by Reif Larsen
Finally Miroslav closed his book. He sat like this for a while and then looked at his father.
“I think I’ll go to Belgrade next week,” he said.
“So soon?”
“I need to leave.”
“But it might be dangerous there. They’re saying it might be dangerous.”
“I can’t be here anymore.”
Danilo picked up the book.
“Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science,” he read out loud. “Immanuel Kant.” He opened to the first page and tried to read a few sentences. “So you like this?”
Miroslav shrugged. “Kant’s all right. He wrote his first book and no one understood it, so he tried again with this one. It’s better.”
“What was he saying?”
“He was trying to work out a theory that could apply to everything.”
“And did he?”
“Not really. He was wrong. I think he knew he was wrong even as he was writing it.”
“It’s easy to be wrong,” said Danilo.
“He didn’t know at the time how important he was going to be. When he was living, he wasn’t Kant. He was just another German philosopher trying to write down his ideas.”
Danilo closed the book.
“Maybe you should wait before you go. Maybe it’s better to stay until we know what will happen.”
“Well, we cannot know what will happen,” said Miroslav. “So does this mean we shouldn’t do anything?”
“I’m asking you not to go. I know I can’t tell you to stay, but I’m asking you, as your father, not to go. Just for now. Please. We need you here.”
“You don’t need me here. I don’t do anything.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Your brother needs you.”
“Have you seen him? He doesn’t need anybody.”
“It’s just for the fall. Then we can talk about all of this again.”
“Tata. I can’t. You know I can’t.”
Danilo opened the book again. “Tell me, why do you hate it here so much?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Not if you don’t give me a chance.”
“Have you ever woken up and felt like you’re being suffocated by your own lungs?”
Danilo thought about this. “God’s with you. He’s always with you, wherever you go.”
“You can’t prove it.”
“I don’t need proof. I’ve always had proof. The world is my proof.”
“I’m suffocating, Tata. I’m suffocating with each breath. Every day I’m here, I’m reminded of me.”
“But you are you.”
“So you see my problem.”
“Wherever you go,” said Danilo, “you cannot leave those lungs behind. So you better get used to them.”
9. ALL CHEMICAL PROCESSES ARE REVERSIBLE, ALTHOUGH SOME PROCESSES HAVE SUCH AN ENERGY BIAS THEY ARE ESSENTIALLY IRREVERSIBLE.
On the seventeenth of August 1991, Miroslav loaded a single battered suitcase, the professor’s box of philosophy books, and a jar of his mother’s slatko juniper preserves into the luggage compartment of the express bus bound for Belgrade. The four of them stood together awkwardly, saying nothing until Miša went to his brother and hugged him.
“Burazeru,” he said. “Will you come back?”
“Of course I’ll come back,” said Miroslav. He pointed at their parents. “Take care of them.”
Miša nodded, tears in his eyes. “I’ll miss you.”
As the bus pulled away, he ran alongside it, banging on the luggage compartment before flashing his brother the peace sign, although he could not see through the glare whether Miroslav was looking back at him. The bus upshifted and moved out onto the road. Danilo hugged Stoja, who wept heavily in his arms. Then he walked back to their car before the bus had even passed the old pump station, leaving his wife and son standing alone to watch its final disappearance.
10. ANY EFFECTIVELY GENERATED THEORY CANNOT BE BOTH CONSISTENT AND COMPLETE.
After his brother left for the city, Miša shaved his head and began calling himself Danilo.
Like his father and his father before. And his father before and his father before that. He gave no reason for this change, but he no longer responded to Miša or Mihajlo. On several occasions, he expressed his desire to visit his older brother in Belgrade. Stoja forbade it.
“You must stay close,” she said. “I’m not going to lose you, too.”
When it was clear this was not negotiable, he took a mug and threw it at the wall with such force that it left a hole in the plaster in the shape of a sinking ship. Later he would apologize, crying like a baby, surprised by the permanent wake of such fleeting rage.
