by Reif Larsen
“Are you sure?” offered Stoja. “We don’t have to. I don’t even mind the name Danilo. I married you, after all.”
“Every tradition is meant to be broken,” said Danilo, though he was not sure—nor would he ever be sure—if such a thing was true.
Darinka, on the other hand, was so upset that she refused to attend the baptism and did not lay eyes on her grandchild for the first six months of his life.
When their second child came along, she again intervened.
“There’s still a chance for you to honor your father,” she said.
Danilo thought about this long and hard. He came back to his mother with an offering.
“His name will be Mihajlo Danilo. Danilo will be his second name.”
“What is a second name?” Darinka asked, furious. “And who is Mihajlo?”
“Mihajlo is my son.” Mihajlo, the name of no one, and this was exactly the point.
“You’re a wicked man, Danilo Danilovic. I didn’t know this about you until now. You spit on your father’s memory. On your grandfather’s memory. On all of their memories.”
“I hope you’ll find room to love them, Mama.”
She would not find room to love them, at least not in this life, for she died a week later from a massive heart attack that killed her while she was sitting on the toilet, her skirt at her ankles, the red bandanna with its secret cross still hanging from her throat. The thread of time had been cut.
2
On Miroslav’s fourteenth birthday, Miša gave his older brother a pair of trainers. For weeks, Miša had been bubbling with the excitement of giving this most perfect of gifts.
“He can run everywhere in them,” he said.
Danilo remained skeptical. He thought such a gift would be wasted on his eldest, with his staid body and his wandering mind, but in the end, he gave Miša the money and sent him to procure the shoes from the sparsely stocked sporting goods store in town. Miša came back proudly toting his prize, elaborately hiding and re-hiding the box beneath his bed so that his brother would not discover it prematurely.
When Miroslav tore through Miša’s ungainly wrapping job that evening, his eyes lit up as he touched the new trainers, gingerly, carefully, as one would touch a newborn animal. The trainers were a pale shade of blue, the color of shallow water in the early morning. Miša’s pronouncement proved more true than he could have ever known, for Miroslav had been stuck on a project for several months now: how to perfectly replicate the movement of a man in motion. He had been studying Eadweard Muybridge’s famous sequences, frame by frame, trying to build a mechanical automaton that could jog a dozen paces without intervention from its creator.
The problem was proving terrifically difficult. Apparently a team had achieved the feat in Tokyo, but then, this team was Japanese, with all the resources afforded the Japanese, and Miroslav was convinced they had cheated anyhow. He was hung up on just three engineering challenges: the balance of the torso, the airborne transition from one foot to the other, and the limited flexibility of the knee joint. As it turned out, these three problematic areas were also the essential components of the humanoid stride. Without them, you merely had a body that tumbled earthward again and again and again.
Fig. 2.3. Eadweard Muybridge, “Animal Locomotion. Plate 63” (1887)
From Røed-Larsen, P., Spesielle Partikler, p. 960
Yet Miša’s gift awakened something within him. The trainers made him realize the solution had been right in front of him all this time: he would become the automaton. He did not need to build a running man when he himself could be that man. All he needed to do was separate the him part of himself from his body and he would essentially have the perfect robot, one that could mimic nearly all human movement. He would be his own puppet.
Except that excising the him from himself—leaving only a body in motion—proved more difficult than designing any automaton. His lanky frame and obsession for repetition made him perfectly suited for cross-country running, but as he covered ever longer distances, he could never quite outrun himself. He went wherever his body went.
I am not the runner, he would repeat over and over again in his head. But he did not believe it. And so he ran farther and still farther, propelling himself forward with an existential urgency that defied both space and time.
At first, Miša tried to run with his brother, but after only a week he found that even he, athletic as he was, could not keep up. Miroslav could run forever. He would run for whole days through the countryside, over mountains, across the frontier and into Serbia, even, drifting through alpine meadows and interrupting the deer and the bears in their slumber. Strangely, his incredible journeys did not increase his appetite. He would run fifty, sixty, seventy kilometers and then eat like a bird. It was remarkable. Energy was not being conserved. Or at least he was drawing upon some unseen source for his perpetual momentum. And still he could not run from himself.
After a while, Danilo and Stoja began to worry. All he did was run. He had no interest in taking part in races for his school; he simply wanted to run alone. His teachers had begun to notice. He no longer turned in work. He slept through class. He talked back. When forced to sit still for any length of time, he constantly tapped his foot in a heel-toe stutter step, as if signaling some kind of code. It didn’t matter how bright he was—at this rate he would not make it through his studies.
“I have this feeling,” said Stoja, “that one day he might start running and never come back.”
What she was noticing without being able to say as much was that with each kilometer covered, Miroslav was running further and further away from the polite little child who had bowed to the women and greeted the postman’s arrival every afternoon. With the end of his youth also came an apparent end of his interest in the well-being of others. He was, for lack of a better term, becoming mean.
