Dusan Velickovic
DAYS OF BOMBARDMENT AND MARTIAL
LAW IN BELGRADE: True Stories

The President

Everyone is expecting bombs but nevertheless it seems as if nobody believes they are likely to fall. I am listening to the President addressing the nation on TV. His speech is not as simple and short as usual. The background is with no special details. One can only see a meaningless part of a painting behind the President’s head. He has already once delivered his speech at the same place. I wonder who directs such amateur frames. I suppose no member of the TV crew dares to suggest anything. He probably just stands up and says: "Action!"
     The speech obviously has to be like Churchill's, but it seems the President is not very convinced of his words. Anyway, making comparisons in the Balkans is no good. They are always wrong. I notice with surprise that the President loses his stream of thought for a second. Nevertheless these are all mere impressions. It is only certain that, contrary to my will, the President

has for God knows how many times, again taken the reins of my life into his own hands. A few hours later the wailing sirens are sounded in Belgrade for the first time. I decide not to leave for shelter. I switch on CNN expecting a direct TV broadcast. Explosions are heard from far away. I go out after midnight. The nearby "New York" restaurant is still open, but the owner has erased the old name and written the new one on a piece of paper – "The Baghdad Caffe".

The Reception

     It is the second day of bombing and I suppose the reception given on the occasion of the Greek national holiday in the Greek Embassy, will be cancelled. I ring up the Embassy just in case. They say the reception will be held despite everything. I come across an unusual scene in front of the Embassy. Numerous police security force men are sitting on the lawn with sandwiches, bottles of whiskey and wine in front of them.Apart from the Greek and Italian diplomats I can see no one from any other western country. Nor can I see a VIP from the Yugoslav political life. The President’s speech is in the limelight of all talks. Among the few present people spread the rumour that the President lost self-confidence and that Seselj's Radicals are taking over the power.
     The atmosphere is relaxed. All of us behave as if the just started war is not a tragedy but only a good opportunity to start a conversation We all have our own opinions, our analyses are convincing, we are well-informed and eloquent but still, I have a persistent feeling that we are all mere jesters beyond the touch of reality. At one moment, a special advisor of an opposition political leader hears his mobile telephone ring. He answers the phone and then says: “I’ve just been informed that numerous planes have already taken off and are heading towards Belgrade.” Everyone behaves as if the news was none of their business, but none-the-less approach the door. I sit behind the wheel of my car and drive down the black out of Belgrade streets listening to the sounding sirens.

Murder

     It is the Orthodox Easter Day. The eighteenth day of bombing. The state of war, censorship, patriotic songs, swearing to unity. I go for a walk to the city centre, after a long time. A concert is held at the Republic Square. People wear "target" badges. Every day TV screens show people who say they are defending the bridges with their own bodies. It seems a heated struggle among the parties is going on for the affection of the patriotic nation. It is said that Socialist Party (SPS) and Yugoslav United Left (YUL) control the bridges and Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) the squares. It is not clear what happened to the Radicals. Everything looks like a sad imitation of the famous 1996/77 demonstrations. At the time, the regime was being mocked in a spontaneous carnival atmosphere, while today it is as if some invisible hand put suicidal masks over those same people.
     At the corner of Knez Mihailova street, I meet Slavko Curuvia, the owner and editor-in-chief of the best selling Serbian tabloid Daily Telegraph and the weekly European. One of the Belgrade official daily paper has recently published a commentary in which he was called a traitor. The state TV has immediately broadcasted the article. Slavko says: “My most patriotic gesture is that I have stopped issuing the paper. I don’t want to write for censors”. His wife adds: “What they have published about Slavko is a true call for lynch”. After a short conversation we part. Not a full hour later I see him again at “Kolarac”restaurant. I waved to him and went home. It was exactly four o’clock in the afternoon. At twenty to five, two masked young men met Curuvia in front of his house and killed him shooting bullets into his back and head. It was not the first TV news. And it was a very short one.

The Third World War

     We have not slept at home for days. Every evening we go to the editorial office of my magazine Alexandria. It is a small, ground floor house in which we feel more secure. The magazine has not been issued since the beginning of war. It was advertised as the “first international book review in Serbia”. Now that we are waging war against the whole world, Alexandria became our shelter. As a matter of fact it is more a feeling that we are doing something when the sirens sound and planes are heard.
     We have turned one of the premises into a bedroom, though we hardly ever sleep there. We generally spend nights in the garden listening to the planes and bombs. Very often our neighbours and friends join us. Our-next-door neighbours are Milan and Rada, the refugees from Knin. They left two houses in the town of Knin. Rada would like to return to Croatia but Milan claims he will never ever go there. I ask Milan what his thoughts are, after everything that has befallen us: would it have been better had not the Serbs rebelled in Croatia or if they had accepted the offered autonomy. Would that have been better for them. "Of course", says Milan, "in that case I could have sold my houses and come here to Belgrade with a lot of money. As it is I have nothing."
     Rada says: “I would have stayed in Croatia, I wouldn’t go anywhere.” Milan thinks he is good at politics. He says: “Serbian regime is to blame for what has happened to the Serbs in Croatia.” Then adds: “Nothing can save us now or perhaps the beginning of the Third World War”.
What do you mean, Milan? I ask.
     “Then NATO would forget all about us”, replies Milan.

