War Torn (2003)

John Marks's novel, published by Riverhead in 2003, moves between Berlin and the Bosnian war. Arthur Cape, a journalist living in Berlin, falls for Marta Mehmedovic, who works at the Adria Travel Agency and is married to Tino, a charming Bosnian with Italian affectations who once ran a restaurant near the Old Bridge in Mostar. When the war comes Marta is trapped in Mostar, and Arthur sets out to bring her out. (Open Library)

Watches

Cartier (unidentified model): On the morning Tino leaves Berlin on a flight, he lifts the hand holding his carry-on and glances again at his Cartier, of which he is justifiably proud because Marta bought it for him; she pictures him later tracking boar in Poland in the Cartier and a suede jacket. In wartime Mostar, Marta still catches herself checking the back of her wrist for her husband's Cartier, though she sold it long ago for a packet of United Nations rice and a bucket of East German laundry detergent. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: Tino lifted the hand holding the carry-on and glanced again at his Cartier, of which he was justifiably proud (she had bought it for him). (John Marks, War Torn, scan cataloged as Riverhead Books, 2003, p. 37; Marta remembers selling it on p. 161; Internet Archive scan OCR)