Stoja could now be found most days at the church. She went to confession every day at 11 A.M., though there was never anything to confess. Her husband was a religious man, but even he sensed something was amiss in the persistence of her visits.
“You know God is everywhere?” he said. “Not just at St. Stephen’s? We can pray here as well.”
Her collection of candles had grown. Now there were ten that she lit each day in the manoualia. In her mind, each candle no longer represented an individual prayer; rather, it was their collectivity that came to stand in for all things. Ten candles would be lit—no fewer, no more. She would stay until they had all burned right down to the wick, until she could hear the hiss and see the puff of smoke that signaled their extinction.
If you had asked her long ago, at that Makavejev screening in the Dom Kulture, whether she thought she would be one of those kerchiefed babas who whittled away their days praying in church, she would’ve laughed at you. And yet sometimes we become the person we most dread. Or maybe we dread most the person we know we are to become.
11. THE PATH TAKEN BY A RAY OF LIGHT BETWEEN TWO POINTS IS THE PATH THAT CAN BE TRAVERSED IN THE LEAST TIME.
On the first of October, the JNA began its seven-month siege of Dubrovnik, Croatia’s Adriatic jewel. It was a symbolic attack, for the town was without strategic importance; the siege was intended solely to damage Dalmatia’s biggest tourist attraction. Of the 824 buildings in the old town, 563 were hit by shells, and 114 people lost their lives during the bombardment, including the poet Milan Milišic, translator of The Hobbit and close friend of the writer Danilo Kiš. Milišic died in his wife’s arms after a 120-millimeter shell landed on the threshold of their kitchen at No. 7 Župska Street.
His second-to-last poem was titled “And Outside”:
In the room it is night
And it is day outside
The three tumble outside
And the table sniffles inside
Something new is going on outside
In the room, only partially
There is no window in the room
That can be seen from the street.
12. EVERY INDIVIDUAL POSSESSES A PAIR OF ALLELES FOR ANY PARTICULAR TRAIT. EACH PARENT PASSES A RANDOMLY SELECTED COPY OF ONLY ONE OF THESE TO ITS OFFSPRING.
(Mihajlo) Danilo Danilovic began spending all his time with his friends from Cˇuvari Mosta, who had become increasingly radicalized since the outbreak of war.
With the beginning of the new season, football matches were now highly choreographed scenes of nationalism and elaborate xenophobia. Arkan guided the discourse from his refuge at the Cetinje monastery. New banners were unfurled, listing the populations of Croats in various towns in Krajina; these numbers shrank with each passing game. Chants were repeated and repeated again until they became something close to true. At halftime, as Stojanovic—who still remained despite the rumors of his imminent departure—puffed his three and a half cigarettes in the locker room, the crowd, hands held high, thumb and two fingers extended in the Chetnik salute, gloried in the singing of “Vostani Serbije” (“
Arise Serbia”) and “Marš na Drinu” (“March on the River Drina”):
Poj, poj Drino, pricaj rodu mi
Kako smo se hrabro borili
Pevao je stroj, vojev’o se boj
Kraj hladne vode
Krv je tekla
Krv je lila
Drinom zbog slobode.
Sing, sing, Drina, tell the generations
How we bravely fought
The front sang, the battle was fought
Near cold water
Blood was flowing,
Blood was streaming
By the Drina for freedom!
It was an old song written by Stanislav Binicki to honor the Serbians who had fought the Austro-Hungarians in the Battle of Cer in 1914. But this old song had been given new life and new meaning by a group of frantic young men inside a half-empty stadium.
Blood was flowing, they chanted. Blood was streaming by the Drina for freedom!
Danilo the elder did not approve of such appropriation.
“Those idiots,” he said to his son. “They have crazy ideas in their heads. They’re talking about medieval battles and old wars that have nothing to do with us.”
“You’re the one who’s always saying history is so important.”
