The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 37. "NEITHER QUICKLY FREE NOR QUITE DEAD" ARRIVED THAT EVENING in Sarajevo, the detective took me in a taxi to the address given by Von Nassenstein. The place was closed, the friend away. Perturbed, the detective sent for a Gestapo officer While we waited I sat down on the stone steps of the drive-in, and he asked if I should like anything. I said tea. "With rum?" Amused, I answered, "Certainly," and, sure enough, a runner was dispatched and brought it: it was the last time I tasted spirits for thirteen months. A Gestapo officer arrived and angrily ordered me back into the taxi. Against my protests he drove me to the prison and handed me over to the Goat prison warders. This prison was a huge old gloomy place obviously ex-Turkish. But the atmosphere was peculiar. It was paternal in a curious way. The big, fat policemen were tough but good-natured. They were obviously anything but delighted at the sudden rush of business that always follows German triumphs. The place was packed with people who never before could have been thought of as criminals: respectable businessmen and simple housewives, mixed with ladies of light morals. To the large, red-faced turnkey who took me upstairs to my cell I said: "I will be alone?" I hoped so, but he, thinking I was frightened, said soothingly, "No, no, certainly not!" He called a nice-looking woman from another cell, put us together into a small cell, and locked the door. This was the real thing in prisons. There was a small barred window high up, and under it some sloping boards: evidently the common bed. Not even a bench or stool. And in the corner by the door a stinking, open drain of a toilet, not cleaned for days or ever. My cell mate told me in good German that her husband, a Jew, was also in the prison. She described how every Jewish shop, even the humblest, had been instantly closed by the Germans and labeled with their usual idiotic signs such as "bloodsucker" etc. Here they were safe, at least for the present. By standing on the slanting bed-board I could catch a glimpse of the huddled roofs of the lovely old town, from which rose numbers of slim white minarets. These, now rosy with sunset, were slowly being engulfed by the shadows of the high surrounding mountains. A few lights sprang up, and the bright southern stars swung low. I thought sadly how I had looked forward to visiting Sarajevo with good and merry friends: in all my travels I had kept this very interesting and beautiful place as a sort of bonne-bouche, hoping to give it at least ten days of happy exploration. It was strange, after all my eager anticipation, to see it at last as a little picture framed by heavy prison bars. "Oh dear," said my cellmate, "we shall be dull here alone. Wouldn't you like your fortune told?" Surprised, I said I should be delighted. She went to the little peephole in the door and yelled for the guard until at last he lumbered up, unlocked the door, and stood there smiling. "Look," she said confidentially, "we're awfully bored. Can't we have the girls from my old cell in here for a bit?" "Well, all right," said he, "why not?" And soon in trooped fifteen women of the sort usually labeled "street walkers," some obviously suffering from a certain disease but all extremely cheerful. Here was indeed something new. But I soon forgot my perhaps excessive hygienic alarm in the general jollity. After formal introductions we laughed, we sang and told stories. We sat on the floor played clapping games, and otherwise enjoyed ourselves with childlike simplicity and sincerity. They were all quite ordinary, small-time prostitutes except one, a girl of less than fifteen, a pure-blooded Gypsy. She was a wild creature, all fire, all passion, all hate. Her large melting eyes with their sweeping lashes gazed out as from the ambush of her long, unkempt, blue-black hair. The wild-rose color came and went in her little heart-shaped, dusky face. She danced and sang for us, and the movements of her delicate yet hard hands and bare feet were exquisite. Some chunks of bread were brought in by the guard. As I had eaten well all day, I was not hungry. So my bread was eagerly seized upon, and with part of it we rolled little balls about the size of beans. With these Maroosia, the Gypsy, told my fortune. It was the first time I had seen this method, which I believe is strictly Balkan. Later I learned to do it myself, as did all the women in those interminable prison days. There were forty-two beans. You divided them into three haphazard piles, counted them in fours, and arranged the leftovers in a certain way. It was pitiful to see how eagerly the women searched for and clung to any hopeful indications. Maroosia, now cross-legged on the floor, went into a kind of trance. She made solemn cabalistic signs. Then, in a singsong voice she said: "You are on a long journey-a long, long journey. You think that either you will die quickly or quickly be free. You will be neither: neither quickly free nor quite dead. Pain and sorrow, great sorrow. But at the end-the sea. Wide is the sea, wide, very wide. But it is far away-and bitter the road to the sea." That was all; more she could not or would not say. As it was now about ten o'clock my first cellmate again shouted for the guard and, when he came, suggested that the others should return to their cell. But, no, he told us, their places had already been filled up. They must remain here. We settled down as best we could, seventeen on the rough floor of that small, stinking cell. There were no blankets, though it grew cold. Of that hideous night I will only say that, as soon as the light went out, bugs in hordes crept from the wide, filthy cracks, and as I was not yet hardened to them, I spent the whole night in frantic, squashing slaughter. Do you know what crushed bedbugs smell like? The mingling of aromas was indescribable. My companions slept serenely if noisily. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel