The Atlas

LAST DAY AT THE BAKERY

A t two o'clock on a rainy afternoon, a dozen people waited in front of the bakery. Behind the fence, a man in camouflage stood guard. The people were pale and they shivered. The man in camouflage spoke to someone at the inner door and then approached me, never letting go his gun. I was permitted inside. I could feel the stares of the waiting people in my back.

The name of the director was Mešak Kempl. He was very tired. He said: This bakery has been hit five or six times, and we never stopped for one day. We're still working. But there's been no electricity for the past two weeks, and no diesel, and erratic water. Today for the first time the whole city is without water.

How many bakeries are there?

Before the war, there were two. One is now held by the Chetniks. Two or three hundred private bakeries provided half of our bread, but they're mostly not working now. So it's only this bakery that provides bread for the city. Two weeks ago we made one hundred thousand loaves a day. Even that wasn't enough. Now we make fewer than fifty thousand. Our trucks have been shelled at, shot at — every truck has holes in it! We've had two drivers killed and five severely injured in these five months of war. And after tonight, we will be making no more bread. Well, maybe by some miracle we'll get more diesel…

I could think of nothing to say. There was a fresh loaf of bread on Kempl's desk, and he smiled and offered me a piece.

The only thing we have left is the will to work, he said. The people would prefer it if the plane was full of guns and ammunition, not flour.

He smiled. — We've come to the end, he said.

What will people eat?

There's left some pasta and rice. The pasta factory itself hasn't been working for fifteen days.

He took me into the room that smelled like dough, where two men in white uniforms were straining their arms deep in the mixing bowl because there was not enough diesel to use the electric mixer. — We have only two more bowls' worth left, said Kempl. Then the dough will be finished.

The room was almost dark, but it was warm. Three lights in the entire bank were working. A pretty girl in white was taking loaves of dough off the conveyor belt. Then the fermentation box drew them into darkness, the hygrometer at seventy, rolls and rolls in wheels slowly turning.

There was an immense space of empty floor where it was dark. This place was like the heart of a dying man, still pumping life, but only in negligible quantities and only for a little longer. The fresh brown loaves, smelling so yeasty and good, slowly rolled off the last conveyor. There were no loaves before them, and none after. Those hot brown loaves spiralled down to the basement like golden squirrels, to be caught by a girl in white who loaded them into cartons.

The director shook my hand politely. He offered me a loaf of bread to take with me. As I went back into the chilly rainy afternoon and passed the line, which had now grown to fifty people, the tears burst out of my eyes.