Between Before and After

By Edita Mujkic

A multiple award-winning memoir.

In May 1992 Edita Mujkic fled war-torn Sarajevo with two young children, in a borrowed car, with two bags and fifty American dollars in her pocket.

Her husband Goran stayed behind, trapped in the impenetrable siege. He wasn't allowed to leave. They believed it

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hawkeye Publishing Pty Ltd
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645502435

Book preview

SARAJEVO

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DAY 1

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Tuesday, May 19, 1992

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I must have fallen asleep. The three of us squashed in a corner, two children asleep on top of me: my daughter in my lap, her sweetly perfumed baby hair tickling my face, my son sprawled over my legs. Crowded into one tiny bedroom with twenty to thirty other mothers and their children, most of them asleep on the floor, a few lucky ones on the only bed.

It took a while for the room to become quiet. Mums whispered comfort to their children, adults argued over space, someone laughed. Coughing, sneezing and all sorts of unidentifiable sounds came from everywhere. Tightly squeezed together and on top of each other, people could barely move. Even a minimal shift of someone’s body caused discomfort for their neighbours. Every little while there was an ‘ouch!’ followed by muffled noise, until the body parts of several people fitted together like puzzle pieces pressed in by a young child—squashed at the corners and randomly placed.

Our corner was cold and uncomfortable. With as little movement as possible, I pushed my handbag behind my back to support my twisted body, and rested my head on the wall, all the while protecting my son’s space on the floor. I listened to the sounds in the room, straining my ears to identify anything that could be coming from outside, worried about what might happen to us that night or the day after. Unpleasant scenarios played in my head. I pushed them away and visualised the three of us walking on the beach, my kids’ hands in mine, waves hitting the shore, the warmth of the sunshine on our faces.

I listened to my daughter’s calm breathing and synchronised my breath with hers. The trick that usually helped quiet down my thoughts seemed to work—I fell asleep.

A bang, the door crashed against a wall. I woke abruptly. A man dressed in black, a balaclava over his face and a machine gun in his hands, barged into the room. The lights from the hallway behind exaggerated his silhouette, huge in the doorway. Nausea surged from the stab of pain in my stomach, my accelerated pulse throbbed wildly in my ears.

This is it! This is the end. Frightening images flashed through my head—rapes, killings, children screaming, blood. In a few short seconds I imagined all the possible kinds of terror we were about to endure.

The lights in the room flashed on.

The man shifted the gun in his hands, as if preparing to fire. I kept my eyes semi-shut, pretending to be asleep, while he scanned the room. I clutched my children closer, waiting for more men to burst in, for machine guns to start firing. I didn’t dare move, I barely breathed.

After a seemingly eternal silence the man barked, ‘Move over.’

We all quietly shuffled to create space on the floor for another mother and her children.

No one said a word. Once the newcomers were settled, the lights turned off.

My children, Dario and Elena, didn’t wake despite the noise and commotion. They moved their bodies a few times, stretching out, but kept sleeping peacefully. My heart pounded for a long time.

BEFORE

MY children and I had left Sarajevo earlier that day, in a convoy of cars filled with mothers and young children. Dario was eight, Elena a one-year-old baby. Our lives, so smooth and textbook-perfect, had changed almost overnight into a nightmare of barricades, grenades, snipers and food shortages.

From the end of World War II, until the death of the president Marshal Tito, the six multi-ethnic republics of Yugoslavia lived under the slogan of brotherhood and unity. I grew up in a country with a stable government, free health care and free education. The majority of people living in urban areas, at least us in Sarajevo, had similar uncomplicated lives: stable jobs with sufficient monthly income to pay utility bills, food, clothes and some entertainment. Extreme wealth was out of reach for almost anyone, regardless of education or family origins. Unemployment seemed relatively low; everyone around me who was qualified to work and wanted to work, had a job. Once employed, there was no fear of losing the job unless one broke the law by stealing or committing fraud. If you worked hard, you’d be promoted more quickly to a higher position and a better salary. If you didn’t, you could stay in the same job, earning the same pay, your whole career. Of course, there were differences in salaries for different jobs and different levels of experience, but they weren’t in ten-fold scales. The CEO of the company would have double the salary of the lowest paid professional employee, not ten, twenty or thirty times more. The hierarchy of positions and income were public and known to all employees. Men and women were paid equally when in the same position. Winter and summer holidays were spent in holiday houses—most families had one—in the mountains or at the seaside. Occasionally there would be a holiday abroad or a business trip to one of the European countries. Life was simple and stable.

