Diary of Interrupted Days

by Dragan Todorovic

  “What did you mean?”

  “Well, you’ve been hired to keep us safe.”

  “Hired?”

  “Paid.”

  “I wasn’t paid. I was conscripted. They brought us here.”

  “Bullshit. The truce is holding, but some Croatian paramilitaries wander around killing Serbs. We didn’t have much faith in the army so we looked for someone to hire. The Candyman was paid. The majority of people here have someone working abroad and we raised the money easily. We gave the Candyman half in advance. Ask for your share.”

  Johnny felt the adrenaline surging into his temples. “Look at me. Look at my hands. I play guitar, damn it! Do you think I would be vomiting after seeing a dead man if I was with them? I’m telling you: I was kidnapped, for fuck’s sake!”

  She took a step back.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think of me, but don’t say I’m one of them.”

  “I don’t care if you’re with them or not, just don’t yell,” she said. “If you’re not with them, they shouldn’t hear you.”

  Johnny sat down at the table. “I’ve got to go home. I’ve got to.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Some time after one in the morning, the village was quiet again. It happened in stages, the aural remains of the conflict slowly withdrawing before the sounds that lived here. Johnny and three other soldiers were to sleep in Mira’s house that night. The back room was small and windowless with a concrete floor. Apparently it was a storage space but it felt safe, and after some straw was laid on top of the concrete, it felt warm.

  As his comrades snored, Johnny pondered.

  The whole action had been surprisingly short. Shots had been fired from many guns outside the village with only five or six guns responding. After half an hour or so, three of the Croatian paramilitaries had been found dead—as was reported by the Candyman’s people—and two had been caught trying to sneak through the woods. The rest, it was said, had run away. Strange, no one made a big fuss about those who had disappeared. According to the numbers that Pap had reported, some thirty combatants had vanished. Could they not warn their forces in the next village, only a few miles away? Could they not, then, attack in a few hours, tonight? Lies. Again. Johnny tried to see the time on his Rolex, but no light shone through the open door and he gave up.

  MACHINE. December 14, 1992

  Morning came wrapped up in fog, ironing the place into an ugly mass of colourless shapes. Johnny stood by the front gate wondering where to go. A giant shadow thickened as it approached. He recognized Black.

  “Lost your virginity, eh?”

  Johnny’s back straightened a little.

  “What do you say? Do you like the smell of shooting now?”

  Johnny scratched the stubble on his chin. “Do you have any idea where can I find Pap?”

  “It’s easy, man. Always look for bosses in the safest area—in this case the house in the middle of the village, the big orange one. I just came from there.”

  Black looked inquisitively at the square grey shape behind Johnny. “You slept here? Comfy?”

  “Not really,” Johnny said. “They put us into a storage room without windows. Black, I found a dead civilian last night. There weren’t any weapons on him, and it looked as if he was shot in the back.”

  Black slowly put two fingers into his pocket, took out a pack of gum, pulled out a piece and unwrapped it. “I told you not to look around too much, didn’t I,” he finally said, putting the gum into his mouth.

  “This is business, right, this whole thing?”

  Black squinted at him. “Who told you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know.”

  Black sighed. “This is a machine, Johnny. We can’t have a gear turning in the opposite direction to everything else. Its teeth will get broken right away. If you even hiss about this to anyone else, that’s it, you understand?”

  Johnny opened his mouth, than changed his mind and just nodded.

  “Be serious about it, man. All right?” Black disappeared into the fog.

  A few minutes later, Johnny was in front of the largest building in the village. Two Black Lions stood guard by the door.

  “I’m here to see Pap,” he said. The men waved him inside.

  The hall was more silent that Johnny had expected. There were no radio sounds, no telephones ringing, nothing that would make the soundscape of a command post. A woman in a black scarf appeared from the back of the house, carrying a tray with coffee cups and brandy glasses. She went through a door on his left and he went after her. Pap was sitting with one of the sergeants and a stocky man in his early sixties.

  “Ah, now we shall have a concert to celebrate the victory,” Pap said when he saw Johnny. “Come, sit with us. This is our host, Mr. Marko.”

  The man nodded without extending his hand.

  “I’m sorry, Captain, I don’t mean to intrude. Can I have a word with you, please? It’s urgent.”

  “Urgent? I don’t hear any shots outside.”

  “I have information you would want to know, Captain.”

  “All right.”

  Pap got up and led him down the corridor to some sort of an office, with a typewriter and fax machine on the desk in the corner.

  “Sit,” said Pap. “What is it?”

  “One of the locals told me last night that the village has paid the Candyman for protection. They gave him half in advance. I don’t know who we fought last night but there were fewer of them than you told us to expect. I’m thinking we’ve all been caught in the Candyman’s net.”

  “They didn’t say how much money was involved?”

  “No. But I could probably find out, if you wish.”

  “Leave it to me,” Pap said. “We don’t know who to trust here. Don’t talk to anyone about this. You haven’t so far, I hope?”

  “No,” said Johnny.

  “Good. If this is true, my friend, we shall take a trip to Belgrade, the two of us. I have some high-level talking to do.”

