8
" Na manhã do dia em cuja noite acabou morrendo, vovô Slavko esculpiu uma varinha de condão para mim usando um galho de árvore e disse: tanto no chapéu quanto na varinha existe um poder mágico, se tu usares o chapéu e carregares a varinha, vais te tornar o mais poderoso mágico de capacidades entre os países que não fazem parte do bloco. Poderás revolucionar muitas coisas, na medida em que isso estiver em conformidade com as ideias de Tito e concordar com os estatutos da Aliança dos Comunistas da Iugoslávia.
Eu duvidava da magia, mas não duvidava do meu avô. A graça mais valiosa é a inventividade, a maior riqueza é a fantasia. Guarda isso, Aleksandar, disse vovô com seriedade, enquanto botava o chapéu em mim, guarda isso e imagina um mundo mais bonito. Ele me entregou a varinha. Eu não duvidava de mais nada. "
― Saša Stanišić , How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
9
" Am Morgen des Tages, an dessen Abend er starb, schnitzte mir Opa Slavko aus einem Ast den Zauberstab und sagte: im Hut und im Stab steckt eine Zauberkraft. Trägst du den Hut und schwingst du den Stab, wirst du der mächtigste Fähigkeitenzauberer der blockfreien Staaten sein. Vieles wirst du revolutionieren können, solange es mit den Ideen von Tito konform geht und in Übereinstimmung mit den Statuten des Bundes der Kommunisten Jugoslawiens steht.
Ich zweifelte an der Zauberei, aber ich hatte keine Zweifel an meinem Opa. Die wertvollste Gabe ist die Erfindung, der
größte Reichtum die Fantasie. Merk dir das, Aleksandar, sagte Opa ernst, als er mir den Hut aufsetzte, merk dir das und denk dir die Welt schöner aus. Er übergab mir den Stab, und ich zweifelte an nichts mehr. "
― Saša Stanišić , How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
14
" A good story, you'd have said, is like our river Drina: never calm, it doesn't trickle along, it is rough and broad, tributaries flow in to enrich it, it rises above its banks, it bubbles and roars, here and there it flows into shallows but then it comes to rapids again, preludes to the depths where there's no splashing. But one thing neither the Drina nor the stories can do: there's no going back for any of them. The water can't turn back and choose another bed, just as promises now can't be kept. No drowned man comes up again asking for a towel, no love is found again, no tobacconist fails to be born in the first place, no bullet shoots out of a neck and back into the gun, the dam will hold or will not hold. The Drina has no delta. "
― Saša Stanišić , How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
18
" Grandpa, I haven't remembered all your stories, but I've written a few of my own adn as soon as the rain stops I'll read them to you. I got the idea from Nena Fatima, I got Grandpa Rafik's voice, I got the veins on your son's upper arms, he's painting coconuts now, I got my mother's melencholy. But still I don't have all the things i'd need to tell my story as one of us: I don't have the courage of the river Drina, or the voice of the hawk, or the rock hard backbone of our mountains, or Walrus's infalibility, or the enthusiasum of the man who misses, honorably. And I don't have Armin the stationmaster, Cika Hasan and Cika Sead in their eternal argument, Kiko's leg, Edin who forgets he's imitating a wolf and takes fright at the sound of his own voice, Cauliflower, the names of trees, a stomache for schnapps, the goals scored in the school yard. But most of all I miss the truth, the truth in which we are no longer listeners or storytellers, but we give and forgive. "
― Saša Stanišić , How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
