We went house to house looking for arms and hidden Muslim soldiers, in basements, but there were no arms and no soldiers. I am sure our commander knew that there were no soldiers; he wanted terror, that is all. You know, it worked for Serbs, to massacre a village or two, and rather than to hide the fact, to broadcast it, so people from the whole area would flee. Our officers imitated the Serbs, no doubt. The commander did not explain that to us, just told us to go door to door and shoot, because there were soldiers in hiding. I swear, then I didn’t know what we were doing, not at first, anyway.
How wouldn’t you know what you are doing? Were you shooting old women? What’s there not to know?
Our men kept shooting their way into all the houses, killing whoever we ran across, in the gun smoke and tear gas. Sometimes we threw hand grenades into the basements without checking who was there. We were in a rush, before other armies could come to the village. We set many houses on fire.
You did that? My husband, too?
We all did some of that.
Some of what? My husband killed randomly, just like that? Mira was horrified. She had seen footage of the remains of carnage on satellite TV at a friend’s place. The footage was not shown on Croatian TV at the time. If he did that, maybe he should not come back.
Yes, I am sure he killed one or two people. We were all shooting in a terrible rush because we didn’t have much time, and there were the Brits not too far away, and the Croatian officers were pushing us. It was absolute frenzy, you couldn’t think straight.
And that’s some kind of excuse?
No, nobody is talking excuse here. But your husband did something noble, stupid but noble. He protested as a couple of soldiers beat and threatened to knife a ten-year-old boy. Zarko wanted to stop the beating, and an officer shot Zarko, pointblank, in the face, with a semi. Strafed his head off.
Jesus. You saw that?
Yes, that’s the point. That’s why I hesitated to tell it.
So, he’s dead?
I am afraid so. No way could he live.
My God! You are sure? I mean, there was smoke, and you all rushed…
That’s why I am here. To tell you.
You could have told me right away, at the Kavana.
It’s not that simple to tell. I had to get to know you a little. I had to trust you. It’s sensitive information. I am putting myself in your hands, you understand that, by letting you know I was at Stupni Do? You could turn me in. Nobody must know I was there.
Why are you telling me that? Would you like me to turn you in? You think you might go to The Hague?
No, of course not. Yet I don’t want to have power over you, with your son’s fate, so I am equalizing the playing field here.
Is he buried? Where?
I think he was burned down with the Muslims. We ran out at that point. I didn’t see. If you want to find him, you’ll have to go down there to Bosnia, and perhaps some of the bones could be identified as his.
You are lying. You lied before.
No, I wish, I wish I were.
Horrible. Horrible, she said, but the word struck her as too weak. She wanted to attack the man, but that seemed futile. She was still naked, sitting on a smooth floor of large wood planks and hugging her knees. She imagined her husband and the boy. To him it may have been the same boy who died under the tram tracks, the ghost of his guilt, and he got a chance to expiate for his absentmindedness and dreaminess, to stand up and save the boy. And that, after throwing a grenade at civilians in a cellar. How could one live after all that anyway? Maybe he died happy. Did that matter? Was that the end he had envisioned with his wistful gaze?
And the boy, did he live? Was he saved?
I don’t know.
And, you, what did you do? Did you try to save my husband, to save the boy? she asked.
Nothing, what could I do? He was putting on his pants and tightening his belt, so that his middle-aged love handles spilled over it.
Couldn’t you protest too, and if enough of you protested, nothing would have happened?
I doubt that. There were enough deranged soldiers there, drunk, drugged, that even if three or four of us protested, we would have all been shot down. Not only that…we would have slaughtered one another.
Would not that have been better?
How?
So what do you suggest I do now? How do I bury him? What use is it?
No, I’ll tell you how. But I don’t want to help you with all that. Nobody must know that I was there, in that action, you understand? I don’t want to end up in The Hague.
Why not? Maybe you could help with the whole thing. How can you live with yourself, your conscience, if you have one?
That’s for me to decide, to judge, not for you, not for The Hague. I am the only one who knows what went on for me, inside me. Nobody can judge the soul of a man. But don’t worry, your son is safe. He is not going to be drafted. He will not have to join the army, I’ll see to that. But if you tell anybody about our conversation, he will have to go. And he will go to the worst position, front lines, you understand?
You are even threatening me?
No, I am not threatening you. Just letting you know.
Or as you put it, to level the playing field. What game are you playing? To you this is a game? Are you having fun?
No, I am not playing a game. Playing field, just a cliché. I couldn’t express my thoughts precisely. I am not expressing myself well when I sound like I am threatening you. No, I am not threatening. We are together for sex, perhaps love.
But you said you weren’t here to sleep with me but to tell me the secret.
That’s not exactly what I meant. I had to say what I said to clear the air, so you would know, so I would know that you know. Now that we share all that, we can move on, go deeper. You are the only one who can understand me.
She sat on the edge of the bed. He sat next to her and put his hand on her knee. She slid away from him and imagined Zarko’s head falling off in the smoke, with the blood spurting out of his body. Could the head have fallen off the body? Or did Branko exaggerate? And now, there were these persistent fingers, like an assembly of hard toothless snakes, creeping up her belly. How could she be in the mood for physical intimacy now, with all these ghastly images assailing her senses? She was dizzy.
