Yugoslavia, My Fatherland

25

The visible became invisible that evening, and I could never recognize the Stomach Restaurant again if you asked me today, as if I had never set foot in it. I only remember a boy who nodded to me when I entered and introduced myself. The boy who kindly told me that it was only quarter to six, but nevertheless saw me to the table by the window, overlooking the patio. I remember that patio well, which becomes a part of the restaurant only on warm summer evenings, and also the blue menu that was placed into my hands soon after that. And I also know that I ordered a glass of white wine, followed soon by another one.

And then Nedelko is sitting at my table, while I’m downing my third or fourth glass. I remember how astonished I was at his serenity, his calm ‘Hello,’ and his routinely offered hand.

His greeting seemed so usual and inappropriate.

‘What will you have?’

Those were the first words I said to him after all these years, before silently pleading for the waiter to appear. I didn’t want to start a conversation with these words. They were complaisant and humble, and I promised myself to be neither complaisant nor humble that evening. And I felt like I was revealing all my fears to Nedelko with these words, and I already hated myself the moment I said them.

‘You’re alone.’

Nedelko was looking around, as if he had expected someone else besides me for dinner. But his gaze wasn’t fearful, like the gaze of a refugee secretly watching out for pursuers.

‘Brane doubted you, but I was sure you’d come alone.’

I thought that I recognized the satisfaction of a soldier who had just found out that he had seen through his rival’s tactics, and was prepared to attack.

‘Have you seen the photos?’

‘I have.’

‘Then you know everything.’

Nedelko went silent, as if drawing his chess move, and waiting peacefully for mine. Or he just wandered off for a second. I sat opposite him, overstrained, and couldn’t figure out exactly what the face on the other side of the table was conveying to me.

‘Why did you want me to come?’

‘Excuse me?’

He didn’t see this question coming. At least not immediately, not at the beginning.

‘You know… I can’t… ’

‘What?’

‘I can’t… those courts and that. I can’t… and I won’t.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘I don’t know. I think it was enough.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of everything, Vladan, of everything. Running. Hiding. Everything. After all these years, I owe an explanation to nobody. Everybody knows everything. And I’ve been to all sorts of places. And… who should I defend myself against up there? Against those charlatans? They don’t give a fuck… about any of us. They’re raking in the dough and waiting for their pensions. They aren’t interested in justice. Even less in the truth.’

I wasn’t following him, because I was still wondering what he had had enough of, and it gave me the creeps thinking that Nedelko was really saying what I thought, so early on. If he didn’t want to run and if he didn’t want to hide anymore, the only thing he could do was to turn himself in. But if he couldn’t do that…

It suddenly dawned on me that, all this time since we had been sitting at the same table, I only saw my father, and that all the other feelings I’d expected or wished when we met had simply disappeared. The unconscious ousted the conscious, and I was sitting in front of him only as a long-abandoned son. I resigned myself to him without a fight, and surrendered my feelings to a man I had wanted to hate so badly. At that point, I became aware of my own weakness, and I was ashamed. I grabbed a glass of wine and gulped it down, trying to drown myself in it.

‘So? What do you want from me?’

‘Nothing. I only wanted to say goodbye to someone.’

I tried to remain indifferent, at least this time, but failed. I was touched by his words, completely independent of my will. I felt guilty for all those unwanted feelings, and I wanted to take revenge on him, offend him, hurt him, attack him, something; anything. But I couldn’t. I was quiet and took a sip of my drink. I toasted myself for my lack of courage to stand up to the war criminal sitting at my table, while Nedelko pretended not to notice anything, probably out of politeness. Wine additionally limited my ability to focus, and there was no point anymore in me trying to read the expressions on his face. The only things left for me were words.

‘You know… those bodies in the photos Brane showed you… those bodies in front of which I’m standing… I hope you know that I didn’t pile them up. I merely found them. And then I was standing there, watching them, and remembering my father’s story… the pile of bodies of his family, yours and mine. I was standing there and all this was going through my head. All my life. This bloody destiny of ours. And then I realized how I… how we all are small and unimportant, and how all this, the game that I was trying to play, was actually senseless and redundant. Because life has just been toying with us all the time. This was how it had to be. This was the long-designed plan, and I only had to put myself in the picture. This was all predestined for me. There has never been any choice. All this was destined for me and for all of us. It’s our destiny. Fate.’

‘Amen.’

Wine finally spoke from me, and I was proud of myself. This was the me that I had been missing. Rude. Cynical. Gruff. Scornful. Angry. I downed another glass, called the waiter, and ordered a whole litre of my allied battalion. At that point, I finally gave up on myself, and reconciled to the fact that only alcohol could make me say the right words that evening.

‘Vladan, this has nothing to do with God. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those Commies who’s gone completely nuts and are now more religious than the Pope.’

‘What then? What is all this about?’

‘Fate. Only fate.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’ve always been clever, and I know you’ll understand what I’m talking about. This war was just a continuation of that war, and Milutin’s fate became my fate. I’m sure of it. And there’s another thing I’m sure of. If you’d remained with me, or if I’d remained with you back then…whichever you like… it would have become yours, too. You can’t escape fate.’

Finally time began to slow down. Wine intoxicated me, but calmed me down as well, and I started grasping Nedelko’s game, word by word. A game of made up destinies. The rage that I had been trying to recall the whole evening finally awoke in me again, and I took a more aggressive position.

‘I can’t understand.’

‘What?’

‘You called me here to tell me this fate story.’

I could finally embark on the offensive I had been planning from the start, but for which I hadn’t mustered enough courage when sober. Only when I was drunk was I ruthless enough not to care at all about Nedelko’s feelings. I finally looked past my father, and began to settle a score with the war criminal in front of me.