“Not when you make it up! Those people have no idea about history.”
“Tata, we’ve got to protect ourselves. You saw what happened in Krajina. The same thing’ll happen here if we’re not careful.”
“I didn’t see anything in Krajina. I’ve never been to Krajina.”
“The Muslims have an army. They’re organizing a jihad.”
Danilo stared at his son. “You’re not allowed to go to any more games.”
“What? You can’t do that!”
“I can do whatever I want. I’m your father, Mihajlo. You are fifteen years old. You know nothing.”
“My name’s Danilo.”
“Your name’s Mihajlo.”
“My name’s also Danilo. You gave me this name. You can’t deny that.”
“Why do you want to be Danilo all of a sudden?”
“Why did you name me Danilo?”
“It was for your grandmother.”
“You see. Everything has a reason.”
Danilo pressed his hands together. “Be careful, my son. Be very careful with this.”
“We’re making a stand, Tata. Someone has to. At least my boys believe in something.”
“Please. It’s not about believing,” said Danilo. “Belief on its own is a house with no foundation.”
13. ALL PARTICLES EXHIBIT BOTH WAVE AND PARTICLE PROPERTIES.
On October 16, somewhere between twenty and one hundred fifty people (depending upon whom you talked to), most of them Serb, were systematically massacred in Gospic by an elite Croatian military unit nicknamed Autumn Rain. The massacre was in apparent retaliation for the murder of Croatian civilians by Serbian rebel forces several days before in Široka Kula. The Gospic victims were doused in petrol and burned, then buried and hastily concealed under an uneven layer of concrete, although this would become known only much later, in evidence given at the 2004 trial of General Mirko Norac at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
14. THE ANGLE OF REPOSE IS EQUAL TO THE MAXIMUM ANGLE AT WHICH AN OBJECT CAN REST ON AN INCLINED PLANE WITHOUT SLIDING DOWN.
Danilo Danilovic never attended another Drina HE match. He never saw Stojanovic go to his left again. He did not need to. Mosta had joined with the newly formed Serbian Radical Party (SRS). Meetings were now held in the basement of the municipal hall. Old flags were hung on the walls, ceremonial rifles placed on the table. “Marš na Drinu” was sung to the accompaniment of a wheezing accordion. There was talk of forming a local militia, of strategies for self-defense when the war came to the valley.
Not long after, Danilo and two other boys from Mosta took a bus to Užice and tried to enlist in the JNA. The recruitment officer, who was from Višegrad, recognized Danilo from primary school, and would not take him.
“I admire your initiative, Mihajlo. The army needs people like you. But you’re still a child. Come back when you’re of age and then we can talk again,” said the officer.
“My name is Danilo, sir,” said Danilo.
When Stoja came back from the church and heard what had happened, she flew into a rage.
“What were you thinking?” she screamed at her son. “You cannot fight!”
“I’m trying to help the country!” he yelled from the doorway. “I’m trying to actually do something! You’d let us just die here.”
“If you go,” she said, “I will never forgive you.” She came over and embraced him like a tree, and he stood there and let her hold him and cry two long wet spots into his chest.
“Oh, my baby boy,” she whispered.
“Mama, I don’t want to die alone,” he whispered to her.
15. AT ANY JUNCTION IN AN ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT, THE SUM OF CURRENTS FLOWING INTO THE JUNCTION EQUALS THE SUM OF CURRENTS FLOWING OUT OF THE JUNCTION.
The next day, a day of chilly, unending rain, he was gone. He left without saying goodbye.
16. THE POSITION AND MOMENTUM OF A PARTICLE CANNOT BE SIMULTANEOUSLY MEASURED.
Later, after Vukovar fell and was cleared of its Croats, after the massacre at Ovcara, there were reports of Danilo Danilovic doing strange and terrible things for Šešelj’s White Eagles in Vocin and then Bokane. Legends began to circulate about his strength, his courage, his ruthless innocence in battle. It was said that he could not grow a beard but that he was the size of two men. It was said they called him the beba džin. It was said that he locked an entire village of Muslims outside of Brcko in their six-hundred-year-old mosque and then burned the building down, shooting those who tried to escape, calmly and without malice, like a child reciting a poem.
