Atdtda34: Comradely persistence, 968-971 #3

[Paul Nightingale]

Reef's suggestion that Albanians 'are usually so ... friendly' (970) recalls
the view that 'the folks there [are] warm and hospitable' (bottom of 967):
that earlier comment features in a paragraph that begins with Yashmeen
quoting Cyprian (as well as '[e]verybody', of course). If, then, Cyprian
casts something of a shadow here - and he again features ('Cyprian had been
pretty repetitious on that point') at the start of the Ksenija passage (969)
- what happens next takes Reef back to a time before he knew Cyprian or
Yashmeen: 'This is the American who saved my life back in the Swiss tunnel!'
His reunion with Ramiz follows the earlier reference to the Chums and
Pugnax: fictionalised thus, Reef does indeed lead a charmed existence, one
that distances him from the realities of war as emphatically as
illustrations 'reproduced not in simple black and white but varying shades
of green' (968). Hence we might consider these passages in the light of what
follows, the section concluding on 971 with a description of Reef and
Yashmeen bound together. If Cyprian has continued to be a (spoken/unspoken)
presence in these pages, the section's final paragraph sees
Reef/Yashmeen/Ljubica departing as a threesome bound together and lacking
nothing. Reef and Yashmeen are inseparable here, their pose ('a comradely
persistence ...' etc) sculpted. And then, the reader is further distanced by
a reference to what will happen: '... both remembered feeling ...' etc.