Deborah Fink, Soprano and Dominic Saunders, Piano
Ravel:
"Kaddisch" ("Pray for the Dead" – in Aramaic)
from "Deux Melodies Hebraïques"
Wolfgang Amadeus Brülhart, A Talk
(The views expressed in this talk are purely personal)
W. A. Brülhart, carrying a "Swiss Cultural Task Force Bosnia" helmet under his arm, enters the Lecture Hall with three suitcases, sets them down, goes to the lectern and turns to the audience.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On 2 January this year I made my way from the centre of Sarajevo through "Snipers’ Alley" to the airport. After a security check on arrival at the airport I handed over my three suitcases for the flight from Sarajevo via Vienna to London. Goodbye Sarajevo! I was very sad. I had grown fond of many people in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the previous 30 months. It was with a heavy heart that I left Sarajevo that day.
I alone arrived at London Heathrow – the three suitcases appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth. A bad omen, I thought to myself! Or a sign that I should have stayed in Sarajevo? Or did my memories simply not want to travel with me, but to remain in Sarajevo?
Without any cases I boarded the Heathrow Express which brought me to Paddington Station, and from there I took a bus to an hotel in Edgware Road. From my room I had a view over part of London. Everything was normal, as it had been previously in Switzerland. When I turned on the tap, water came out of the pipes; I could have a hot shower, there was electricity too, all the houses had a roof, and in this huge city there was a constant stream of traffic even during the night. I experienced a genuine culture shock.
For the next 36 hours I did not leave the hotel. I stayed in my room, I expressed solidarity with "my suitcases", in my thoughts I was still in Sarajevo. I remembered Christmas 1997, for example. I quote from my book "Between Life and Death":
"24 December 1997. I awoke. I was in Sarajevo. Had I been at home in Switzerland, this day would be Christmas for me. But I could not conjure up any Christmas spirit this particular Christmas, 1997.
Mountains fence in this city. On this "Christmas Day", Sarajevo also had a roof over its head – the clouds hung low, and it was raining. I felt as if trapped in a well. How frightening it must have been for my neighbours during the four years of war.
In the twenty months just past, I have lived between life and death. Not in the actual, but in spirit. Many, many people have shared with me their personal tragedies of this tragic time. Listening, I tried to picture the atrocities, acute suffering and pain of war, and the desperate "joie de vivre" despite hopelessness. Life and death thus became my neighbours.
Throughout my time in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I have been most acutely aware of the proximity of life and death within Sarajevo. Cemeteries are everywhere in this city, and indeed everywhere else; they border on kitchens and gardens, parks and markets.
Amidst the gloom and sadness of this "Christmas Day" I walked through the cemeteries in and around Sarajevo with Sophie, of the Centre André Malraux, and Dragan, my Bosnian friend. A cemetery walk. Our journey also took us near the Jewish Cemetery at Kovacici, but Dragan reminded us that we dare not enter, as it was very heavily mined. We were confronted with the fragility of our own lives. We saw graves of people of our own age, killed during the war. We thought to ourselves, "How long do we still have to live?" and asked ourselves, "Why did all these people have to die? Could many have been saved if the international community had intervened earlier and more resolutely?"
Our helplessness made us still. We remained still and silent. We moved amongst hundreds of graves without making any noise, glancing at the names and the years of birth and death. We were on the move the entire day, and in the evening we were exhausted from the very weight of all we had seen on our pilgrimage – the suffering and wounds of this war seared deep within us.
On this "Christmas Day", each of us went home, alone."
The first night in London I slept badly. I missed the voice of the Muezzin, for example, I missed the peal of bells from the cathedral, I missed the Bosnian coffee and the cigarette smoke. I missed my friends, I missed my colleagues at the Embassy, I missed my cat IFOR, I missed Dragan, my assistant, and I missed Joy, my wife whom I had met in Sarajevo.
The next morning one case arrived. The other two were still missing.
W. A. Brülhart picks up one case and leaves the Lecture Hall.
Deborah Fink, Soprano and Dominic Saunders, Piano
Robin Orr:
"Tell Me Now"
"The Little Cart"
from "Three Chinese Songs"