Part II (pages 37-79)
Kenan is walking towards the brewery, thinking of how he once worked as a clerical assistant in an accounting firm, but the building is destroyed and there is no longer any work to do. He can try hard and pretend he is actually on his way to work to do once-normal things, but it is difficult.
As he walks downhill, he wonders if the men on the hills can see him. They could kill him whenever they want; he does not know why some die and some live, and he does not want to know. His walk brings him past destroyed apartment buildings, though this neighborhood is not as bad as others, and there is a relief center. He wishes he knew when the next supplies would come.
Kenan runs into Ismet, a man he knew from before the war. Ismet was a taxi driver, and now he spends four days at the frontlines and four days back with his family. Kenan listens to his stories, and wonders why he himself does not join the army. He has avoided being drafted and avoids the trucks driving around the city to conscript men. He knows he is afraid of dying, and feels that as a civilian his chances are lower. He is also afraid of killing and knows “it takes courage to kill a man, and he doesn’t possess such courage” (41).
Ismet looks tired today and the two men embrace. They talk about the absent relief supplies and then just stand there for a moment, enjoying the silence. There is a lot to say “but none of it can be said, none of it is worth saying” (42). Ismet bids him goodbye, and Kenan continues his journey.
He comes across an unbroken mirror that helps drivers see around a corner and it always surprises Kenan. There are hardly any cars on the road because fuel is scarce and expensive, and moving cars are a favorite target for the men on the hills. Plus, the roads are terrible and the lights do not work.
Kenan passes the music academy, and even though it is damaged he still hears the sounds of pianos within.
He thinks of how the fighting began and he was at work. Someone announced war had broken out. People panicked, but Kenan’s coworker Goran looked outside and said there was no war, and everything was running like normal, especially the trams. One sight Kenan will never forget is a tram first hit by a mortar then a sniper.
If Kenan were to head west he’d come across the marketplace, which is hard to go to since prices are astronomical. Anyone who did not convert their savings almost immediately became bankrupt, but most people’s savings are not enough anyway. Kenan has had to sell his washing machine on the black market. The simplest goods cost too much to fathom. Some people, though, “seem untouched by financial pressures. They drive around in new Mercedeses, haven’t lost any weight, and possess a ready supply of goods most people only remember from before the war” (45). Kenan knows black market food is being smuggled through the tunnel that goes under the airport, but he does not understand how people actually get through.
There is little he can do, so he keeps moving. His mind floods with memories of the way Sarajevo used to be, and he wonders what things will look like if the war ever ends. Is it even possible to build it up again? He thinks “the character of those who will build the city is more important than the makeup of those who destroyed it. Of course the men on the hills are evil. There’s no room for nuance with that. But if a city is made anew by men of questionable character, what will it be?” (48).
He is almost at the Princip Bridge, which reminds him of what he learned in school about the First World War beginning there. It saddens him that the world always thought of Sarajevo as a place of murder, but now no one wants to think about Sarajevo at all.
As he is about to cross, a man runs by and says there is sniper fire by the bridge. The man suggests another crossing but Kenan is wary, as it will double the length of his trip. A shell lands nearby and the man says the men can’t get them here. Even though it is not true Kenan feels a bit better.
He decides to take the long way around, and wishes the man luck. He comes into the old Turkish neighborhood of Bascarsija, a place he has not been since the library burned. He comes across a man fishing for pigeons, and they talk for a few minutes, joking about getting a license. The man says he only catches enough for each person in his apartment, as he is not greedy. After the man leaves, Kenan realizes he feels a sort of kinship with the pigeons: “He thinks it’s possible that the men on the hills are killing them slowly, a half-dozen at a time, so there will always be a few more to kill the next day” (54).
Arrow is at her commander’s office. Nermin Filipovic tells her she has been watched for some time now and that many people are impressed with her abilities. Filipovic is a professional soldier, one of the few to break ranks with the military and defend the city from his former colleagues. He will be one of the first they execute if the men on hills make it into the city.
