All is torn in love and war

Eric J. Blommel, Special To The News

Friday, December 26, 2003

Following up his acclaimed thriller The Wall, journalist John Marks launches a new story from Berlin. This time it's a romance, set against the backdrop of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Texan Arthur Cape has just landed a spectacular new assignment. Earning his lumps covering the economy in India on behalf of an international news magazine, the publication now offers him the opportunity to cover the unification of Germany at the end of the Cold War.

Promised accommodations in the wonderful Grand Kempinski hotel, he quickly becomes disillusioned on two points. First, his regional supervisor will be heading up the unification coverage. Second, that supervisor has taken his room at the hotel. Adding injury to insult, Berlin is booked to the gills for the unification ceremonies.

Through a series of events, Arthur meets a Balkan woman named Marta Mehmedovic, who is obliged by the circumstances to rent him a room in her apartment.

She works as a travel agent, and lives with her husband, Tino, and little son, Pino. Tino is back in their hometown of Mostar on business when Arthur meets Marta, but Marta's sister Dubravka stays with them during her visit from Mostar. (Mostar was part of Yugoslavia at that time, but is now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina).

A contentious love affair quickly develops between Arthur and Marta. Arthur falls for Marta's beauty and depth of character, enhanced by her historical sense of identity. Marta falls for Arthur, in part, because there are many reasons for her to abandon Tino. Chief among them is the fact that he wants the family back in Mostar, despite the danger of growing political tensions.

When Tino catches wind of the affair, he tricks Marta into moving back home to Mostar with Pino. Arthur remains in Berlin, worried sick about Marta and Pino's safety in the face of unrest in the Balkans. Harrowing scenes of human misery and military violence confirm that war is hell, as the two struggle to survive and reunite.

Marks' five years as Berlin correspondent for U.S. News & World Report come across undeniably in the tone of international news correspondence that permeates his prose. At times, the writing feels choppy or oblique with curtly delivered sentences. At other times, Marks obviously enjoys the increased literary real estate offered by the novel format, and delivers generous passages of poetic description.

Each character in the story is wonderful. Even the jerks are completely authentic. The reader will come away with the sense that Marks recorded these people, rather than invented them. The one character with the least dimension, ironically, is Arthur - presumably a semi-autobiographical character. Yet this feature may exist by design.

Arthur finds himself swept up not only by Marta, but also by sense of historical identity present in the lives of all his European friends and acquaintances. A key exchange between Arthur and Marta explains the difference between Americans like Arthur and the Europeans he meets. Arthur begins:

" . . . I mean, could you imagine disappearing in some big American city, like Chicago or Los Angeles, and starting a new job, with a new family, never looking back, cutting all contact with who you had been before? Could you imagine yourself as a new person?"

"No, I cannot imagine it."

He sighed. "I used to. I used to want to. Do you think that's wrong?"

"I think it's impossible."

Unlike many Americans, with a seemingly endless capacity to reinvent themselves, the identity of Marks' characters endures changing circumstances because they depend on their origins. For these characters, who you are remains largely where you are from.

This quality offers us opportunities for both sympathy and frustration. We watch helplessly as characters like Tino risk their own and others' lives in order to satisfy a sense of values that may be difficult for us to grasp.

This theme of personal versus political identity repeats throughout the novel, aided by the metaphor of "two cities." St. Augustine's notion of the worldly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem extends here to East and West Berlin, East and West Mostar, and the divisions within individuals themselves.

Thus, as the city of Mostar is carved apart by violent political forces, Arthur and Marta find themselves War Torn.

Eric J. Blommel is a freelance writer living in Centennial.