Diary of Interrupted Days

by Dragan Todorovic

  He was supposed to remain standing so he wouldn’t fall asleep but also so that the officer who brought the change of guard would see him from a safe distance. Still, after thinking he heard slow steps for the third time, he improvised a seat from fallen branches and lowered himself behind one of the bigger trees. Looking up, he could see the stars through the branches. He tried not to think of the time.

  Time was against them, thought Sara. No matter how hard they fought not to think about it, even the name of the restaurant reminded them: the Last Chance. It was in the park next to the state television building, and although they could have met at other places in the vicinity, they decided on the Last Chance simply because that was the place they used to go when they all still worked for Belgrade Television.

  Although more journalists and editors were being suspended every month, fewer people were showing up for these sessions at the bar. Sara realized why after half an hour of sitting in the shabby room full of smoke, surrounded by former colleagues who were drinking much more than they had the month before. They were all acting as if it was due to the coming holidays, but she knew better. When you are a journalist, you are a junkie. Your whole system depends on the daily input of news and—equally important, if not more—your output of digested information. Having only the input with no means of giving it back had started to eat all of them from the inside out.

  The noise was unbearable. People kept interrupting one another, cracking jokes that nobody found funny. Yet everyone laughed loudly. Sara ordered a cognac simply because she wanted to do what everyone else did. Her corner of December had been agonizingly quiet and she had hoped that by coming here she would find a little harmless distraction. Besides, these people were still among the best informed in Belgrade and might have heard something about Johnny.

  Miki was a freelancer who came to the regular bar nights to show support, he said. He specialized in war zones. For several years now, he had had no problem selling his footage to whomever he chose. He had covered the Gulf, the Tuareg rebellion, the civil wars in Algeria, Georgia, and Sierra Leone, and he had just returned from Tajikistan. The only conflict he refused to cover was this one in Yugoslavia. When a producer from CNN asked him why, he responded that he would not be able to go to the front without taking a gun and shooting at everyone involved. “I can’t stand people with guns in the orchards” was the sentence that was often quoted in the Western media and brought him some sort of fame.

  He and two other women—Vesna and Gordana—were sitting at Sara’s table. The women were showing signs of considerable interest in Miki, their backs straight, their voices a touch more husky than usual. Either he was accustomed to this, or else he did not want to show that he noticed, or perhaps he was not interested—Sara could not decide which. As usual in Belgrade, after the Western media turned their attention to his work, Miki’s popularity surged. He was praised not only for his courage and his integrity but for his rugged good looks, his long black hair, his build, his hands that could strangle a bear yet were so gentle to the touch. Nobody was exactly sure who he did touch, however, since he guarded his privacy and was rarely seen at parties.

  But tonight he was here and talking mostly to Sara. At first she did not notice, but the other women started giving her looks. When Miki excused himself and went towards the bathroom at the back of the restaurant, Vesna said, with a hint of envy in her voice, “Sara, he’s ripe.”

  “He reminds me of Johnny,” Gordana added.

  “Don’t be mean, darling, “Vesna said. “He’s totally different.”

  “Well, not so much physically. But he’s also an alpha male and, you know, he’s a fighter, too.”

  “Darling, you wouldn’t put up a fight.”

  They all laughed. It was true, Miki did have something in common with Johnny—Sara felt that, too. Miki’s reports were brutally honest, just like Johnny’s music, and had some poetry to them too.

  A waiter brought another round of drinks to their table as Miki returned, and the next half-hour passed in friendly banter. When the two women excused themselves to go and sit with another group, Sara suddenly felt exposed. Miki’s eyes kept falling somewhere in the area of her lips and she could not help but notice sporadic glances from the others. He must have noticed too since he said, “Why don’t we take a walk?”

  She thought about it for a moment. Everybody would see them leaving and everyone would think the same thing. But really, who cared? Miki paid the bill, and they left the Last Chance.

  In the small park, only a few dog walkers braved the cold.

  “Sara, why don’t you come and work with me?” Miki said.

  “Work for you?” she repeated.

  “Not for me, with me. There is plenty of stuff you could do, everything from research to going on camera. You know how I hate talking to the lens.”

  When she was silent, he added, “You do know they won’t take you back, not while this war is going on, right?”

  “I know. But if I start working for someone else, they will take that as an excuse to cut me off completely. If I get foreign money, that will be that. And what about when this is all over? Then what?”

  “You could work as a fixer for some of the correspondents. They would pay very well to have someone like you. Nobody will know.”

  “Miki. It’s so easy to soil your diapers. I will know. I need to live with what I do.”

  They left the park to cross the Boulevard of Revolution.

  “Is it Johnny?” he said.

  “What about Johnny?”

  “You know. The stories.”

  “About him being with the Candyman? I’ve heard them, yes. Do you really believe he would do it?” She had intended this ironically but it didn’t come out that way.

  “In a war God dies with the first shot. You cannot trust people, and there is no truth in anything. The animal in us eventually leads us to survival, nothing else.”

  She looked at him sideways. “Aren’t you lonely thinking like that?”

  “I’m still alive thinking like that.”