But these stories would all develop and emerge slowly, over time, and the sources of such reports were unreliable at best, as the ICTY would later discover when it attempted, unsuccessfully, to assemble evidence for an indictment of Mihajlo Danilo Danilovic for crimes against humanity. The facts, if there were any facts, were difficult to establish beyond a reasonable doubt. Who had actually lit the match, and who had ordered the match to be lit? Perhaps many people had lit the match at once, or perhaps the match had simply lit itself.
17. THE RATE OF CHANGE OF ANGULAR MOMENTUM ABOUT A POINT IS EQUAL TO THE SUM OF THE EXTERNAL MOMENTA ABOUT THAT POINT.
After her son left Višegrad, Stoja went to St. Stephen’s and would not leave. In the evening, her husband found her crouching next to the manoualia, surrounded by hundreds of candles. He tried to bring her home, but she insisted on staying through the night.
“He’ll die without me,” she said. “Both of them will die without me.”
“You can’t stay here,” he said. “There’s no place to sleep.”
“I won’t sleep.”
“Come home.”
“Home?” she said. “Where is home?”
He left her kneeling on the floor of the church. That night, he finally managed to reach Miroslav on the phone in Belgrade. This in and of itself was quite a feat, for ever since Miroslav had left for the city, phone calls had come few and far between. University life was busy, he said. He didn’t have time for country chitchat anymore.
Danilo told him of Miša’s enlistment with the Chetniks.
“I know. He wrote me a letter.”
“When?”
“A while ago. He told me it was his calling.”
“His calling?”
“That’s what he said.”
“He wrote you a letter and you didn’t tell us?”
“Why should I? The letter was to me.”
“He’s your brother, Miroslav.”
“I know who
my brother is.”
“He’ll get himself killed . . . he has no idea what he’s doing. And fighting with a bunch of savages? Have you heard the stories of what they’ve done?”
“Miša has more courage in one pinkie than the rest of us will ever have.”
“He’s not Miša anymore. He calls himself Danilo.”
“You named him Danilo.”
“I named him Mihajlo. Danilo was only for my mother.”
“He’s going to be fine. Stop worrying. Worry about the poor Croatian idiot who meets Danilo Danilovic in the middle of a field, man against man. Worry about him.”
“Your mother’s upset. She’s at the church. She won’t come home now that you’re both gone.”
“Tell her to stop worrying so much.”
“Will you come back home? Just for a weekend? It would mean so much to her.”
“I’m busy,” said Miroslav. Then: “I’ll see what I can do.”
18. AT THE LEVEL OF THE SUBATOMIC, THE LAWS OF CLASSICAL MECHANICS BEGIN TO BREAK DOWN.
It was late October by the time Miroslav came back to Višegrad. The air had already turned cold; the birds had stopped singing. People tightened their scarves against the early chill of winter. Though Stoja had agreed to sleep in her own house, she spent nearly all her waking hours at St. Stephen’s. News of her son’s visit briefly lured her back. She busied herself preparing the house, baking fresh bread, turning and re-turning the sheets. They waited at the kitchen table, listening to the tick of the clock. When he finally arrived, late in the evening, they couldn’t believe their eyes. He wore tight-fitting, peculiar clothing and what looked to be eye makeup. Stoja would later say that he resembled an exotic bird caught in an oil spill.
“Miro,” she said. “How are you?” Her voice quavered.
“Fine. I’m fine, Mama.”
Danilo brought out the šljivovica, which Miroslav took down in one go. Danilo refilled his glass and gave his shoulder a squeeze.
“Welcome home, son.”
Miroslav again dropped back the šljivovica without pause.