Bombs In My Yard

     Aeroplanes were heard first and then a long rocket whizzing. The explosion was deafening. I was lying in bed, watching TV. I got up before another whizzing was heard, opened the windows and put the blinds down. Such are the rules. The second explosion was much stronger. The whole building, quite a solid three-storey-one, trembled as if it would collapse any second. I continued watching a TV film. Bombs fell only a few hundred meters away from the house, at the corner of Vardarska and Maksim Gorki Street. A-twenty-year-old girl was killed. She was buried in her wedding dress two days later. It was the thirty sixth night since the beginning of bombardment. It was not 1984. And we did not wage war against Oceania and Eurasia. We have simply got used to it.

A Letter

     I got a letter from Holland. It was sent on March the 23rd. It was travelling for more than a month. The postman says I have to sign it. Is it a registered letter?- I ask. No, but everyone who receives a letter from abroad has to sign it now. Why, I ask. Well, because of the situation, says the postman. 

Diaries

     “Didn’t you know that I’ve been keeping a diary ever since the first day of bombardment”, says my friend to me, an engineer, dealing with real estates.
     “My impression is everyone in Belgrade is keeping a diary nowadays”, I reply heedlessly.
     It seems my friend is slightly disappointed. Then I tell him that in my opinion keeping a diary is a very good thing, indeed. It is good that many others are keeping it too. In this way we shall know better what was really happening to us, one day. Encouraged he reads me what he has written today: “Bombing became an everyday and usual occurrence. Once we used to tell our children they were to be at home at ten, at the latest. Today we tell them they have to be home before bombardment starts”. "Clinton give up at once, otherwise we are fucked up", a friend of mine reads from the next page of his diary. It is a wall graphite that appeared in a small city in central Serbia, sometimes in May.
     I write, as my friends do, as we all do. My wife writes, too, but we do not read each other's writings. Maybe because we write about the same experience, or because we do not understand each other's way of writing. She calls her writing "ecriture feminine", so that I probably should say my writing is "masculine". I guess it means that she covers the facts with the feelings and that I have permanent intention to cover the feelings with facts.
     I named my writing "the notes", partly because I was never good at keeping a diary and partly because it is not a real diary at all, and what is more, bearing in mind Max Frisch's Sketchbooks. It would perhaps be best if I named these pages, as Czech writer Josef Skvorecky did his, “Samozderbuh” (the book eating itself). Anyway, all of us are writing. As far back as twenty years ago I talked to Max Frisch in his Zurich apartment. At the time he told me something which was not so clear to me: “Writing is a self-therapy for me”.
     I understand him much better now.

Quotation

     A friend of mine, a young writer from Montenegro, says: “I think it’s immoral to write about Belgrade life when the Albanians are experiencing much worse things. And when nothing is said about it, here”. "Belgrade has been ruined, and it is a very bad experience. Anyhow, every sort of hard life deserves to be described", I answer back. "The Albanians probably write, too."
     Then I quote Max Frisch again.