  The rest of the day dragged by. After leaving the orange house, Johnny went for a walk. As the wind lifted the fog in long, slow waves, the village appeared—two rows of serious houses on the sides of the wide road with several short cross streets leading nowhere in particular. Why do people live in such places? He had been through villages with gardens, orchards, wells, beauty, and had always been able to understand their attraction, but this was a mutant. It was as if its inhabitants’ rationale was simply to outdo their neighbours, building ever larger, uglier buildings. This was the germinating seed of an ugly town, and—after he stumbled upon that thought in his head—the violence from the previous night suddenly seemed understandable. Not understandable, he corrected himself, but logical. If you decide to build several ugly houses together with the idea that they will grow into an ugly town, why not expect violence? Ugliness oozes aggression.

  He passed a bar already full of soldiers and paramilitaries and went into a small place on one of the side streets. Two older men were sitting at a corner table, drinking coffee and shots of brandy, and a serious-looking woman tended bar. He ordered some eggs and bacon, sat in the opposite corner from the men, and took out his notebook. He ate his breakfast slowly, and then drank a coffee, without being able to come up with a single word. Anything he put down on paper would fortify this place in his memory and he did not want that to happen. Finally, he closed the notebook and put it back in his pocket. One of the old men, in a red-checkered shirt that looked like a member of the family of tablecloths, had been glancing at him every so often. Now that the bridge was open, he said, “Where are you from, son?”

  “From Belgrade, grandpa. How is life here?”

  “Why, are you thinking of moving?”

  Johnny saw the mischievous shine in his eye, and smiled. “Everything’s possible.”

  “Not now, it isn’t,” the man’s companion said. A pair of glasses protruded from the breast pocket of his ancient jacket, and his bushy eyebrows connec
ted above his nose.

  “Join us,” said Tablecloth Shirt.

  Johnny took his cup and moved to their table. “How did you sleep last night?”

  “Like the princess on the pea,” said Tablecloth Shirt. “There must have been a bullet under my mattress.”

  He and Johnny laughed. Eyebrows remained serious.

  “This looks like a rich village,” Johnny said.

  “People here are hard-working, son. Almost every house has someone in Germany or Austria. They intend to come back when they retire.”

  “Are there mixed marriages?”

  “A few,” Eyebrows said. “We used to live nicely with one another before this started. Then the idiots came to power. When fools are riding, everyone turns into an ass.”

  Tablecloth Shirt moved his legs under the table.

  “Don’t give me any signals,” Eyebrows said. “This is my place and I’m free to speak as I wish.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not one of them—I’m here by mistake,” Johnny said.

  “See? He’s here by mistake,” Eyebrows said. “No,” he said to Johnny, “I’m here by mistake. I was against this deal. Yeah, there were some fools with guns here, some Croatian boys, but they weren’t doing any harm—this is one of the villages where Serbs are in the majority. Then that idiot Marko decided to bring you in so we can sleep well. I sleep well anyway. I’ve never harmed anyone in my life.”

  “No incidents before we got here?”

  “None,” Eyebrows concluded, offering this as definitive proof.

  “I was told that the Croatian paramilitaries killed someone two nights ago.”

  “Not in this village, son,” Tablecloth Shirt said. “Perhaps somewhere else.”

  “What will happen,” Eyebrows said, “is that now that you are here, they will start paying attention to our village. You’ll see. Weapons draw weapons.”

  CRACKLE. December 15, 1992

  Sara sat at her desk next to the window, one hand on the questionnaires from the embassy, her chin resting on the other. It was evening, cold and wet. She did not really want to finish the questionnaires right now, but neither did she feel like going out. Earlier, she had walked to a small store two blocks away, passing through the pedestrian zone of Knez Mihailova Street. The city felt strange. Normally, at this time of year, Belgrade would be filled with lights and laughter, with people hurrying to buy presents. Now, the city seemed undecided as to whether to get ready for the holidays as usual or bow its head in silence. Or perhaps that was her situation. Boris’s connections had not come up with any new information, and she still could neither negate nor confirm the rumour that she had overheard that night at the awards.

  She peeked under the bandage on her palm. The cuts were almost healed but she kept them covered to remind her to keep her hand out of trouble.

  Why Canada? Because you can cut out your own space, Boris had said. When you go to a country in Europe, you feel that if you are lucky you can fit in but not change anything there. In the countries of the New World—Canada, New Zealand, Australia, even the States—nothing has been finalized yet. Not only can you fit in, you can change it. You can make a place that is brand new, yours only. You can leave an imprint.

  If she filled in the questionnaire tonight she would be doing something for Johnny. Now that this thing had happened, his being drafted and all, she expected that he, too, would want to apply for exit papers. She had asked Boris for two applications, which he brought back from the Canadian embassy for her. Hers was done except for one question. How did you answer: “Have you taken part, in any way, in the current armed conflict?”

  She could lie about it. One flat “No” and that would be that. The Yugoslav Army hardly shared their lists with foreign embassies. But she had heard that the Canadians had their ways of checking these things, and that even a white lie would mean the application wouldn’t be processed. How could she write a no when she felt that everyone and everything had been affected by this war, and that there was not a single soul in the country who had not taken part in some way?

