The Cellist of Sarajevo: Three: Dragan Summary & Analysis

A small group of people gather around Emina, trying to see how badly injured her arm is. Someone hands Dragan Emina’s blue coat as they tie a tourniquet below her shoulder. Emina continues to bleed as more gunfire erupts in the enemy controlled neighborhood Grbavica. Dragan kneels beside Emina, noting that she doesn’t seem to be in much pain. Emina comments that she had wanted to see the cellist play on his last day. A car approaches and the crowd flags it down so it can take Emina to the hospital.

Two men load Emina into the car. Dragan wishes he could go with her, but knows that it is not his place. A man who saw the incident assures Dragan that Emina’s wound is as non-threatening as a gunshot wound can be. The car pulls away and Dragan sits behind the boxcar. He finds the bottle of pills that Emina had been delivering in Emina’s coat, then throws the coat on the ground. It has bloodstains now and no one will want it.

Dragan looks at the body still on the street, again wondering if it is better to be killed or wounded. He decides that what makes the difference is whether he wants to stay in the world he lives in and whether life is worth the fear of death. Surprisingly, Dragan finds that he thinks life is still worth it.

A month ago, Dragan had been forcibly conscripted by an army gang, even though his job at the bakery renders him exempt from the draft. He spends three days digging ditches with no idea how close he is to enemy fire, and with no food. In that pit, Dragan had decided he would rather die than live like this. His boss at the bakery had eventually found Dragan and gotten him released back to the bakery, but by then Dragan had already given up on his life in the city. Now, after seeing Emina, Dragan realizes that the city still holds opportunity for connection.

Dragan wishes that he had rushed into the street to help Emina, but he is also comfortable with his cowardice. He was not built for war and he does not want to be built for war. Dragan thinks about abandoning his trip to the bakery, going home, and trying to do something nice for his brother-in-law. He imagines himself going to the tunnel under the airport and escaping Sarajevo for good. He walks through the trip that would take him to Italy to reunite with his wife and son. It would be wonderful to live with them in a safe city with no one hating them and no one to hate.

A shell falling interrupts Dragan’s thoughts of escape. He listens to the shells and gunfire, wondering if the men on the hill also want this violence to be over. Dragan has never understood why the men on the hill saw people like him as a threat and he doesn’t see what killing the Sarajevans will accomplish. Dragan realizes that he doesn’t truly want to live in Italy. He wants to be free to live in the Sarajevo of his birth and he must stay here now to keep the hope of returning to that Sarajevo alive.