A Dentist, a Convict, My Friend’s Friend, and an Albanian Woman

     One evening somebody knocked at the window of my editorial office. The air-raid sirens were sounded a long time before that. “It’s me, Dr. Stojanovic, I am your next-door-neighbour”, said an elderly gentleman. “Will you please lend me a hundred dinars, neighbour. I’ll give the money back first thing in the morning. I need it for a taxi. I must urgently go to one of my patients before the bombing starts”. Searching through my pockets I only managed to collect fifty dinars. He said: “This should be enough”. He never turned up again. I heard that no Dr. Stojanovic lived in the vicinity. I was really angry for having been cheated.
     A few days later, a man came to my editorial office, carrying a loaf of bread,. “Mr Velickovic, could you spare me ten minutes of your precious time”, he asked kindly.
     “I certainly could”, I replied.
     “You see this bread! I spent my last two and a half dinars on it. Thank God the Police found me a job but I have to pay 180 dinars for a medical check up. I can do nothing without my health certificate. Will you please lend me some money and I swear I will repay it as soon as I get my first salary. I’m really broke and in grave situation.”
     I immediately decided not to give up easily. “Why did the Police find you a job”, I asked him.
     “Well, I’ve just been released from prison. You must have heard the President had granted amnesty to many prisoners”.
     “No, I haven’t”, I say, though it does strike me I have heard something about the release of prisoners.
     “It is, you know, the matter of security. We cannot sit in prison with bombs falling down. It is dangerous. And the Army needs us."
     “Why were you imprisoned”, I ask.
     He smiles and says: “I killed my wife and her lover”.
     For a moment I thought I had better believe him. Maybe I had better give him the money and risk nothing. Nevertheless, having learnt the lesson from my previous experience, I decide to go on till the very end.
     I say in a very serious voice: “I think that having found a job for you, the Police should also give you the money you need. It’s not a big sum for them. Well, we can give them a ring at once and I will try to convince them”.
     He was puzzled and soon left.
     Afterwards I regretted not giving him some money., He made up a good story, after all.
     The next day I met my friend’s friend in the street. In fact, he stopped to talk and asked if I was interested in buying cigarettes. And we began the conversation.
     My friend’s friend has lost his job. At the moment he is dealing in cigarettes, petrol and gold. He says the price of gold has dropped in Belgrade. The illegal city market is flooded with gold objects. There are even gold teeth on sale. My friend’s friend claims he has spent the whole morning separating gold from the teeth. Lots of gold allegedly comes from Kosovo. The ethnic origin of gold is unknown.
     Several days later, a woman who had announced her visit over the phone a couple of times and then cancelled it, finally came to see me. She wanted to buy the newly published translation of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. For the time being the book can only be obtained through Alexandria magazine. She needed some time to collect the money, she says. When I gave her the book, she said: “You know, everything happening to us is not happening accidentally. Hannah Arendt described it all in this book.
     “What do you mean?”
     Instead of answering, she told me her life story:
     “My husband was Albanian and killed a couple of years ago. Maybe you remember that, it was in all the papers. He was a nice, educated man, the former Yugoslav ambassador. The police carried out the investigation, but without any results. After that, I was twice beaten by some unknown people. Nobody was found guilty, again. A few days ago, my country house in Grocka was robbed. I’ve heard that the robbery was committed by the men who went round the village asking where that 'Albanian woman' lived. And I am from a very respected, old Serbian family. So this is Hannah Arendt."
     I did not wonder whether I should believe her. I only kept silent. Perhaps I ought to have given her the book as a present.

The Money

     The money I had saved and put aside, is rapidly fading away. The family must live on something, so we are thinking over what to do. One cannot earn the money, here, in this country but maybe we can sell something. No, we are not going to sell the car. We might need it if we are forced to flee. And if we sell it now, we shall be unable to buy another one in future. Perhaps we can sell a painting or two, we have. Does the art market exist at all, nowadays? I have a Salvador Daly’s collage. Perhaps somebody could buy it. But that is really the only valuable thing in our rather small collection. And maybe not. Maybe it is a fake. Salvador Daly did not hesitate to sign somebody else’s works, for money. Anyway we all like the collage: two postcards one of which has been retouched so that when viewed from a distance it looks like a man with a mask on, and above it there is a word “Babaouo”. We might perhaps sell Glavurtic’s drawing of Heidegger? How much can one get, here in Belgrade, for the work drawn by a Croat born in Montenegro, who fled to Croatia after the former Yugoslavia disintegrated? At any rate, the drawing is very dear to me and I cannot sell it. I also have a large painting by Radovan Kraguly, a well-known Parisian painter of Yugoslav origin. But that is a gift, and one never sells a gift. The bicycle remains! No, everyone agrees we cannot sell the bicycle. Now when we are sparing the petrol only for urgent needs, we cannot imagine life without a bicycle. So we decide not to sell anything. After that I told my sons what I had seen in a cottage in the vicinity of Vienna where my Austrian friend had taken me. It was a large concert piano. When I asked who played it, the owner said: “No one. My father exchanged it in 1945 with a Vienna woman for a kilogram of butter”.

Censorship

     With first bombs, public opinion vanishes. It can now be called “war opinion” or “command opinion”. You cannot know, any more, who really thinks what. The opinion is only one, like an infinite sausage that keeps coming out of a meat-grinding machine. To express doubt about anything, or to criticize, would be a dangerous thing, mad, or a suicide.
     The new public opinion is based on simple principles: on the one side is the fatherland, to be heroically defended until our ultimate victory, and on the other side is the criminal aggressor seeking to annihilate one entire nation, the whole population. The opinion is implemented by war legislation and, from time to time, by intimidation. Official announcements say that there are traitors, although only a few. Traitors are those who, in this moment, think differently. No further difference between the regime-controlled newspapers and the independent ones. All the TV channels are the same. Many people are in a hurry to show their loyalty, patriotism, hatred for the enemy. With amazement I watch some of the once-prominent and influential Yugoslav newsmen who now stand in a new role: they publicly wear their uniforms of generals or of colonels. The editor-in-chief of Radio B 92 is arrested but soon is released. The Radio, world famous for courageous and independent critical reporting, is then taken over by the State. No use the big witty poster “B92 versus B52” hanging on the Youth House where that radio station is located.
     "We were thinking to stop publishing", says to me Z., the editor of a well-known independent newspaper, "but if we do that, we might very easily never get the licence to publish again. Besides, this is war, and in war, rules are clear."
     "No, it is not humiliating to carry the newspaper to the young Minister of information, the man you strongly criticized until yesterday, so that he can now read all the texts and OK them for publishing. I told him: 'When all this is over, we will resume writing about you, and we will not spare you at all.' But the problem is: the Minister’s censorship does not mean any protection. The Police are making their own estimations."
     I notice that his newspaper is one of those rare ones in which the newsmen do not adhere to the officially prescribed language.
     Then there is R., my colleague for many years, one of the most respected journalists in Beograd, the guy who worked as correspondent from many countries. He is probably one of the first individuals to be hit by the martial law. He has experience, he survived all sorts of repression in last thirty years. Now he wants to tell me everything, to the smallest detail.
     Several days after the bombardment started, two policemen in civilian clothes knock on his door. At half past two in the morning. He is to go with them. Why, asks he. We cannot tell you that. Do you have a warrant? Under war legislation we need no warrants. And what will you do if I refuse to go with you? You better not try that; we’ll take you in by force.
     In the car, the policemen say they don’t know why they are “taking him in for questioning”, they just got such an order, that’s all. And, in fact, they know him, they read his articles. Then one of them asks R. if he has, perhaps, some thought as to why he is being arrested. R. says: "Oh, probably because of my article in the newspaper."
     "Well what did you write?"
     "Nothing special. I criticized the President a little, about Kosovo."
     "Well would that be a reason? The President has been criticized by many."
     He spent 24 hours in jail. Nobody talked to him. Nobody told him anything when he was released.