Secretly, Stoja blamed herself. She had given up everything for her children, given up a life that may or may not have come to pass, and she had grown into and accepted this choice until the choice had become no choice at all. But watching her son slip away like this shook her to her core. Stoja, who had never been a true believer, who had grown up a modern secular woman, began stealing out to pray at St. Stephen’s alone. She would light a candle at the manoualia and stare into the burning wick. By both being and not being there at the same time, the flame’s flicker consoled her.
“We must do something,” she said finally to her husband one day. “He’s my Miro.”
“All right,” said Danilo. “I’ll handle it.”
After one of Miroslav’s long runs, Danilo met his son at the top of their road.
“Come,” he said. “We’re going to a place.”
“To what place?” Miroslav asked, breathless. “I need to stretch.”
“Come,” said Danilo.
“Where’s Miša?”
“He’s working.”
“Can’t you take him to this place?”
“No.”
They took a local grunt bus that hugged the long curve of the river northward and then disembarked at the beginning of an old dirt road, which they started following up into the hills. A thick forest surrounded them. To their left, a small creek bubbled, its waters green with algae.
“Where are we going, Tata?” asked Miroslav. Walking was making him more tired than running.
“Your mother’s worried about you.”
“She’s always worried.”
“She doesn’t want you to run so much.”
“I like running.”
“She worries about you. She cannot help herself.”
“I know. But that isn’t my fault,” said Miroslav. “Where are we going, Tata?”
“To the source,” said Danilo.
Finally, after about half an hour, they came upon a small, ancient domed building. Moss and a w
ash of mineral deposits spilled down its weathered sides. Steam rose gently from a broken window.
Danilo gestured at the building. “This is a hammam. Built by the Turks who lived here five hundred years ago. They understood the heat of the waters. It will calm your muscles.”
“My muscles feel calm.”
“It will calm your soul.”
“And what if I am soulless?”
Danilo looked at his son. “We’re going inside.”
“What’s up there?” Miroslav pointed above them, where they could see a large, modern building peeping through the trees.
“Ah! Don’t look at that. That’s a resort. They built an ugly hotel so the tourists could soak in the hot springs and then eat some sirnica in the cafeteria. But this isn’t how it’s meant to be done. They’re stupid. They’re only interested in making money. We’re going to the real place.”
They pushed open the rotting door and shed their clothes and then slid into the ancient, recessed pool. A small stone chute poured water in from the underground hot springs. They soaked. The steam rose around them like silent music, swirling against the arched ceiling above their heads. They breathed, letting the wet silence shift and settle into the pores of their skin.
“Where did you run today?” Danilo finally asked.
“Down to Rudo.” Only Miroslav’s face floated above the surface, as if the rest of him no longer existed. His voice echoed off the ceiling.
“Rudo?” Danilo raised his eyebrows. “That’s a long way.”
“Not so long.”
“Why do you run so much?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It makes me feel good.”
They were quiet, and then Danilo said, “When the Turks still ruled this area, that place was called Sokol.”
Miroslav made a slight groan that curled and ended in a gurgle of water. His father liked telling stories about old things, things that happened so long ago they did not matter anymore. How often had he heard the story about the first Danilo Danilovic, who had defeated the Turks and built a church on an island? One hundred times? Two hundred times? It was enough to drive a man insane.
“Did you know that once upon a time there were two brothers who lived in Sokol?” said Danilo.
“Tata!” said Miroslav. “Please. I really don’t want to hear about them. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.”
“I am enjoying myself,” said Danilo. “The brothers’ names were Makarije and Bajo.”
“Please, Tata. No one cares about them. They’re dead. They died a long time ago. Let’s talk about something real.”
“What is real? Soon we’ll all be dead. Don’t you want to be remembered?”
“I’m sure they’ll say the same thing about us—‘Why are you telling me this stupid story about Miroslav Danilovic? What does this have to do with me?’”
“Just listen to the story. Don’t be so critical all the time. It isn’t good for you.”
Miroslav ducked his head into the water and spat a thin stream across the pool. “Okay, go ahead, Tata. I’m listening. Tell me about Makarije and Milo.”
“Bajo. Makarije and Bajo,” said Danilo. “They came from a poor family. A family with nothing. And so their father, who was a true believer in the mercy of God, sent them away to study at the Mileševa Monastery. This monastery was famous—it was a great honor for them to be admitted there, and the father was rightfully proud. Maybe one day his sons would become priests.”
“That is usually why you go to live in a monastery.”
“Usually. But these were not usual times. While they were there, the Turks came on one of their devsirmeler. You know what a devsirme is?”
“Yes, Tata, I know.”