  They walked downhill towards the Yugoslav Drama Theatre. A boy was selling roasted chestnuts on the corner. Sara bought two packets and handed one to Miki.

  “Johnny was drafted,” she said. “All I know is that he was transferred to some place in the northwest and that’s where I lost track of him. Someone is spreading rumours for propaganda reasons. People are refusing to take part in this war so the regime is using its favourite criminals. If they could make young guys believe that the Candyman can recruit people like Johnny, tons of hotheads will volunteer.”

  “Sara—is he still alive?”

  “I would know if he wasn’t.”

  Miki nodded.

  “Johnny thinks that war is a time when only faith can save you,” Sara said. “Perhaps not in others, perhaps not in God, but you have to believe in your own system. Everyone is screaming at you: warmongers, peaceniks, the media, authorities, terrified people, your children, your parents, everyone. These are deafening times—your own thoughts get stifled in all the noise. I guess that’s how your animal starts to lead. The only way to silence all those screams is to listen to yourself carefully. Deep down, each one of us knows who we are. Stick to that, and you’ll be fine. That is part of the reason why I believe Johnny is fine—I know that he always hears his inner voice.”

  “I hope, for his own good, that Johnny is more cynical than that.”

  She laughed.

  Miki took a pair of gloves from one of the many pockets in his jacket. “It’s freezing out here,” he said. “How about another drink?”

  Johnny could not stand the cold anymore. No matter how many branches he piled beneath himself, he still felt the snow. He was sorry that he had not taken the advice of one of his comrades and brought a hip flask with him. But no matter how ridiculous this all seemed, it was still a war, and he wanted to keep his head clear.

  By the degree of numbness in his feet, he decided he must have been out
here for three hours at least. He started doing squats and then froze, reacting to something he could not yet quite sense. He raised his gun to his chest, released the safety as inaudibly as he could, and held his breath. The normal murmur of the forest had returned. Still, he lay down slowly behind a fallen trunk. There was that sound again: this time he was sure of it—a large animal, or a man. Slow steps, very careful, a few seconds between each one. Then a bunch of stars disappeared behind a human silhouette. The officer in charge would not approach like this. Johnny took aim. He inhaled deeply, and just before he yelled a warning into the night, the silhouette quietly called his name.

  Again: “Johnny?”

  “Who is it?” he whispered back.

  “It’s me, Black. Where are you?”

  Still pointing his gun, Johnny stood up. “Over here.”

  “You fucking scared me, bro. You’re not where you’re supposed to be. I thought maybe someone got you.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “This is the only place where we can talk in private. And it’s freezing, so I brought you a little something to keep you warm.”

  He sat down on the tree trunk, pulled out a bottle from the inside of his coat, took a swig and handed it over. Johnny wiped the bottle’s mouth against his sleeve, and drank. The sharp punch of the homemade brandy warmed him up. He handed the bottle back.

  “The Candyman’s first reaction was to eliminate you, bro.”

  Black was clearly waiting for a reaction, so Johnny said, “Eliminate me?”

  “Yeah. But I told him he was overreacting. You’re not an idiot, I told him. You had to do what you did. There were two people with you—you couldn’t have pretended our guys were not doing that pussy. I told him that for our cause you were better alive than dead. I think that’s what made him change his mind. I mean, totally change his mind, full circle. To the point that you will get your piece from our little business with the locals. You haven’t talked to anyone about it, have you? Not Pap, I hope?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I told him. The Candyman. He never trusts anyone. Got a light?”

  “You can’t smoke here.”

  “I won’t smoke. I’ve got a paper for you to sign.”

  Johnny heard rustling inside Black’s coat and then there was a sheet of paper in his hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “An oath. I mean, they call it an oath but I think of it as a confidentiality agreement, really. I have a flashlight somewhere, wait, here’s a pen, and, oh, okay, here’s the light.”

  Johnny sat next to Black on the trunk and flattened the paper on his knee. Black switched his tiny lamp on, protected it with his other hand, and held it so Johnny could see. As Johnny waited for his eyes to get accustomed to what seemed like a blinding light, someone in the forest yelled, “Stop!” Instinctively, Johnny hit the hand holding the lamp and it shone on Black’s chest. A short and sharp sound, like a branch snapping underfoot, came from somewhere near and Black jerked and fell behind the trunk. Johnny reached towards him, lost his balance, and fell too. Another branch cracked, and Johnny clearly heard the whistle of a bullet above his head. A third snap, and a short scream. Johnny was on his back, clutching his gun, his heart thumping in his chest. He looked around. There was no safer place than where he was. Black was making a strange, quiet, gurgling sound.

  “Johnny?” someone hissed. He did not recognize the voice.

  “Johnny, are you okay?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “The Commander. Watch the one next to you. Take his weapons away. They came to kill you.”

  The Commander was what the Black Lions called the Candyman. What was he doing here? And why did he shoot his own soldier? What was that other scream in the forest? Johnny started searching Black and found a handgun in the outside pocket of his coat. He took it and pulled Black’s rifle towards him. Then he searched for the tiny lamp. It was next to Black’s hand. He switched it on, left it on the tree trunk, and rolled away from it, and farther from Black, who was still making that strange noise.

