I Am Radar

by Reif Larsen

Danilo shook his head. “I’ve no more stories to tell.”

  • • •

  AFTER THAT, THEY MET every week. When the weather became warmer, they would walk along the Danube, past the shuttered houseboats, pausing to watch the children do their exercises in the fields. Danilo would occasionally ask what his son was doing, but Miroslav would say little, only that he was working on “a show that was going to change everything.”

  When Danilo was not with his son, he spent much of his time alone in the storage room, reading his Bible and smoking. In one corner he had set up a little altar to Stoja, with a photograph of her taken one Christmas, smiling next to her two boys. To one side was the icon he had taken from the barn and a couple of candles that he had swiped from a local church.

  The weeks and months passed. Without running water or a proper razor, he grew a beard, just like his son. Ilija began to call him Moses.

  “Hey Moses, we need to get some culture!” Ilija declared one morning after rolling open the garage door to the warehouse. “No more praying.”

  Danilo blinked at the rush of light. “What culture?”

  “Museum culture,” said Ilija. “Otherwise we’ll forget we’re a civilized people.”

  “I don’t forget.”

  “Well, I forget,” said Ilija. “And if you spend enough time with me, you’ll forget too.”

  But the source of their culture, the National Museum, was closed.

  The sign on the door read:

  WE’RE SORRY, BUT DUE TO BUDGETARY CUTS THE MUSEUM IS OPEN ONLY ONE DAY A WEEK, OR BY APPOINTMENT.

  It did not list which day of the week the museum would be open.

  “Complete and utter bullshit,” said Ilija to the guard out front.

  “I just do what they tell me,” said the guard.

  “Can we make an appointment?”

  “You have to do that before you come.”

  “I want to make an appointment with you.”

  “It’s impossible.”

  “Listen to me: nothing is impossible. If I’ve learned anything from the washing machine, it’s this. Together, you and I can make a deal.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” said the guard.

  “Do you know about this?” Ilija said. He handed the guard a wad of bills. The man looked around, pocketed the money, and then opened the door.

  “We can be open for a little bit,” he said.

  They walked up the grand staircase, past a series of towering marble sculptures, past a shuttered ticket booth, into a room with a vaulted glass ceiling. They were completely alone.

  “Imagine. This is my palace, and I’m the king,” said Ilija.

  “Why are you the king?”

  “You can be a prince,” said Ilija. “Believe me, it’s a much better job. You have no responsibility. All you have to do is make love to beautiful women and ride your horse in the parade.”

  They wandered through the halls. Their solitude made the great works of art at once personal and impossibly distant, as if they had broken into another man’s house and were perusing his private collection.

  They stopped in front of Composition II, by Mondrian.

  Great blocks of color. A perfect field of red.

  “I’ve wasted my life,” said Ilija.

  It was the sound of their feet on the polished floor that made Danilo remember Miroslav of Hum’s illuminated manuscript. This was the same museum he had visited as a child.

  He found the book inside a glass case in the same room on the second floor where he had seen it forty years ago. Open to the same page, even. The saints, lugubrious, resplendent as ever. Aware of all that had gone on, but unchanged in posture and expression.

  His mother had stood right there.

  “Do you see, Ilija?” whispered Danilo. “It’s from 1186.”

  “I keep telling you: we come from great people. Look at this book we made,” Ilija said, his face glowing from the light coming off the page. “We’ve just lost our way. That’s all.”

  He put his hand on his heart and began to sing “Uz Maršala Tita.”

  “What’re you doing?” said Danilo. “This is a museum. You can’t sing in here.”

  “This is our palace. As king, I can do whatever I want.”

  He began to sing again, louder this time, and after a moment of staring at his friend, Danilo joined him. Together they belted out Tito’s anthem, serenading Miroslav’s saints, who looked bemused and even a touch flattered:

  Rod prastari svi smo, a Goti mi nismo.

  Slavenstva smo drevnoga cest.

  Ko drukcije kaže, klevece i laže,

  Našu ce osjetit’ pest.

  Of an ancient kindred we are, but Goths we are not.

  Part of ancient Slavdom are we.

  Whoever says otherwise slanders and lies,

  and will feel our fist.

  Danilo made an appointment to return. And return again. Just so he could stand near the book. He even took Miroslav to see his namesake’s manuscript. His son was underwhelmed.

  “You named me after a tyrant.”

  “I didn’t name you for him.”

  “It doesn’t matter who you named me for. I’m still named after him.”

  “Forget him and just look at the book.”

  “That’s not how it works. The book is nothing without its maker.”

  • • •

  DANILO RETURNED so many times to see Miroslav’s Gospels that the museum staff got to know him well. The guard who had first let them in was named Boris.

  “Hey, Dino,” said Boris. This was what he called him. “Dino, you should work here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you should work here. They got someone else, but he’s a drunk. He can’t hardly stand up. You can stand up, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a lock. The job’s yours, I’m telling you.”