After Tito’s death in May 1980, while the majority of the nation wiped their tears from losing the big leader, the nationalists in all corners of Yugoslavia started raising their voices and their fists. Every state, other than Serbia, wanted independence from Yugoslavia.

After the states Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia declared their independence in 1991, a referendum for the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina was planned for February 29, 1992. The tension in Sarajevo grew from the moment the preparations for the referendum started. A significant percentage of Bosnian Serbs preferred that Bosnia stay within Yugoslavia, and boycotted the referendum.

In the early hours of the morning on March 1, I woke after an intense nightmare. I dreamed of watching gunfire from our kitchen window on the fourth floor of our building, the trajectories of fluorescent bullets sparkling between the bushes in the park below. Still dizzy from the bad dream, I heard the phone ringing. I checked the time. Five-thirty. I jumped up from the bed. Who would call at this time? My thoughts went to Goran who was on night shift at work—his software team was engaged in recording the referendum votes.

It was a close friend on the other side of the line. She spoke quietly, almost whispering.

‘Hey. I must’ve scared you with the phone. Please don’t be worried. I know Goran is not there, I just wanted to tell you not to go to work today.’

‘Why? What happened?’ My thoughts fixed on Goran and his work engagement.

‘They’ve raised barricades in the city overnight and some streets are blocked.’

‘Barricades? Why? How do you know? What are they trying to do?’

‘We just heard it on the radio. I don’t know what they want. I guess it’s something to do with the referendum.’

‘What do you think will happen?’

‘I’m not sure. Just stay at home. Hopefully Goran will be home soon.’

I hung up and paced in the dark, from one window to another. I pulled the curtains aside to peek outside. Did hearing genuine gunshots while I was asleep provoke my nightmare? The streets were quiet and empty. I turned on the lamp in the hallway and went to check the children. They were asleep, undisturbed by my conversation. Unable to calm my thoughts, I stayed in their room for a long time.

While I looked at Dario that morning, his hair still streaked with blonde highlights from the summer spent at the seaside, my heart swelled with love for my big boy, my companion and ally when his dad was not around. I bent over Elena’s cot, adjusted the cover as she slept on her back, legs and arms spread in all directions, her lips occasionally stretching into a smile. Dreaming of something nice.

Images from the past raced through my head: my happy childhood, the impulsive selection of university course that had led to meeting and marrying Goran, the births of our children.

As the only child of loving parents, I experienced childhood and young adulthood without a hiccup. My mum and dad were the proudest parents, never missing an opportunity to mention my impeccable school reports. At the time to decide what to study I picked architecture; it seemed a fine balance between technical skills and creativity. A long silence filled the room when I told my parents about it. My mum looked at my dad, my dad looked down at the table in front of him.

After a while my dad raised his head and said, ‘You know the field of architecture is a sealed professional circle and it’s hard to break into it. Almost impossible. How do you think you’ll find a job with architecture? We have no connections at all. How will you find work? Why don’t you consider something more practical? Civil, mechanical or electrical engineering?’

I didn’t want to study any of the courses my dad suggested. They seemed too dry, uncreative. At the same time I knew I wanted to work and would need to find a job after I finished my degree.

When I heard that the electrical engineering faculty was moving to a brand new building I went to see it. It was impressive: a huge central hall several floors high, an enormous modern amphitheatre with rows and rows of seats in light timber, numerous rooms for lectures, labs and study over four levels. They had just opened the Department for Informatics, a completely new degree that seemed exciting. Imagining my dad’s happy face when I told him about it, I went straight to the admin office to collect the application forms. I had no idea the selection of that university course would lead me to the man of my life.

Years went by, I studied, made friends, studied, lost friends, went on university trips, danced a lot, and then, half-way through the course, I met a tall, slim young man dressed in denim, with blonde hair in gentle curls falling to his shoulders, and my heart skipped a beat.

Our days were spent preparing exams over espressos at the sophisticated Bečka kafana, Vienna Café, in the hundred-year-old Hotel Europe. We sat at our favourite window table for hours, bent over our university books, two espresso cups in front of us hardly touched.  The waiters never asked us to leave, no matter how long we stayed. Occasionally, they would walk past and ask if we wanted anything else but didn’t mind if we did or didn’t order more. The café was never so crowded that we needed to leave our places for other guests.  Bečka kafana was considered an expensive place to have a coffee in Sarajevo, not many people wanted to spend that much for a little cup of Italian espresso coffee. Most people preferred Turkish coffee. The quietness of the place was another thing that an average Sarajevan did not appreciate much. But to us, the absence of noise was essential for our visits so we kept paying an exorbitant price for a cup of coffee.