  That was the problem with such documents—only a single space for an answer that was so difficult. What about those people like Johnny, like herself, who needed more space?

  Boris told her that their chances of getting their Canadian papers would be higher if they were married. Why had they not married yet?

  Behind Sara, a record spun on the turntable. Some Croatian friends had given it to her a few years earlier—an old album of Amália Rodrigues. Her voice was like a flame and her phrasing was beyond description. How can one describe the way a funeral pyre burns? The crackling of the record, played so many times it was a small miracle that the needle still stuck in the grooves, was somehow appropriate. It was precisely how a good film director would use an old record in a wartime love scene. Sara could almost see a candle in the window, the light that would lead the missing back …

  “Shit!” she said aloud. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  She stood up and carefully lifted the needle, then turned the amplifier off.

  DARK HOUSE. December 22, 1992

  Life in the village assumed some form of order. Aside from guard shifts and occasional briefings, there wasn’t much else to do except engage in cruel practical jokes—funny here, too scatological to take home. Three Croatian families decided to move out, and were allowed to go once they agreed to leave everything except their personal belongings behind. The rest of the Croats in the village decided to stay after Pap gave them guarantees that they would be protected. Two nights later, a truck with Serbian plates parked outside one of the deserted homes, and several Lions moved everything saleable from the house into the truck. The same thing happened with the other two homes. Four more unmarked trucks were parked just outside the village, and the Lions stood guard over them—perhaps they were already full of loot and waiting to form a convoy to Serbia.

  Once a day, sometimes twice, the level of alert was raised because of suspicious activities on the Croatian side, but nothing ever happened. Johnny assumed that this was the way to keep fighters less drunk. But the frequent alerts took a toll: arguments broke out between soldiers and Lions and, two days earlier, some drunken conscripts had got into a fight with a couple of villagers. As a result, Pap decided to form a unit of military police. Johnny’s name was on the list with several others. They were supposed to patrol regularly and were entitled to make arrests on the spot.

  The night he became an MP, Johnny dined at Mira’s house. Her mother had chased everyone out of the kitchen so she could have it to herself, so Mira invited Johnny to her room on the upper floor. A TV stood on a glass shelf in the corner, and below it a row of videotapes. A small wardrobe was behind the door, and next to it a makeup stand with a large mirror. Mira left the door open and they sat on the bed by the window.

  Mira’s father was a stocky man in his fifties, his face full of lines. When he had met Johnny for the first time a half-hour earlier, he had not introduced himself—this was his house.

  “What do your parents do?” Johnny said.

  “They both worked in Germany for twenty-two years,” Mira said. “Dad started building this house five years ago, so they could come back after retiring and be somebodies. Then they decided to return while they were still strong, to start a pig farm. They both came just two months before the first gun was fired. Great timing, huh?”

  “You stayed in Germany?”

  “I have a boyfriend in Munich, and they did not want to jeopardize my future with him.”

  “Are you getting married?”

  She shrugged. “We have a long way to go before we’ve earned enough to start a life on our own.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “I work in an electronics store.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “I wanted to persuade them to come back to Germany with me. My father got me a gun instead. They have an arsenal in the basement. Let me show you.”

  He followed her
downstairs.

  “So you’re a policeman now, huh? That’s a shitty job, right?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, who will you dare to arrest, really, when everyone is armed? I think it’s throwing sand in our eyes.”

  She unlocked the heavy door and switched on the lights. The basement was built like a bunker with concrete walls and narrow windows. It had a bathroom in one corner and three chest freezers along a wall. A heavy walnut cabinet stood on the opposite wall. She opened it. Inside, there was a brand-new Kalashnikov, two rifles, several hand grenades, and five or six pistols, some of them large.

  “Some pig farm,” Mira said. “But, you know what they say—‘Protect yourself and God will protect you.’” She chuckled. “What about your parents?”

  “They died in a train crash.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten.”

  “Where did you live afterwards?”

  “Don’t be offended, but why does it matter?”

  Mira nodded. “You’ve turned out well, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “I have a friend with a similar story. He is very soft, insecure. It spoiled him, I guess.”

  “Could be. I meant to ask you something. I tried calling Belgrade, but I can’t get through. Is it only this village?”

  “No. The lines are cut between Croatia and Serbia. Why? You want to call your girlfriend?”

  Mira’s mother called down the stairs to tell them dinner was ready.

  The snow started drifting down around ten the next morning. The size of the flakes kept increasing, until, by noon, it finally looked like what it was, a winter storm.

  Johnny’s three-man patrol started their shift at eight in the evening. By then, the wind had stopped, the snow had finished, the stars appeared, and the village looked ready for the coming holidays and unprepared for war. The soldiers, except for those standing guard on the outskirts of the village, were mostly inside—in the bar, in the houses where they slept watching the news or playing cards.

  “Why the fuck are we doing this?” Goran asked. He was a tall, muscular man in his early thirties, a judo instructor from a small town south of Belgrade. “The men will have a few drinks and if they get into a fight, they’re all smart enough to leave the weapons out of it. The locals are all at home.”