  So Danilo became a guard at the museum. They gave him a uniform with a tie clip. It was two sizes too large, but it was still a uniform with a tie clip. On the day the museum was open to the public (this changed regularly, but usually it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday), he had to work all three floors, though he would always try to maneuver himself to the station on the second floor when a patron came through. He liked to be there when they walked into the room containing Miroslav’s Gospels. He would quietly stand at the doorway, watching them watch the book. If visitors looked particularly transfixed, he would go over and offer to show it to them.

  “I don’t normally do this,” he would say.

  Then he would carefully lift off the glass case, put on a pair of white gloves, and turn the pages of the great book for them. He was fairly sure that if his boss caught him doing this, he would be fired instantly. But it was worth it.

  “It’s from 1186,” he said to a young woman and her son.

  “It’s beautiful,” said the woman. “Isn’t it beautiful, Danilo?”

  “Yes,” said the boy.

  “His name is Danilo?”

  “It’s a family name,” the woman said.

  The three of them stood and stared at the book in silence.

  • • •

  A YEAR WENT BY. The dinar—now the novi dinar—had stabilized, officially pegged 1:1 to the deutsche mark. After bouncing around on several astronomical banknotes, Nikola Tesla now presided calmly on the five-novi-dinar bill. Though there was still a shortage of food, and though public buses were still stuffed dangerously full of people, and though there were still only a few cars on the streets because of the oil embargo, people had grown used to the struggle of wartime life. There was even a kind of humorous nostalgia for it, although the war was not over. Turbo-folk singers lamented the end of difficult times that still remained.

  On four separate occasions, Danilo had wr
itten Miša a letter to explain all that had happened. He had sent these to a variety of Srpska army bases in eastern Bosnia, but none of the letters had gotten through. This became evident when Miša again wrote to Miroslav in the late spring, saying he had been stationed above Sarajevo next to the 1984 Winter Olympics bobsled track, where he would loft mortars down into Stari Grad. He said he was now being moved to Srebrenica, where there were “still some problems to be solved.” The joyous news of his son’s still being alive was tempered by these details of his involvement in the horrors of war.

  I might be able to get some time off and come see you in Belgrade soon if things don’t get busy again here. There’s never time to leave because the fight is too important right now. . . . Commander Vukov says we are close to winning.

  If you speak with Mama or Tata, tell them I say hello and I love them. I wrote to them but wasn’t sure if they received my letter. I hope they are fine.

  Your brother,

  Danilo

  “He still doesn’t know,” said Danilo when Miroslav showed him the letter. “In his world, she is still alive.”

  He thought of his letters lying in bags in the back rooms of Srpska army bases as mortars rattled the ceilings. He thought of those bags, filled with undelivered letters, filled with impossible truths.

  • • •

  IN LATE JULY, Danilo and Miroslav met at the Rijeka. Miroslav ordered a cappuccino and Danilo ordered a black currant juice. As soon as they were sitting, Gazur sent Eder out to play his reluctant accordion, a rendition of “Stani, stani Ibar vodo.” Danilo, thinking Miroslav would not approve, was about to wave Eder away, but his son’s expression seemed content with the music.

  It was early evening. They smoked and watched the light come in off the Sava. A lone canoeist was working his way northward to the point where the two rivers met. It occurred to Danilo then that all rivers were the same river.

  “I heard from Miša again,” said Miroslav.

  “Why doesn’t he ever write to me?”

  “He did write to you. He doesn’t know you’re in Belgrade.”

  “He didn’t mention Stoja?”

  “No.”

  “What about that mess in Srebrenica?”

  “He didn’t say anything about that. He said he had been blessed by a priest and that because of this, a Muslim soldier had fired at him from close range and missed. He said he was down in Žepa and even got to swim in the Drina, but he didn’t make it to Višegrad to see you.”

  “I’m not in Višegrad.”

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  “Višegrad,” said Danilo. “I wonder what’s become of it.”

  “But he sounded fine, considering.”

  “Mihajlo. Danilo.” Turning over the name. “What could I have done?”

  “Don’t worry, Tata. He’ll be all right.”

  Danilo shook his head. “You can tell they aren’t saying what happened in Srebrenica.”

  “An American said ten thousand Muslims were killed in six days. They were hunting them in the forest. Children too.”

  “Good God.” Danilo closed his eyes then shook out another cigarette. “Miša didn’t say anything about that?”

  “It’ll all be finished soon. Before the year’s out,” said Miroslav.

  “You think so?”

  “’s pushing his luck. Even Clinton—dickless, prickless Clinton—won’t be able to put up with him much longer.”

  “I never knew you were such an optimist, Miro.” Twining the smoke with a sip of juice and wincing at the terrible beauty of it all.

  Eder started in on “Ajde Slušaj, Slušaj Kaleš Bre And¯o,” and Gazur came over with two slices of cherry štrudla.

  “A gift,” he said. “Compliments of the house.”