  “Come slowly to where the light hits you,” he said. “Don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll shoot.”

  A man appeared in the beam. He raised one hand to protect his eyes but there was no doubt about his identity.

  “Are you armed?”

  “Of course I am,” said the Candyman. “If I wasn’t you’d be dead by now.”

  Johnny could not think of any logical retort he could make at this point so he slowly got up, his gun still ready.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “You chose the wrong person to confide in,” the Candyman said. “Pap wasn’t happy about you being so well informed.” He sat down on the trunk and lit a cigarette. Then he switched off the lamp.

  “Who was that in the woods with you?”

  “Another of my men. A triple murderer who had recently escaped from jail. I did not trust him, anyway. Too easy to blackmail. That’s why your captain chose him.”

  “Pap sent that man to kill me?”

  “Yeah. And Black too. Pap probably offered him a nice sum. Black was a greedy bastard.”

  “I think he’s still alive.”

  The Candyman listened awhile, then said, “Not for long. His lungs are perforated. Not a nice way to die.”

  “But why did you—?”

  “Save you? I did not come to save you, Johnny, but to punish my men for making deals behind my back. This is my army and I run it like one. I ordered the other one to stop when I found him”—he pointed with his thumb behind his back—“and he made the mistake of turning his gun on me.”

  Johnny sat down next to him. “Why did it bother Pap that I knew about the deal? Others probably know about it, too. They live with the locals.”

  “The locals won’t tell—none of them except your little hostess, who is already in a basement. The others know that the deal is off if they tell conscripts about it. Not only would it be off—they would have me as an enemy. They’ll keep their mouths shut. Maybe she didn’t know the score because she just got here.”

  “What will you do with her?”

  “I intend to keep her locked up as long as we’re here, that’s what. If you’re worried about her pussy, don’t be—fucking our clients would be bad for business.”

  “Those trucks outside the village—protection is not the only business going on here, is it?”

  The Candyman puffed on the smoke, then smiled. “I reckon there’s no reason not to tell you. They’re loaded with weapons and equipment. I’m selling them to Croats.”

  “To Croats? But—”

  “Ah, but of course—you think you know right from wrong, that everything is clear in this war. Well, listen to this: we fought in Croatia last year and we seized those trucks in a village close to the Hungarian border. In them we found all brand-new stuff, and all American. How did the Croats get it when the arms embargo was in place against both sides? That is a question worth five million Deutsche Marks, my friend. The Americans apparently broke the embargo in order to supply their friends. It would be very unpleasant if I took those trucks to Belgrade and opened them in front of the foreign cameras. I don’t know who’s paying me not to—Yanks or Croats—but I don’t care.”

  “So what about me?”

  “I’m still thinking.”

  Johnny knew the reputation of this man—there was nothing he could do but wait for his fate to be decided. The Candyman had a baby face, gentle eyes, and a kind smile, but some of the stories that circulated in Belgrade claimed that he had already had some ten murders behind him when he started working for the secret police, long before this war. Then he had murdered for them all over Europe, dozens of people—the count was lost in the secret vaults.

  “The best solution would be for you to join me. I could keep an eye on you and you would have the best time of your life, I promise you.” He laughed. “This is like love: two people who would be a perfect fit but they will never
get together. Or I could finish you off right now. All witnesses dead, no one would ever know what happened here. Perhaps my men popped you for arresting their friends. Or the Croats came. Whatever. That’s actually very good. Hmm.”

  Johnny clutched his rifle tighter.

  “But I believe in fate. I never wanted to kill you and you survived the attempt on you tonight. But if I let you go, you can’t go back to Belgrade. Some people will think you killed our boys and you wouldn’t last long. Your friends won’t like that you’ve been with my army. If I were you, Johnny, I’d take a hike and start anew.”

  Johnny sighed. “If this gets reported, they’ll catch me when I try crossing the border.”

  “I’ll give you twenty-four hours. And I have a few foreign passports here. We can take your photo from the military card and you’ll be good to go.” The Candyman blew out another lungful of smoke. “You have it with you? The military card?”

  Johnny found it in his wallet and handed it over.

  “You wait here,” he said. “I’ll send that little slut to bring the passport to you. Make sure she goes back to Germany.”

  He stood up.

  “Should I thank you?” Johnny asked.

  “Not at all, not at all. Because this is not over. If you decide to rat against me, remember that I travel fast and can turn up anywhere.” Suddenly the Candyman had his handgun pointing at Johnny’s forehead. “And then, pop!”

  Johnny glimpsed a smile on the man’s oddly gentle face, as if the gun belonged to another person, someone who happened to share the same hands. He took Johnny’s rifle away from him, put his own gun back into his pocket, and walked towards the man he had killed. He turned Johnny’s rifle on the corpse and fired two bullets into it. He then walked to Black’s body and shot again.

  “Just so I know you won’t come back, artist,” he said and threw the rifle aside. “It’s official now—you’ve murdered two people.”