A Park Above All Parks

     Two tall, strong policemen enter the park at the Vukov Spomenik Square. One of them approaches a group of men and women in the central part of the park. Those are the people I see regularly here. Somebody is always there, day and night. They are close in a special and touching way. They bring their dogs here, in the park. They know each other very well and are good friends.       Their only topic of conversation are their dogs.
     Sometimes my son takes his cocker spaniel Al there. Disturbed by bombing, Al disappeared one night. Al used to wander before, too, but then we always knew we would find him near the fast-food stand. However, the stands which used to be open all night long, are now closed with the first minutes of nightfall. My son looked for him in vain strolling along the blacked out Belgrade streets. Towards dawn it struck him to go to the park. He got some precise information there, at once. Al was seen in the park, then went away and returned again. Finally appeared the woman who kept Al at her place the whole night. Al was given a rich meal and his coat was really well brushed.
     I see a policeman and the people with dogs engaged in a heated argument. They are showing him some papers. I do not know what problem they are discussing. Quite recently Serbian government has introduced a tax on dogs, but it seems to me the tax was revoked when the war began. May be they want vaccination certificates, or perhaps it is forbidden to let the dogs at large in the park.
     Another policeman goes from bench to bench. Schools and faculties are closed and there are many boys and girls in the park. Many of them are sitting on the back of the benches with their legs on the seat. The policeman reproaches them. I hear him say: "We certainly do not sit in the park like that, do we? Have you learnt that at home?"
     The sirens sound the beginning of air-raid danger. The buzzing of planes can be heard. Many eyes look up towards the sky. However, the policemen continue their job. Dog owners call out their pets and tie them up. Boys and girls quickly descend to the bench seats, now much more rapidly, before the policeman reaches them. Like dominoes. Detonations are heard in the distance.
     Perfect order reigns again in this special park. It has been like that for a couple of years. In winter, with the first snowfall, numerous workers arrive to clear the paths. In spring the incessant care for the flowers and lawns begins. Flower beds are arranged in the true French style.
     Once the park used to be very untidy. It was famous for the physical workers who gathered in it. Whoever wanted to have a house built, to move from place to place or have a similar kind of job done, knew he would find workers here, in the park. There were workers from many parts of Serbia, but mostly Albanians. Now they are no more.
     The park is arrayed as part of the complex of the first underground station in Belgrade. The President himself opened it ceremonially a few years ago on the eve of the elections.

Departure 

     As the official delegate and the only representative of the Serbian PEN-Centre at the Bled International Writers' Meeting, I undertake my journey to Slovenia on the 19th of May 1999, precisely at five o'clock in the afternoon. I reckon it is the most convenient time between the two usual daily periods of air-raid alerts. I cross the Pancevo bridge over the Danube and proceed on the back-up, round-about route to Novi Sad, via Perlez, Titel and Kac. And, except for the blasted petrol station at Padinska Skela near Belgrade, I do not see any sign of bombing all the way to the Hungarian border, right up to the Kelebija crossing.
     One checkpoint, though, is on the road near Novi Sad; another one far to the north, near Subotica. I notice that the policemen are very polite and civilized, even discrete. A short check-up of documents, a question where I am travelling, and that's it, they don't even ask why, for what reason. The same will happen on my return. I conclude this cannot be accidental, but do not know how to explain such unusual behaviour. Is it the war which made all of us better to each other? Or the policemen instinctively feel insecure, not knowing what might happen to us all the following day, not knowing what commands they are to carry out soon. I hope it is their real human nature to be nice with people. I wish to believe it might prevent possible ugly events in this part of the country.
I show the permit obtained from the military authorities and cross over to the Hungarian side without much waiting. But lengthy lines of cars are waiting, there. It seems to me I am the only Yugoslav to cross the border at the time. The cars in the waiting line are mainly with Hungarian and Bosnian registrations. The control is detailed, but the Hungarian Customs-officials’ attitude is correct. I see that some things are being taken away from many Hungarian vehicles, but what the Hungarians might be trying to smuggle out of Yugoslavia these days – is quite beyond my ken.
     Before midnight I am in front of the motel in the viccinity of Budapest. Rumbling of planes across the sky wakes me up. Getting up quickly, I open all the windows and pull down all the wooden window-blinds. Those are the rules. I try to get some sleep again. Only then do I realize that I am at another place now, and that these are probably the planes on their way back, after the bombardment. I dress up and rush to the phone booth in front of the motel, to call Belgrade. Phoning and asking about the situation in the country will be one of my chief preoccupations during the next few days. At the seemingly safe distance, I will realize that my Belgrade-style routine reactions to bombardment are beginning to change into a growing anxiety and worry.