  “I might be dead without that man,” Danilo said as he watched Gazur waddle away. “Everything has been compliments of the house.”

  “Well, it’s a big house. You know he runs one of the biggest black market rings in the city.”

  “No!”

  “I thought you knew. It’s how he and Ilija know each other. Why do you think he has so many compliments to give?”

  “Gazur? But he’s such a good man.”

  “To you, maybe.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “They say he was born a Jew but renounced his faith.”

  “Now you’re lying.”

  “This is only what they say.”

  Miroslav seemed to grow serious. He took down the last of his cappuccino and then looked at his father. “Look, Tata. I have to go away for a while.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Miroslav looked over at Eder on the accordion. “You can’t tell anyone,” he said. “No reporters. Not Ilija. Not anyone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Sarajevo.”

  Danilo blinked. “Sarajevo? But it’s under siege.”

  “Oh, is it? I hadn’t heard.”

  “It’s not safe, Miroslav. You’ve seen the pictures. They’re shelling it from—”

  “Tata, it’s not safe anywhere. The Americans could drop a bomb on us right now. So should we not sit here? Should we not sit here and take our drinks because of a bomb that may never come?”

  “But you can’t even get near there. How will you get inside the city?”

  “You can always get inside. Getting inside isn’t the problem.”

  “And then? And then what’re you going to do?”

  “Tata, I need you to promise you won’t say anything. I mean, it would be very bad if they found out I told you.”

  “If who found out? What are you talking about, Miroslav?”

  “I need you to promise.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I promise. I won’t say anything.”

  Miroslav shifted in his chair. “Last year I was contacted by some men who are living in the United States. They’re a very important group—they’ve done incredible work all over the world. I saw a video once of this miniatures installation they did in northern Russia in the 1960s. It was in the middle of a nuclear test explosion. The installation was destroyed by the blast. You can see the bomb and then the blast coming . . . Well, it changed everything for me. I mean, you see something like that and it’s as if there’s your life before and then your life after. Things could never be the same again. And I knew what I was supposed to do.”

  “You mean make those boxes.”

  “Yes, but it’s more than that . . . It was like I saw the world in a different light, a different set of possibilities. Suddenly there was a way for me to be me.”

  “And so these people . . . they contacted you?”

  “They had heard about my work through a professor in the philosophy department here. He knows these guys, he’s a great admirer of theirs, and now they asked me for help putting on their show in Sarajevo. I mean, it’s a huge honor. These are my heroes.”

  “But of all the places in the world, why would you want to put on a show in Sarajevo? You could be killed!”

  Miroslav shook his head. “Oh, never mind, Tata. Forget I even told you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Danilo. “Where are you going to do it? On the street? Are there snipers?”

  “We’re performing in the National Library. It’s burned down, but the shell of the building’s still there. It’s a magnificent space. Here, look.” He slid a photograph across the table. “Can you imagine?”

  Danilo examined the photo. “You’ll put a black box in there?”

  “No, no. They have a whole show. They’ll use some of my technology, but they have an agenda. They have a whole plan.”

  “What’s the show about?”

  “Many things. It’s about many things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like many things. String th
eory. Neutrinos.”

  “Neutrinos?”

  “Invisible particles that pass through everything.”

  Fig. 2.7. National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Winter 1993

  Photo by R. Richards, from Røed-Larsen, P., Spesielle Partikler, p. 988

  Danilo returned the photograph. “Can’t you wait until the war is finished to do this?”

  “No. It has to be now. That’s the whole point.”

  “But do people really want to watch something like that during a war? If I’m trying to survive, maybe I just want food and water instead of a show about neutrons.”

  “Neutrinos,” said Miroslav. “But this is what this group does. The whole performance is what it is because of where it’s taking place.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound right to me.”

  “Fine,” said Miroslav. “It doesn’t sound right to you. Let’s just forget it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  They ate the pie and smoked and listened to Eder working the accordion.

  Gazur came over. “How is the štrudla?”

  “Delicious,” said Danilo.

  “The river’s beautiful today, isn’t it?”

  “It’s always beautiful.”

  “Your father’s a real man,” Gazur said to Miroslav. “I meet a lot of men, but none like your father. The world needs more men like him, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “He’s a real man,” Miroslav agreed.

  “Father and son.” Gazur smiled. “It’s good to see.”

  When he had gone again, Danilo turned to Miroslav. “He’s really into the black market?”

  “He’s the biggest there is. He has a whole warehouse of guns. Drugs. Prostitutes. Everything.”

  “Gazur,” said Danilo, shaking his head. “What next?”

  After a while, he said, “You know, back home, your elephant’s still in the barn.”

  Miroslav laughed. “That old thing. I told you to burn it!”

  “I’ll never burn it. So long as I live. Stoja’s altar is there.”

  Miroslav nodded. His face grew somber.

  “I miss her,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Danilo. Then: “This group from the U.S., they like you?”