Nermin tells her he has a special assignment for her. Arrow knows this would be the case someday, even though she’s been able to pick her own targets thus far. She tells him she’d like to remind him of their first conversation. Her father, who had died early in the war, was a policeman and went to Nermin and told him to leave his daughter out of it (she was part of the university target-shooting team) but Nermin did not, and Arrow never knew if he ignored her father or her father changed his mind. He said he needed her and she said she did not want to kill people, though the thought did not entirely horrify her. She told Nermin she thought the war would end and she wanted to go back to her life with clean hands. He smiled at her wanly and said he didn’t think anyone would be able to do that. She said if she was to do this she would want to do it her own way, which was to work alone and mostly choose her own targets. Nermin agreed. It worked for a while, but the “parameters of their deal of dangerously close to irrelevance” (59).
Today, though, she still feels her resolve. She does not know who she is right now, but knows who she wants to be. Nermin motions for her to follow him.
Nermin brings her to a street she knew well from the old days. She has heard of the shelling that killed twenty-two people in the breadline. Finally what they are waiting for appears, but Arrow can barely believe her eyes. It is a tall man with black hair and a sad face, coming outside with a cello and calmly, obliviously sitting down. The cellist closes, then opens his eyes. The sadness is gone and he begins to play. It is as if all sound has vanished from the world. Her mind fills with memories and sensations. She wills herself not to cry.
Nermin is looking at her and tells her they need her to keep this man alive. The man is known to the world and will be doing this for twenty-two days—he is on day eight—and he cannot be killed. He says the enemy will be sending a sniper into the city to kill the man, and she must take him out. She asks why not shell the neighborhood, but Nermin shakes his head and says the man must be shot, for this is a statement.
Dragan contemplates crossing again. There are two more dangerous crossings and then he will have bread, and although he is hungry he is fine taking his time.
Dragan recognizes a woman who was friends with his wife. Dragan liked Emina, but not her husband Jovan, so their gatherings were always a little strained. Emina is coming over to talk to him and although he does not want to, he will not risk his life to avoid this social exchange.
Emina approaches him and they warmly embrace. She asks after Raza and the child, and Dragan tells her about their escape out of the city. He cannot tell her, though, of all the emotional trauma he has experienced after their absence. Emina knows there is more to the story, but there's more to everyone's story.
There is an awkward silence. Dragan asks after Jovan. She shrugs and says she does not see him much since he joined the army. Dragan is surprised to hear this. She corrects and says he is more of a liaison to the government between the branches of the army, and she’s not sure beyond that.
Dragan tells her of the sniper at this intersection and is surprised to see concern on her face when she asks if he got anyone. Dragan is not indifferent to the deaths but they do not register on his face. She says she is not in a hurry and can wait a bit, and shows him medicine she is taking to a woman near the bakery. Radio Sarajevo organized a medicine swap and she is bringing some of her late mother’s pills to someone else.
They speak of someone they both knew who had gotten out of the city, and Dragan ventures to say he would go if he could. This is hard, though, for “people resent those who manage to get out. They’re considered cowards, and although he suspects that anyone who’s still sane would wish to leave, very few people would admit it to themselves, and fewer would ever say so out loud” (72). Emina isn’t shocked, however, and asks why he did not go with Raza. He shrugs and says he thought he should protect their apartment and didn’t want to lose his job, but perhaps he made a mistake.
Emina thinks and says no, they have to stay because if they go the men on the hills will come down and take the city. Dragan says they will come down anyway after they kill everyone. Emina does not think the world would allow that but Dragan harshly replies that no one is coming. Emina looks down and says quietly that she knows that but does not want to believe it. Dragan knows what she means; it is a hard thing to swallow. He thought logic would return and sanity prevail.
He tells her of a man he knew who had survived Jasenovac and Auschwitz, and who told Dragan that what was coming for Sarajevo was worse than he could imagine. The man killed himself the day the war began. Emina thinks for a moment and says this cannot be worse than the camps, and Dragan agrees but says that the man believed that what he and the others in the camps endured would mean something and that people learned from it, but clearly they did not.
