The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway Read Free Book Online Page A

can see the demarcation of the street where they halted the Great Fire, where the old Turkish buildings end and the newer Austro-Hungarian ones begin.
    What Kenan thinks about isn’t the night of the fire, but the day after. What it must have looked like. Did it compare with what he sees today? But at least the Great Fire was over quickly. He doesn’t know if today is the end or just the beginning. And he doesn’t know what things will look like when and if it does end. How do you build it all up again? Do the people who destroyed the city also rebuild it? Is the city reconstructed so thatit can be wiped away again someday, or do people believe that this will be the last time such a project will be necessary, that from now on things will last forever? Though he can’t quite put his finger on the specifics of this question, he believes that the character of those who will build the city again 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 in that. But if a city is remade anew by men of questionable character, what will it be? He thinks of the men in the fancy cars who bought his washing machine with a few kilos of potatoes and onions. They shouldn’t be the ones who get to make a new Sarajevo, if and when it is time for such a thing to be born.
    He’s almost at the Princip Bridge. It used to be called the Latin Bridge, but it’s there that, in 1914, the First World War began. The footprints of the assassin Princip used to be marked on the place where he stood and killed the heir to the Hapsburg throne and his pregnant wife, but they’re gone now, ruined or stolen. Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s last words to his wife were, “Don’t die, stay alive for our children.” He wasn’t supposed to be there, in that spot, but he had insisted on going to the hospital to check on the victims of an earlier attempt on his life. Princip had given up on his mission for the day and was eating a meal when he saw the archduke’s car, stepped out onto the street and firedtwo shots. As a schoolboy, Kenan had been made to visit the small museum, now destroyed, that commemorated the assassination. He has always been slightly ashamed that, for a generation, when the world thought of Sarajevo, it was as a place of murder. It isn’t clear to him how the world will think of the city now that thousands have been murdered. He suspects that what the world wants most is not to think of it at all.
    He’s just about to turn south towards the bridge when a man comes running around the corner. Once safely behind the buildings he collapses, breathless. “Sniper,” he says, pointing towards the bridge. “They’re firing all along the left bank.”
    “I’m trying for the brewery,” Kenan says, helping the man to his feet.
    “You’re best off crossing the Šeher Ćehaja.”
    Kenan pauses. The Šeher Ćehaja is the most eastern of the bridges crossing the Miljacka, and using it will require a significant detour, almost doubling the distance of his trip. As it is, he still has about a kilometre and a half to go before he reaches the brewery, and this route would add another two kilometres. “Are you sure?”
    The man shrugs. “It’s for you to say. Maybe he’s not a very good shot. He missed me.”
    Any thoughts Kenan might have about risking a crossing are removed by the sound of a shell landing nearby,probably somewhere just across the river. There’s a short burst of rifle fire, and then another shell lands. Kenan feels himself begin to panic, tries to take a few deep breaths. His mouth has gone dry.
    “It’s okay,” the man says. “They can’t get at us here.” Kenan knows this isn’t true, but the words do make him feel better, as does the knowledge that they aren’t the target of the shelling. It seems to be moving farther away, or at least it isn’t getting closer.
    It’s clear that he’ll have to take the long way around, so he wishes the