In the evenings we went to Sloga, the gathering place for an amateur artists’ company. Goran was a member long before he met me, and an active participant in their performances, as either a support actor, or more often the guy in charge of lighting. The people I met at Sloga were actors, directors, journalists and musicians. Such a different crowd from my scientifically-minded university colleagues. Surrounded by the clouds of smoke, the clinking of glasses and loud conversations, I observed them with curiosity. Most of them didn’t attend university or go to work. I stared at them in wonder and daydreamed about one day becoming an artist like them, a writer maybe. I imagined my days spent typing at a desk, with a thick woollen scarf over my shoulders to keep me warm, and a cup of tea at my reach. Nevertheless, I kept studying for my engineering degree, knowing that it would bring me a job and the financial independence I craved. While others stayed drinking and smoking until the early hours of the next morning, I returned home early to get enough sleep before attending university classes the following day. Around ten every night Goran and I walked to the nearest bus stop and took bus number twelve to the suburb of Grbavica, where I lived with my parents. Although Sarajevo was the safest place on earth to walk around at night, it was unimaginable that Goran would let me go home by myself. He never did. The fifteen minutes bus ride was another fifteen minutes to spend together.

Inevitably, every night, we had to say goodbye to each other. After three years of dating we wanted to be together all the time, to live together. In Sarajevo, a place with very strong traditional values, living with a partner assumed being married. Immediately after graduating we decided to get married.

Since both of us had only just started to work, we couldn’t afford a big wedding, nor did we see any reason to make it big. It was just a legal formality to please our parents. As soon as we found an apartment to rent, we booked a time at the registry office.

On a beautiful and unusually sunny day in February the five of us met at my parents’ place: my future husband and me, my friend from university and Goran’s cousin as our witnesses, and the cousin’s wife. My mum and dad, a little confused about how minimal we wanted everything to be, invited the guests in.

We sat on two couches upholstered in red fabric, matching cushions supporting our backs. I looked around the living room as if I had never seen it before, trying to absorb every detail of the beautiful furniture my dad had made. This room turned into my parents’ bedroom at night—one of the couches unfolded and a thin mattress, pillows and covers would be pulled out from its stomach underneath and a comfortable bed would materialise in minutes.

In the belly of the other couch my mum kept her special treasures: dresses made from exotic fabrics, their style out of fashion, but the fabric too beautiful to part with; a couple of her old handbags for which I hadn’t yet found a purpose and had left alone. In one of them, made from intricately embroidered beige leather, my mum kept the most important parts of our lives: our birth certificates and my parents’ marriage certificate, hand-written documents, folded in four, the paper yellowish, ink faded, corners frayed, with a tiny hole in the centre when unfolded.

Her old pearl necklace that needed re-stringing was tucked in an inside pocket and a small number of black-and-white photographs stored in a faded blue envelope. My mum and dad’s families, my grandmothers and uncles in their best Sunday clothes, arranged in striking poses by a photographer, smiled at me from the photographs while I imagined their lives, which I knew so little about. Most of them lived in Livno, a small town less than two hundred kilometres west of Sarajevo. Our yearly pilgrimage to the place where both my parents were born and lived until they got married and moved to Sarajevo, a day-long bus trip, was the highlight of my summer holidays.

My mum’s family gatherings revealed some sketchy details of their lives together, the ‘who’s-who’ in the family: the funny uncle, the cheeky uncle, the serious uncle, the smart uncle, and my mum, the eldest of five, who looked after them for many years, after their dad died and their mum became ill. Many hilarious childhood stories were retold year after year. ‘Do you remember that summer when we skipped school and went swimming in the river? And how clumsily you slipped on the rock and broke your arm? There was no way we could avoid telling mum where we were when we got you home all wet and with your arm bandaged with my shirt!’ While the adults roared in endless laughter, I sat there with hazy eyes, imagining their younger, mischievous versions running in the fields, hopping from rock to rock in the river, teasing each other.

The atmosphere in the miniscule musty house above a vast field of sunflowers, where my paternal grandmother lived, was not as cheerful, but her love for us, for me, filled the air with an energy that made me light and happy.

My mum’s voice interrupted my musings, ‘Please, help yourselves to cake.’

Cakes and drinks were served on the beautiful round dining table covered by my mum’s hand-crocheted tablecloth. We barely touched them. A bite and a sip. Each one of us nervous for different reasons. Mum and dad a little sad; their only daughter was moving out. Goran and I excited, yet unsure of how the day would unfold.