Casablanca Girl

     I find a group of people in front of the Slovenian Embassy in Budapest, where I am supposed to obtain my visa. One Hungarian businessman, several Ukrainians, and a number of young Yugoslavs. The talk is mainly about our people in Budapest. Some say there are 8,000 Serb refugees in the city. Others say, 40,000. Everybody's worries and dilemmas are the same: to stay, or to travel back to Yugoslavia; how to find a place to live, and a temporary job, here; which visas are most easily obtained... "Serbian Casablanca". That's how the most prominent Hungarian Serb, Stojan Vujicic describes Budapest of today.
     A girl comes up to me and asks if I could give her a lift to Slovenia. She could pack her things in no time. She has already been three weeks in exile and has learned to make quick decisions, having all her belongings ready to move. While driving with her to Ljubljana, I learn she is the Music Academy student, in Novi Sad. When one of the Novi Sad bridges was bombarded, she found a shrapnel in her bedroom. Then she decided to shelter in her father's summer house in the mount of Fruska Gora but soon afterwards the mountain was a lot more bombed than Novi Sad. She has won many awards, but thinks that this is the end of her studies. She hopes to find a secretary job either in Slovenia or somewhere else. She says she is familiar with computer work and is as skilful at it as she is at playing her instrument, but computer work is in greater demand.

A Man From the Bombed City

     I arrive at Bled at three o'clock after midnight. The morning session starts with the topic "Balkan: The Role of Writers for the Promotion of Culture of Peace". I am some ten minutes late and take the first free chair in the last row. Slovenian poet Boris Novak, President of the International PEN Writers for Peace Committee, notices me, stands up from the Chairperson's table, comes round and having embraced me says: "We’ll kiss each other’s cheek three times. As the Serbs do". Well, though I am not a three-kisses or three-fingers type and not the one who underlines my Serbian nationality in this or any other way, I feel flattered now.
     A little later, despite the time schedule, he invites me to speak. The atmosphere is such that I decide not to read my prepared paper about "The Modern Meaning of the Traditional Perpetual Peace Projects". Instead, I say a few words about the convertibility of means and ends: how real peace and non-violence cannot be achieved by pure violence, what Kant's idea of perpetual peace without any traces of future war is... Then I speak about life in Belgrade. Trying to present it all from personal experience only. Being careful strictly to avoid any kind of pathos. After this, I am for the whole day only “a man who came from the bombed city”. And everybody wants more details. Everybody is against the bombardment. Slovenians in particular. One Slovenian writer takes me aside and says: “Belgrade is the city that I used to love most, in the ex-Yugoslavia. Terrible things, the occurrences of today.”
     I am finally alone late in the evening, walking round the beautiful Bled Lake. Now, I am again only a man who has his fears and worries. And not sure whether I am a man who has any future, at all. 

Patriotism

     In the Misze motel on the freeway near Ketchkemet, some hundred kilometres from Budapest, the receptionist can recognize me. He asks why I am returning to Belgrade where bombs are falling. I feel it is the moment when I could say something very patriotic. I will much later formulate a reply that I ought to have given him: "I am probably not very necessary or useful to my country, but it is to me." Instead, I just answered: "I live there." It is not easy to be a true patriot in Serbia today. You must know how to be one. You have to be rather radical.
     Feeling some trepidation I drive to the border. I cannot see a single Yugoslav car. It seems nobody’s returning to that unfortunate country. Ahead of me are the days of bombing with not a definite end in sight. And that’s not all. I am thinking: perhaps some fool will dislike the things I said in Slovenia. Perhaps I might be detained at the border itself, for a "patriotic interrogation", because I did not deliver speeches in the official propaganda language. Well, perhaps I did, a little. I will never quite resolve the mystery of why a man, after crossing into a foreign country, immediately becomes less critical to his own country.
     Then I feel some shame for ascribing such large importance to my words and myself.
The customs officials and the police let me through. They almost seem to be happy that anyone wishes to return at all. I proceed along the empty road to Belgrade. I turn on the radio and tune in some local station. Nina Simon sings: "It's a new dawn / It's a new day / It's a new life for me... And I'm feeling good".
     All right, I am feeling good, too. Perhaps because I am reaching home, or because I am alive, or because I have no future. Perhaps all this around me is only the past. I know I have somewhere read the sentence: "The past is never dead, it is not even past." But I cannot remember who wrote it. Faulkner, may be? All of a sudden I imagine having discovered the meaning of Kafka's concept of the present as a gap in time. You wake up and realize you have been transformed into a cockroach that anyone can stamp on. 