‘I almost started believing: In all those tales of yours about piles of corpses.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Sure you don’t understand. You probably told yourself this tale first… only then decided to sell it to me… ’

‘I’m not following you, Vladan.’

‘You’re not following.’

‘I’m not following.’

‘Can I ask you a question? Was it any easier?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well… when you concocted all this… this fate idea.’

‘What do you mean ‘concocted?’’

‘Like… when you concocted this whole story of yours, and when you used it to explain to yourself that you can’t run away from it. When all this, I mean, your pile of corpses and Milutin’s pile of corpses… all this… when everything clicked… It was easier for you, wasn’t it? Was it easier when you started believing that all this was just a destiny you’d never managed to escape? When you convinced yourself that you didn’t kill all those people, but that it was just fate at work? Was it easier when you finally realized that there was something greater which determined it all, and that you couldn’t really be guilty of anything? When you grasped that none of what you’d done in your life, and what you hadn’t done was down to you? Was it any easier when you started believing? In that something? Something greater?’

‘Listen to me, Vlada… ’

‘But it still wasn’t enough for you, and you called me here to tell me this story. For me to start believing in fate? Why? To make it easier for me, too? For me to understand you? To… forgive you? Was that the reason you called me? To help me forgive you? To make it even easier for yourself?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Who? Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, no, no. You don’t know how long I’ve been thinking only about you, and everything you’ve done, and I understood everything that could be understood a long time ago. Believe me, I did. And that’s why I didn’t come here to understand you. I really didn’t.’

‘Why did you come here, then?’

‘I only came to learn from you why you’d wanted me to come.’

‘I’m seriously asking you.’

‘And I’m seriously answering you.’

Nedelko was quiet, and he gazed at me gloomily, as if wondering whether to believe me or not.

‘Vladan, I won’t be long now.’

‘I know. You told me.’

‘Maybe you’ll be sorry someday, if we part ways like this.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

I was fighting myself not to feel sorry for this man, determined to come out of this fight a winner.

‘Why won’t you listen to me? To hear what I have to tell you? You don’t have to accept it, if you don’t want to.’

‘I’m no priest and the Stomach Restaurant is no confessional.’

‘I don’t need a priest. I’d just like to clarify some things to you.’

‘You won’t talk about fate again, will you?’

‘If you don’t want to listen… ’

‘Listen, if you don’t have the balls to talk about yourself, and about what you’ve done out of your own free will then, please, don’t talk at all. Do you get that?’

‘Do you really think that everything was just as I wanted it to be?’

‘I’ve already told you, I’m not interested in that story!’

‘Do you really think I had a choice?’

‘You’ve already answered this question yourself.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t believe in fate.’

‘Fine… You don’t have to call it fate, but you know that each of us is sometimes a part of a greater story in their lives… a story, which unfolds independent of them. I could tell you everything from the beginning. About the army, the politics, history… ’

‘But not about yourself.’

‘I was a part of all that. I can’t exclude myself from everything now.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

I recognized disappointment on his face, and it was hard to remain indifferent at the sight of it. I withdrew my gaze and wandered around with it for a while. I poured myself some wine and downed another glass.

‘I don’t know why you came, if you won’t listen to me.’

‘Why should I listen to you?! You raised me an atheist; you bloody Commie. And now you want to lecture me about fate? I’m not interested in your fate, I’m only interested in you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You. Only you.’

‘Only me?’

‘Only you.’

‘There is no ‘only me!’’

He got so worked up, he unwittingly raised his already resonant voice, and his last words ricocheted around the place, so that a few people turned towards us. Nedelko stopped and lowered his gaze. He knew that he had got carried away, and he continued so quietly I could barely hear him.

‘My life was the army. I was the army. Because I believed in it like other people believe in God. In that arm, and in the country our army represented. Or do you think we should have turned in our weapons, and let them take whatever they wanted from our country? Huh? I believed that the situation might be controlled. That we could suppress all that nationalistic rage, and re-establish peace and order. But you probably know that everything got out of hand, that it was too late. There were a lot of different interests which we hadn’t known about at the start… ’

‘I see you can’t get away from this story of yours.’

‘But this is my story! The only one. I am the story.’

I got up. I was drunk and I could barely stand up straight, but I was determined to march out of there. His helplessness was getting to me. His delusion seemed pitiful, and I had to put an end to it. I was leaning against the table and trying to balance myself. I knocked over a glass, and the wine spilt all over the table and dripped down onto the floor. The waiter came over to clean it up, while Nedelko just stared silently at me all this time, fearing I would really leave him.

‘What’s with you?’

‘I’m telling you. You can’t get away from your story. But I’m not interested in it. Actually, I can’t even listen to it.’

‘But, Vladi, I have no other story.’

He last called me Vladi when I was five or six. He was really desperate, and I needed to get away.

‘I shouldn’t have come.’

‘And now what? Are you leaving?’

‘I’m leaving.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re going be sorry, Vladi.’

‘I’m going be sorry.’

I walked away, and my chair crashed down, glasses on the table overturned, and one of them flew to the floor and shattered. I grabbed hold of the walls; I grabbed hold of the waiter and guests at the nearby tables, slowly making my way towards the exit, while he yelled after me. But I did not turn around again. I knew I mustn’t, and I didn’t. I was drunk enough for this feat and with a little luck, I managed to step into the street. I know that, if I had been sober, I would have turned and looked at him once more, and probably gone back to him, and we would have continued our conversation.

And maybe everything would have ended differently.