“You and Miša are lucky they don’t have these anymore. Imagine—just when you were getting comfortable at school, in come the Turks on a devsirme and they snatch you boys up like a pack of animals. They do this to all the Christian boys they can find—they throw them into the back of a prison cart and drag them across the country. And behind the cart, a long line of weeping mothers begins to form. The women beg for the return of their sons. They offer anything—money, their homes, even their own bodies. And the Turkish guards keep them back with whips. Whips! Can you believe it? The women are bleeding from the whips, but still they follow. And when the cart is full, they return to Istanbul and they force the boys into Islam. They force them to become Islamic priests or warriors. Imagine this! How would you like to be kidnapped and forced to believe in something you don’t believe?”
“It doesn’t sound so bad. It’s a free ticket out of here. And I hear Istanbul was pretty nice back then.”
Danilo flicked some water at his son. “Ah! You have no idea. You’re too spoiled to even understand what it’d be like. A belief in God is the closest thing to your heart. No one can tell you what to believe. That is the one truth in life. But the devsirme was how the Turks kept these lands under their control. They were very smart. They kept us in fear by taking our boys, the same boys who might grow up to cause them trouble. Fear is the most powerful weapon, more powerful than any weapon you can hold in your hands.”
He paused. They listened to the water churtling down the chute into the pool.
“So here come the Turks, into the Mileševa Monastery, and they tell the two boys: ‘You must come with us.’ And you know what Bajo, the eldest, says? He says, ‘I’ll go. Take only me. Leave my brother.’”
“No way I’d do that. I’d be like, ‘Take him—look how big that guy is. Leave me; I’d be a shitty warrior.’”
“Watch your language.”
“That’s what I would say.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d do the same thing as Bajo.”
“How do you know?”
“Miroslav, just let me tell the story. This story has a certain rhythm to it and you’re ruining it.”
“I’m just saying that you don’t know what I’d do.”
“So the Turks, they actually listen to Bajo. They take him away to Istanbul and leave Makarije behind. And on their journey back, they of course must pass through Višegrad. But this was before the bridge was built. They have to ferry across the Drina. And the mothers who are following them, they cannot go any farther. They’re left weeping on the shore, watching their sons disappear across the river, disappear forever into Islam. And Bajo remembers this image of his mother weeping with the others.”
“The mothers could swim.”
“That isn’t the point. The Drina’s too dangerous to swim there. The current’s too strong.”
“Not so dangerous for a mother who’s crazy with grief.”
“The mothers don’t swim, okay? They’re stuck on the shore. Let me tell the story. You can tell the next story, but I’m telling this one now, and the teller gets to make the rules. That’s how it works.” Danilo paused, scratching at his shoulder as if trying to remember what happens next. “So Bajo arrives in Istanbul and begins to study the Ottoman system. At first he is confused, hopeless. He contemplates stealing a guard’s knife and plunging it into his own heart. But one night he’s visited by his mother in a dream, and she says that he must survive so that she can one day see him again. And when he wakes from this dream, he makes a decision: not only will he cooperate with his captors—he will defeat them at their own system. And this is what he does. Little by little, Bajo learns their ways. He discovers he has a natural gift for learning their Turkish methods of law. In fact, he’s so good that they quickly recognize his talents and they begin to promote him through the ranks. He gains influence with the inner court and develops a reputation for fairness in all matters. As the years go by, he continues to rise, leaving his rivals in the dust. Soon he becomes a governor and then eventually a third vizier and then a second vizier and then finally, after many years, he becomes the grand vizier. He’s now the chief adviser to the sultan himself,
but everyone knows the grand vizier makes everything happen. And by this time he has a new name: Mehmed-paša Sokolovic. Once a poor boy from Sokol, an Orthodox Serb, and now responsible for the whole Ottoman Empire. Rich and powerful, able to affect the course of time itself!”
“So what?” said Miroslav.
“So what? Are you listening to anything I’ve just said? He decided to become someone who no one thought he could be. This, my son, is incredible.”
“Not so incredible for the other brother.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was left in the monastery. He didn’t become the grand vizier. His brother was trying to help him, but he ended up screwing him over.”
“Ah! Well, this is where the story gets interesting. Many considered Makarije to maybe not be so wise as his brother Bajo. He was even thought by some to be a little dim-witted. Maybe he was a bit overweight. But he did not do so bad for himself, either. He stayed in the monastery and studied very hard, and slowly he rose up through the levels of the church, one by one. Nothing was given to him by favor, nothing came easily. He earned everything through his patience, through his loyalty, through his utter devotion to God. And at the end of his life, he was ordained as the Serbian patriarch. Saint Makarije of Pec. This is the same Makarije, the same poor boy from Sokol, brother of Bajo. We celebrate his feast on the twelfth of September. Remember, when we roasted Dragan’s pig? And Miša caught the rabbits?”
“Miša crushed the rabbits. We couldn’t eat them.”
“Two brothers in the same family, and each grows up to be the head of a different religion. It just goes to show you that nothing is decided when you’re born. Everything is still possible. If you decide to change your life, you can.”