"Between the Lines" Generation

     Somebody is waving to me from the "Kalenic" restaurant garden. It is my friend P. R. A few years ago he quit his job in the state-controlled news-agency "Tanjug". He became leaner, and began to grow a beard. Says he is not sleeping at home. He is afraid they are going to mobilize him. This is not war, this is suicide. He is embittered. Especially angry at his colleagues, the journalists. He shows me his little notepad with quotations from the most important state-controlled newspapers and from the official, state-owned television. I read: "The murderer Clinton and his notorious female escort, Albright… hermaphrodite Blair, a clone, miserable servant and lackey… the criminal CNN… the hyena Clinton… the court jester of NATO pact, Javier Solana… we gave to this monstrous, disfigured West a Pupin, a Tesla, and Divac, and Mijatovich…" In one newspaper article he found even this sentence: "… we never lose our mind, we govern our nervous systems entirely…"
In my friend's notepad there is also a longish list of newspaper quotations about "domestic traitors, who are only a few", about "heavy losses" of the enemy, about a victory already in sight, victory by which the Serbs will complete their successful defense of the entire world, entire mankind. P. R. rightly notes that from the beginning of this bombardment there was not, in the newspapers and on TV, even a single one news article that could be trusted fully. But, in fact, this does not surprise my friend much. We live our whole life surrounded by propaganda. Which is, now, only allowed to run totally loose, a hundred percent ruthless. Propaganda now has its "big time".
     What really angers my friend are the independent newspapers and magazines. Not even Kim Il Sung could boast of press like this. In an instant, the independent press lost all of its independence for which it had struggled so hard for so many years.
     "I have an impression", says P. R., "that editors made no effort whatever to defend even a minimum of freedom to think critically. It seems to me that they had been waiting, impatiently, to get rid of the burden of independence. In this propagandic patriotism they thrive like fishes in the water."
Yes, he understands that there is censorship, and that the punishments are extremely Draconian, and that you can get killed too, but, if you claimed for years that you are independent and that nothing can force you to abandon your critical stance, then this is exactly the moment to show that you meant it. "Now I understand", says P. R., "that the state-controlled media and the independent ones are only the two sides of one ideology, so that there is no essential difference between them."
     I look at the entire issue with much less strictness. I say that heroism, at this time, would be equal to lunacy. So I understand my colleagues from the independent media who do not dare, just now, to write freely. I propose that we read newspapers the same way we did during Tito's "soft" totalitarianism: between the lines. In this we might find the explanation for the phenomenon of independence lost in a flash. We are, all of us, part of a generation which, for far too long, was able to glean its freedom only by writing and reading between the lines. That era is now back, it has returned in a drastic form. Liberty is, one more time, only a crumb between the lines.

Music

     In a small single-room apartment under my flat lives a young man. He is twenty, an excellent student at the Faculty of Political Sciences. At fifteen he was known as one of the most talented basketball players in Beograd. At one game in the youth league he scored more than 100 points, which is probably still the record in that league. And just when they mentioned to him that he should become a member of the junior team of Yugoslavia, he quit basketball. We talked about it then, and I tried to get him to change his decision. But he would not. Now he is into music. His ears and nose are pierced, he has a tattoo of a dragon in several colors above one elbow, he plays guitar, composes music, writes the lyrics for his own music. The lyrics are in English. I think he imitates Lenny Kravitz.
In an attic-apartment of our house, lives a youngish woman. She works in the Radio-Television of Serbia. Frequently she complains that too loud music from the garsonyera disturbs her peace. Several times she called the police. The policemen come very quickly, usually two or three of them; they are rather young. Initially they are quite strict in attitude, then they settle down to listen to the music themselves, for a while, and then they are stern again when they are departing. Only a warning, now, that's what it is, they say, but, if the misdemeanor is repeated there will be an exemplary punishment. This was, like a game, repeated several times.
     These days, the woman from the mansarde has new argumentation.She rings at the door of the garsonyera. "The Propellerheads" are heard from inside – "Take California". The tattooed lad with an earring in his ear is ready for a polemics. He says the music is not too loud. Besides, it's only eight o'clock, no one is asleep yet, there is no one who could be bothered by music. And, this is good music, unlike that which can be heard on the squares and bridges of Belgrade, says he.
The mansarde woman is bothered by that music even if not very loud. She works hard, often at night. Does the young man know that the building of Radio-Television of Serbia (RTS) has been bombarded, and that several of her colleagues were killed? While he keeps listening to "that American and English music".
     And which music do you listen to, says the lad.
     Serbian spiritual, says she.
     A little later, I too have a talk with the young man from the garsonyera. I explain to him that these are the "dark times". I implore him to be circumspect. Perhaps, just in case, it might be better if he listened to "that American and English music" quietly. I do not think that the polemics with the mansarde woman is cause for some special worry, but, I know that in the dark times, troubles may start that way.
     I see that he is not going to accept the advice.
     I return to my flat. For consolation, I quote to myself Hannah Arendt: "Wisdom is a virtue of old age, and it seems to come only to those who, when young, were neither wise nor prudent."
     But I still worry. The lad is my son.