It was a simple ceremony in the registry office, with only five of us. In an above the knee skirt in beige-brown pepito fabric, with folded pleats, matching shirt in beige silk, brown blazer, and Italian black boots, with the glossy shine of a mirror, I looked like I did every day on my way to work. No white dress, nothing new, nothing borrowed, nothing blue. My own light make-up and freshly washed hair. No make-up artists, no hairdressers. Goran, in his only suit, made from a light-brown fabric, unexpectedly colour-matched my outfit. Tall and slim, with his long, blonde curly hair and his trademark dark beard, he looked very handsome. We listened to the celebrant’s short speech, signed our marriage certificates and that was it—we were married. Moving from our parents’ places to our own place, we felt grown-up.

From our rental place in the heart of Sarajevo, in Vase Miskina Street, most days after work we walked to Baščaršija, the Sarajevo old-town, treating ourselves to pita or ćevapi for dinner. We still went to Sloga, and still enjoyed having an espresso on Sunday mornings at Bečka Kafana.

Then unexpectedly, Goran was called to the Yugoslav National Army. All Yugoslav men had to serve a year-long service before they turned twenty-seven, unless they were studying or had health issues. Having completed his university course, Goran had no valid excuse to postpone it further. He went to Kosovo, one of the two autonomous provinces within Serbia, to serve in the army, and I returned to my parents, who were delighted to have me back for a while.

While in the army, for the first time in his life, Goran was questioned about his nationality. Goran’s mother was born in Serbia, her grandfather was an Orthodox priest. Goran’s father was of Bosnian Muslim heritage, his mother wore dimije, traditional Bosnian Muslim attire and prayed every day. Neither of Goran’s parents practised religion. With such origins Goran could not see himself as anything else but a Yugoslav.  And then he married me, the daughter of a family with Croatian Catholic origins. In ethnically mixed Sarajevo, many marriages were like ours. We shared the same sentiment—we were Yugoslavs.  For some reason, this idea of Yugoslavian nationality did not agree with his army superior. He gave Goran a tough time for declaring his nationality as Yugoslavian. ‘You are supposed to be either Croat, Serb, Muslim, or any other nationality but not Yugoslav. A Yugoslav does not fit anywhere,’ he was told.

We did not think much of it; we thought the army guy was a bit odd, that was it. How could he not accept the Yugoslavian nationality? After all, in the 1981 census five percent of people in Yugoslavia declared their nationality as Yugoslav. We had no idea that already in 1981 in many parts of Yugoslavia nationalism was becoming stronger and everyone would soon be expected to pick a side. After Goran completed his army service, we returned to our life together and rarely talked about this.

A few years later our son was born.

During Dario’s early years, Goran often travelled for work. He worked for the team that built and implemented software for the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984 and later travelled to places hosting similar events to install their timing and scoring software and run it during the events. It was difficult for me to work full-time with a baby at home, even though my mum looked after Dario while I was at work. Once Dario started going to crèche, every workday was the same perpetual rush: crèche-work-crèche-supermarket-home. There were days when it rained in the morning and I left the house with a raincoat and a big umbrella, only for it to warm up while I was at work. Returning home on these days I would walk up the stairs to our apartment on the fourth floor sweaty, skin sticking to the clothes underneath the raincoat, shopping bags hanging in both hands, handbag falling off my shoulder, the umbrella’s handle hurting my forearm, its long spiky end racketing on the stairs. Little Dario behind me, tired from running around crèche all day, pulling at my raincoat belt repeating, from the first floor up, ‘Mama, how many more stairs? I’m tired, I can’t walk anymore.’

Permanently exhausted and overwhelmed, I could not imagine another child trailing behind me. On Dario’s fifth birthday, Goran’s sister, already a mother of two, asked, ‘When are you planning the second one? Dario is already five. You don’t want him to grow up as an only child.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘What’s wrong with being an only child? I’m an only child and I turned out fine, didn’t I?’ Goran kept quiet. Reluctant to raise it after the guests went home, assuming Goran would definitely want another child, I kept tossing the question of the second child in my thoughts, unable to convince myself either way.

One evening, while Dario was asleep and the two of us were relaxing with cups of tea, I blurted out, ‘Do you think we should have another child?’

Unprepared for the question, but obviously having thought about it before, Goran reached for my hand. ‘I am so often away from home, and I don’t know what my work will look like in the years to come. Maybe I will continue to be