The director undressed again. Now he had an erection, and he proudly showed it.
Just like that? All you needed was a good confession, with some blood, blood of my husband, and now you are ready?
Mira sobbed, kneeling at the side of the bed.
Leave me. I can’t do it, not now. Maybe tomorrow. Go.
Hey, hey, he said. Not so fast. I can’t leave you here. This is not your place.
AT HOME, she explained to her son that he would not have to serve in the army. He was surprised, delighted. So, you found more money! Great. Where?
I can’t talk about it.
Why not? A state secret?
Something like that. Yes, a state secret.
She looked at him and considered telling him that she had found out about his father, that he was dead, but she could not bring herself to say it. Not now. She would have to gather strength. She could have presented the case as good news and bad news, which do you want first? No, she would bring only the good news. But there was relief in knowing so finally about her husband. He is dead. Nothing to worry about anymore. Her son would be alive. Two problems were solved. She could relax. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep without undressing. And she had dreams. Mira, get up, how can you sleep? Zarko’s image spoke to her, made all out of blue clouds, with small black clouds for eyebrows. Get up, look for my bones, bury them. You can’t leave them out in the charcoal mud of Bosnia. I need to go home, to the village of my birth, to my soil. You must do it. I will not let you rest until my bones are buried.
She woke up in fright, rose, and paced around. Her son was out. He was probably having a good time in a bar. She turned on the lights and listened to Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nac
htmusik. The predictable, all too predictable turns of the melody did not comfort her. They were predictable, of course, because she had heard them too many times. She drank a warm Starocesko Pivo. She wondered, is that really my husband talking to me in my dreams? How come he didn’t talk to me when I did not know he was dead? So this must be just my mind talking to itself. But the vividness of the dream spooked her, and she couldn’t get rid of the notion that it was her husband’s ghost talking to her directly. The way she was afraid to fall asleep when she was a child, that was how she was afraid to fall asleep now.
She kept the lights on and remembered the nightmares of her childhood. She had told Branko her childhood was a happy one, and in a way it was, but she had certainly had horrifying dreams of the house catching on fire with her parents and siblings burning to death. Probably it was simple to explain: her father smoked ham in the attic, and the wafting smell of smoke and flesh entered her dreams. And so she had slept with the lights on, even though it angered her mother who claimed that electricity was too expensive. So she wondered why she had so categorically claimed a happy childhood to Branko—perhaps simply to avoid a boring and predictable conversation. Now she fell asleep. Zarko spoke to her again in the dream, from an evergreen tree on fire. It was a Christmas tree with sparklers, and once the fire caught on, he spoke, beseeching her to gather his bones.
In the morning, she was exhausted and unhappy, and she decided that she could not deal with her husband’s bones until she felt better. At the moment, she did not feel sorry for her husband. She hated the nuisance. How could he be so pushy in death? She hated him. Served him right. Let him be dead. What difference did it make how he was dead? Bones scattered or not, rot or ashes, who should care? Once you are dead, you aren’t you.
The following evening, afraid of one more terrible night of sleep, she agreed to get together with Branko. Her son had gone with friends on a trip to the coast, so she invited Branko home. They drank Dingac, red wine, which darkened their lips and overcame the taste of tobacco and coffee. They kissed languidly and probed each other’s bodies. In lovemaking, perhaps because of sleeplessness and the long abstinence, she experienced strong electrical currents and tingling in her head, with flashes of light in her vision, even though she kept her eyes closed. She floated in the currents of electricity as though she had ceased to be a creature of flesh and bones, and so as not to drift off into the ethereal space, to ground herself, she clasped Branko, and dug with her nails into his back with such force that he gasped in pain. Blood trickled down his hairy back.
Afterward, as they relaxed and drank more red wine, he said, Wow, that was passion! On one side of the body, great pleasure, on the other, pain!
I feel so calm—calmer than I ever remember, she said. Discharged. Empty. It’s great to feel empty. I never knew that.
And who is that? Branko pointed toward the picture of Zarko.
Oh, Zarko, my husband, former husband.
Boy, has he changed! Branko commented. When I knew him afterward, he’d lost most of his hair, and he grew much thinner.
Must have been stressful for him. And you, have you changed?
Not in the war, but if we keep going at this rate, I too will lose all my hair and much of my skin.
She playfully stroked him with her nails, over his naked belly, and pretty soon they were making love again. It was windy outside; a strong draft slammed a window shut. Even a door closed although she did not remember leaving it open. Although she was naked, she felt more naked still with the blowing of cold moist winds, which seemed to undress her further, to strip away an invisible layer of her heat and her vapors, her salts, so that she was completely fresh and open, invigorated and free, desiring and loving the cold electrical currents under her skin. While escalating her breathing in her excitement, she looked from under Branko’s armpit, and in the dim light, she had an impression that someone was sitting in the armchair across the room. She should not have counted on her son being away. Or was she not seeing right? Meanwhile, the armpit closed, she shuddered, and as she closed her eyes, she saw lights, akin to northern lights. Beautiful. Maybe she was seeing other things, she thought. Still, she opened her eyes as Branko shifted and caught a glimpse of Zarko in the armchair, gazing intently, with his eyebrows arched even more than before, thicker, sadder. She closed her eyes. Why would the ghost of her husband now torment her even in wakefulness? The lovemaking did drive her out of her senses. But this was not the kind of hallucination she welcomed. And was it a hallucination? Probably, what else? He was dead. Why think about that now? She wouldn’t. She closed her eyes and relished the waves of intense thrills in her flesh, with northern lights pulsating in the rhythm of her heart and sex.
