’ he called after her as she went. ‘Please be careful. The bad guys can be really bad - even to people like you.’

‘Yeah,’ she shouted back, ‘but why should you care? Like you said, I’ve really changed.’ And feeling pleased with herself for her sharp reply, she almost ran down the corridor towards the lift.