The Last Dissident

     He looks like a sea lion. Tall, fat, master of the space. We have known each other for a long time, but I do not remember that we ever had a conversation. He probably lives somewhere in the vicinity. Occasionally we meet and nod to each other. I feel a nostalgic sort of respect for him, at times even pity. The same pity that I feel for myself. As if we had met in the tavern "At three horse-chestnut trees" in Orwell's 1984.
     Today I see him with a plastic bag in hand. Instead of a greeting, I spontaneously blurt: "An excellent magazine you are making". He only murmurs something and keeps going.
     The magazine which he edits is "Republika". I receive it regularly by mail, and usually I just leaf through it. Since this war started, I read it thoroughly, each article.
     In this atmosphere of repression and general fear, the magazine "Republika" looks truly incredible. I am almost certain that is the only free-writing magazine in the entire country. Small-size, on cheap paper, graphically quite unattractive, the magazine looks to me, in the war days, like a real "samizdat", a fine but useless effort by persons who are politically marginal and whose ideas will be, one day, used or mal-used by someone. The bombs which are slamming down on my nation and its dictatorial regime, and the fear, anxiety and pessimism of my middle-age, give me the right to make large-size comparisons. Right, here I am, ready to claim that "Republika" today stands as the Serbian Gulag Archipelago.
     Not that I will say so to anyone; of course not. And I probably would not be able to counter the arguments of those who would ridicule me, "laugh me out", anyway. I know they would say that "Republika" is a tiny, unimportant mag, read by nobody, ignored by the authorities; some would say that a publication which has no influence whatsoever is deliberately allowed to exist, merely to create an illusion of liberty; and there are always those who are prepared to claim, with total assuredness, that the editorial staff are in cahoots with the police. And Gulag Archipelago? Everyone would dismiss that with just a wave of hand.
     I do know that this country was not created by Lenin and Stalin, I know that the guy with the plastic bag is no Solzhenitsyn, and that I am not the "Ivan Ivanovitch" on whose door the men in leather coats knocked at dawn. But still, I believe, deep inside, that there is a possibility that all of it might happen to us, in one single condensed moment. I feel that this is that moment.

Sounds

     I hear planes approaching. My estimate is that this time there are very many indeed. Yesterday on a press conference Jamie Shea announced that as many as one thousand aircraft will participate in the operations over Yugoslavia. They do not usually come at this time, in the morning. I feel uneasy, and I recognize this in the rush to complete various unnecessary tasks. I make up my mind to stop everything, to drink a cup of coffee, and to read my newps in peace. Then I realize: these are not airplanes, it is water boiling and bubbling in the coffeepot.
     These last few days it often happens to us. We, who live in this home, flinch and look importantly at each other. Trying to estimate what peculiar kind of detonation that was, now. Did a bomb fall so near as it seems. Then we realize that it was the child in the flat above us, playing. A girl, seven or eight years old. Schools do not work, and going out is perilous. She is frisky, I can imagine her stomping all over the floor. Sometimes she jumps off a chair or bed. She has been bombarding us daily.
     Cars seldom pass through our street. There is no gasoline, and there are few reasons to go anywhere much. Especially at night. So in the silence, an automobile, coming on, sounds to us exactly as a cruise missile or a low-flying plane.
An old man stops me in the street. He asks whether the siren signifies a beginning or an end of air-raid alert.
     "It is a burglar alarm on some parked car nearby", I say to him. "The air danger is not yet."
     "Nevertheless", says the old guy, "I cannot endure this any more."

