The Question of Bruno the Teddy Bear

This past Sunday, 60 Minutes aired a story about Syria.  One of the segments involved children caught in war, and how they reacted to it.  One of the children, a small boy, began to describe the ways in how to avoid a sniper.  He explained which streets he takes in order to avoid the sniper.  The war is normal.

Of course, what appeared on the television screen (which included murdered children) reminded me of my own childhood spent in war and refugee camps.  I averted the gaze from the screen.  I didn’t want to look at it.  I kept making a list in my planner of all the things I had to do the next morning.  My eyes began to fill with tears but I quickly rubbed my face and continued making my list.  The next morning, I reflected on my avoidance of emotion.  I should have cried.  I have cried in the past, but I have never wept or grieved. 

When will be the time to speak about the war?  And why am I putting it off?  Yesterday, I had one of those “you’re an American with first world problems, and I’m a Bosnian-American with difficult past” moments.  Listening to your dental hygienist go on and on about how she wants a piece of jewelry for Christmas from her husband, and the woes of Christmas gifts and parties, is not the way I want to spend part of my day.  Particularly in a dentist chair. 

“And do you exchange gifts with your husband?” she says.

“No.”

“Oh. Don’t you want something for Christmas?”

“Not really.  That kind of stuff does not matter to me.”

“Didn’t you bring some Christmas things?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re from Bosnia.  Didn’t you bring some things, like, you know how Ukrainians have…”

Ukrainians?  What?  Yes, of course, how could I be so silly!  Everyone who leaves a war torn country, and in the middle of the siege, in a convoy of women and children, thinks “I better bring those Christmas decorations with me!”  But I did not say that.

“This was not a part of growing up for me.  As a Muslim, I did not celebrate Christmas,” I said.

“Oh, you’re a Muslim,” she says with that tone in her voice which is composed of judgment (“What if she’s a terrorist?”) and a complete lack of knowledge of what a Bosnian Muslim is (“shouldn’t she be wearing one of those scarf whatchamacallits?”).

Well, I was happy to be done.  I didn’t blame her for saying what she said.  But at the same time, I was irritated.  You get so sick of these questions and lines people throw at you.  I was recounting the story to my husband.  We were laughing together, and he said, “These people would be weepy if you told them that you left your favorite teddy bear in the war, but would not flinch if you told them that you left your father behind.”

He was right.  So, why?  Is it easier to deal with teddy bears and Christmas decorations than with mass murder?  I understand: even teddy bears are part of the orderly, normal life any child has and even teddy bears perish in the war.  I suppose, as children of war, we must grieve our teddy bears too.  Teddy bears are our symbols of innocence lost.  The normalcy of playing and carrying a teddy bear is gone and evading a sniper becomes the new normal. 

Mine was black.  I don’t believe I ever gave him a name.  For whatever reason, I want to say “Bruno,” but maybe I am just making stuff up.  Maybe I am just thinking about our neighbor in Sarajevo who had the same name, or about Aleksandar Hemon’s book The Question of Bruno.  I bought him brand-new in 1984, right after the Olympic Games and at the time, my parents and I were moving into our brand-new condo.  It was a rainy day, I remember, and I held Bruno (let’s just call him that) very tightly.  I was afraid he might slip away because he was as big as I was.  Or maybe as a five-year-old I thought that, since everything is bigger and longer when you are a child.

I don’t think I ever fell asleep with him next to me.  He was always sitting on the chair which was next to my bed, and his role was primarily that of an audience when I would give lectures about whatever subject came to my mind.  (You can guess: I was an only child!). 

I do not know where Bruno is, or what happened to him.  Another unresolved memory.  Another image floating in my mind that has lost meaning.  Another question. 

I sigh as a write this.  I get irritated with an overabundance of American sentimentality.  I’ve lived a tough life, I want to scream.  Yes, that is true.  But I too had a teddy bear before the war.  I may not have been sentimental about it, nor am I sentimental about it now.  But I am a child of war, who was thrown into the darkness.