She opened her eyes again. The same eyes were still there, glistening in the dim light of the indigo aftermath of a purple dusk. She screamed.
What is it? Branko said.
He is here!
Who is?
Zarko!
He can’t be, he’s dead.
Turn around. Look. Tell me, am I hallucinating?
Branko turned around, heftily.
Keep going, she heard her husband say. I want to see how it ends.
Oh, is that you? she addressed Zarko, and covered herself with a pillow, and then she said to Branko, There! Sitting with a gun and pointing it at us! He’s going to shoot us! Don’t shoot!
Don’t freak me out! Branko said. You are insane. Look into my eyes—are you there? Insanity scares the hell out of me.
There he is. Say hi to him. Say you are happy he’s alive!
Branko quickly got dressed and rushed toward the door. He tripped. Mira saw Zarko’s foot tripping him.
After Branko’s exit, there was silence, other than the faucet dripping and a distant train rambling on the uneven rails.
She closed her eyes, trying to close her mind. She was terrified of her mind. How would she sleep now if Zarko ruled her dreams? Her mind was no longer hers, she thought, but his. If she fell asleep, he would run amok in her mind, terrorize her, slash and burn, as though still in Stupni Do, shooting, unless he ran into a young boy, but there were no more young boys. Even their son had just ceased to be a young boy and was now a draftable man, a soldier, nobody to inspire mercy. There was no young life, new life, to stop the madness and to redeem them. She felt old, spent, and yet, at the same time, she still tingled from lovemaking, and wished she could vanish in another wave of it, a bigger one, more overwhelming than the last one. And just at that turn of daydreaming, she heard a snore.
She turned on the lights. And there, she could clearly see, was Zarko, sprawled on the floor, with his mouth open, and sleeping. To make sure that her mind was not deceiving her, she touched his body, his ribs, like a doubting Thomas. There were ribs, she could feel them under her fingers, and she was sure there had to be a hole, somewhere—she would find it.
About the Author
JOSIP NOVAKOVICH is the winner of a Whiting Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. A resident of central Pennsylvania, he teaches at Penn State University.
www.josipnovakovich.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
PRAISE FOR JOSIP NOVAKOVICH’S
April Fool’s Day
“Wickedly funny and deeply harrowing…. Darkly ironic…. Novakovich knows how to tell a story, and his prose has an easy, elegant velocity…. Strange, lyrical beauty abounds here.”
—Maud Casey, New York Times Book Review
“Like a modern-day Candide of the Balkans, Ivan Dolinar, the antihero of this laugh-while-you-grimace novel, bumbles his way through life, wars, and love…. Novakovich chronicles his character’s journey through a world whose patent absurdity is almost impossible to exaggerate. He writes with dark wit, and a touching sympathy for the lost soul that Ivan represents.”
—Newsweek International
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“Like Aleksandar Hemon and Ha Jin…Novakovich manages the feat of writing vibrantly and inventively in a second language, shaping English to the dictates of his satiric, folk-tinged storytelling.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Dolinar] is a fully rounded character, the type of protagonist…that we rarely find in fiction.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A forlorn and frequently hilarious novel…. Dolinar is a marvelous creation, equal parts bumbling philosopher and resigned victim of fate…. Novakovich tempers his descriptions of the horrors of war with black humor and moments of grace…. Disturbing and frequently beautiful…. The novel is a sort of Balkan conflation of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Gogol’s Dead Souls, and [Vonnegut’s] Slaughterhouse-Five.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“An ambitious first novel…The magic realism of the final sections is exemplary; Novakovich has found his groove.”
—Washington Post
“Both humorous and horrifying as it traces one man’s misadventures as he tries to love a dictator and fight on both sides of the war between Croatia and Serbia.”
—USA Today
“April Fool’s Day is a wonder…. [It] has an economy of style and narrative that all good readers will relish.”
—Keith Botsford, The Republic of Letters
“A heartfelt novel about the war-torn Balkans that’s actually quite funny…and touching.”
—GQ
“Novakovich’s book, rife with dark humor, is notable for its witty reflections on politics, literature, and the vicissitudes of the human heart.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
“[An] eccentric first novel from one of the more interesting and unusual contemporary writers…. Novakovich’s understatements work superbly in the closing chapters, when Ivan’s inquisitive ghost achieves a harmony with his surroundings that had been denied him throughout his life.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Delightfully neurotic…. Novakovich brings a deft touch to his ambitious and unconventional first novel.”
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