Dragan and Emina change the subject and talk of how their understanding of the city’s geography has changed during the war, and who they used to be as people.
Finally Dragan says he thinks he will cross, and Emina says she will follow him. They move closer and his body suddenly feels old and slow. He feels the shot before he hears it zip past his ear. He wonders if he has been shot but realizes the sniper missed, which confuses him. He runs back the way he came and collapses near Emina and other people.
This is the first time he has been shot at, been specifically marked for death, and he cannot believe it happened and that he survived.
Analysis
Galloway does not situate The Cellist of Sarajevo in a particular moment of the siege of Sarajevo, but instead gives the reader an overview of what the entire experience was like. A once-beautiful city is now ruined roads and crumbling buildings and bridges, and the characters struggle to attain the barest necessities, find all of the hallmarks of a normal life—work, school, leisure—completely eradicated, and have to try and figure out how to maintain a hold on their sanity, memory, and sense of meaning.
One of the prevailing realities is that there is no logic, no rational way of understanding why things happen or why they don’t. In part one Arrow voices this when she realized choosing who lived or died was totally up to chance, and Kenan also thinks, “He doesn’t know why some people die and some don’t. He doesn’t have any idea how the men on the hills make these choices, and he doesn’t think he wants to know” (39). Dragan muses on how he had once believed in the rule of law, and like others “waited for order to be restored . . . He tried to go about his life as though things were still normal, as though someone was in charge. The men on the hills were a minor inconvenience that would be resolved at any moment. Sanity would prevail. But then, one day, he could no longer fool himself. This wasn’t a temporary situation, a momentary glitch in the system, and no one was going to fix it” (73-74).
Both Kenan and Dragan struggle to hold onto their sense of humanity, comparing themselves to animals. Kenan sees an old man “fishing” for pigeons and “can’t help feeling a sort of kinship with the pigeon. He thinks it’s possible that the men on the hills are killing them slowly, a half-dozen at a time so there will always be a few more to kill the next day” (54), and when he sees a stray dog crossing the intersection, Dragan thinks “there’s little difference between him and the dog. They are only trying to survive” (114). Dragan also realizes that he has started to get used to what has happened in the city, for when Emina shows concern when she asks if anyone was shot at the intersection, he finds it “odd. He isn’t indifferent to the deaths around him, but he can’t say he feels them so much that they would register on his face” (69).
The sense of losing humanity, of being unmoored from reason, is made possible by the men on the hills’ determined effort to destroy not just human lives but civilization as a whole. Dragan suspects it is what they want—“[The men] would, of course, like to kill them all, but if they can’t, they would like to make them forget how they used to be, how civilized people act” (77). This is why the destruction of the library is so devastating to Kenan, who, when he enters the ruined library’s neighborhood, feels like “he’s returning to the scene of a crime” (51) and wonders why “this part of town bothers him more than . . . other places” (51). Similarly, the city’s charming trams represent civilization to Kenan, so when they are attacked his mind reels and he concludes that “whatever else happens, the war will not be over until the trams run again” (44).
And this is why, of course, it is so important to protect the cellist, whose gesture of playing music is as potent a symbol of civilization as anything could be. A thorough look at the sustaining, redeeming quality of art (specifically, music) will be considered in the succeeding analysis, but a brief moment in this section is also a testament to the ways in which people stubbornly and bravely hold onto what matters: Kenan is passing the bombed-out Music Academy and “hears the sound of pianos coming from within. Several different pieces are being played in various parts of the building, and the music blends together, sometimes becoming unintelligible, a muddy noise of string struck by hammers, but every so often one of the themes pauses, creating space for another to emerge, and a few solitary notes of a melody slip out into the street” (44). Though things are at times “muddy” or “unintelligible”, there is still beauty and there is still hope.