The Library

     I decide to sort out my library. It is something I have been putting off for years. Living in small apartments, moving in and out of them – all that is the reason most of my books are in boxes, cellars, at relatives’ and friends’. I have for ages been obsessed with the idea of collecting all my books at a single place so as to make the dust fly, classify them and remind myself of the long forgotten titles. I was seriously of opinion that my life would be much nicer and better the instant I could eye all my books any time I wanted to.
     Now the moment has finally come. Bombardment is an ideal opportunity to put one’s library in order. When the sirens for the approaching danger are sounded, this can be one of the rare jobs one can attend to.
     It is Sunday evening. The sky is overcast and Belgrade targets will surely not be aimed at. Only some distant explosions are heard. Batajnica airport or Pancevo petrol refinery? I begin opening the boxes full of books. Earlier experience tells me I must not be sentimental. I must stick to a strict method. I will discard all the books I do not really need. I will give them to someone as a gift or will simply throw them away. I will keep only those of exceptional value.
     But what are the books of exceptional value? Are they the books that are recognized masterpieces or some other little known ones I love for inexplicable reasons? Are they the books I have read many a time, the books that have influenced me or the books I have written about, maybe the books that aroused polemics since they were politically controversial and were given special attention because of that. Perhaps I ought to keep all the signed books dedicated to me?
     Do I really need the books I was influenced by? Do I nowadays need Marcuse, Sartre, Habermas, Bloch, Freud… I decide only to keep all the books by Hannah Arendt and Max Frisch. On top of this small pile I place Kant's Eternal Peace, Tolstoy's anarchist papers and Paul Johson's Intellectuals. In the end I include a collection of Ginsberg's poems with dedication: »After lunch on Belgrade Skadarlia in the shade, discussing the Theater of Politics & Dictatorship of the MIND…« I return all other books into the box again. Wait a minute! I forgot I.B.Singer. I will keep his collected works in Serbian together with my translation of Lost in America.
     The following day I order a lorry to move the books to the Old Fair. I will leave them in the atelier of an artist who lives in Croatia. A friend of mine who was asked by the artist to look after the place, says: "He rarely comes here. Your books won't be in the way. You can keep them here as long as you like."
     We have to cross the bridge twice. And the atelier itself is almost under the bridge. The lorry driver says that NATO planes threw down leaflets over Belgrade the previous day with a warning that the bridges were on the target list. The driver says that "it is written on the leaflets they will target the bridges between two and six in the afternoon and it's half past five now".
     "I don't believe they wrote precisely this", I reply.
     "I saw it with my own eyes, I swear I did."
     "Perhaps you didn't see well. I can't believe they will aim at the bridges in daytime. There would be lots of victims and casualties."
     Thus discussing we crossed the bridge twice. I have a good feeling that by putting aside the books, in the safe, I am disturbing the usual order of the Balkans. Here neither the houses nor the house libraries last. Their destinies are often both tragical and comical.
     I remember an episode from my childhood. Suddenly Lenin appeared in our house. It was in the early fifties, somehow at the time when my father joined the Communist Party. Thirty seven books in thick leather binding with a relief face in a circle. Even in darkness one could, touching it, recognize the bald head with a stuck out chin. However, Lenin was not for reading. His collected works were for looking at and that is why they were visibly displayed in the sitting room. Father read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and most often Turgenev. Mother used to say: "He is a Russophile." Several years later father was fired from the Party. Mother said: "You were fired from the Party because you could not keep silent, though you never say anything at home, just read the paper and whistle." Since father did not keep silent, there was danger he would be imprisoned. Fortunately this did not happen. He only lost his job. We had to move to another apartment. There was a water caldron in the bathroom under which one had to light fire in order to warm the water. That is why we only took our bath on Saturdays. One day mother peeled the skin off Lenin and sold it. And we warmed the bathroom water with Collected Works for two Saturdays. Father was imprisoned many years later but it is quite another story.
     No sooner had ten days passed than a friend of mine phoned me. She is very excited for something rather unpleasant has happened – the atelier was taken away from the painter and the new residents are already in it. Everything from there, together with my books, was moved out and taken to an unknown place. Local authorities have done it quickly and efficiently, according to the law. There is a regular decision concerning the taking away of the atelier and the decision of throwing out the books. Every single title was listed, too. The painter has no right to lodge a complaint. After all, he is now enjoying himself in the sun of the Krk island in his new country of Croatia and we are enduring war times. We have to act quickly and efficiently.
     I have no reason to lodge a complaint either. I can only get my breath. My books have finally experienced what is right and customary in these parts.

 A Policeman

     An armed policeman in a camouflage uniform signals me to stop. I drew up fumbling my pockets to see if I have all the necessary documents on me. Since a few days ago, going out in the street without one’s identity card has been officially proclaimed a significant offence. One must have proof of one’s own identity every single moment in the state of war.
     However the policeman tells me: “Can you give me a lift to Knez Milosa street, please.”
In the car I see he is very young indeed, hardly twenty years old. Ruddy cheeks and Bosnian stress. It is probably his first war. "Perhaps it is not clever to drive you there since the main targets are in the street", I say.
     “Well, what are we to do if it is destined so!”
     He might be right. Perhaps destiny is the only true thing we can rely on. But why should I detach my destiny to his, I thought egoistically. I probably imagine my destiny has a much more beautiful perspective. Or it could be the very essence of the destiny: a young policeman enters your car and determines your destiny by his own. Like the poured oil in Bulgakov's Maestro and Margarita.
I ask him: "Have you been to Kosovo?"
     "Thank God I haven’t. But my colleague has been there for three months. I hear it is horrible down there. He is in the shelter all the time."
     "Which means he is fighting till the day of our victory", I quote the official propaganda.
     "My foot, fighting! I would give anything for the war to end."
     We keep silent for some time. I have no intention of inquiring any further.
     Then he says suddenly: "And have you seen what is going on in Aleksinac and Krusevac. Mothers again rebel demanding the comeback of their sons from the frontlines. It is no good. It was the same when the war in Croatia started."
     "Well, wouldn’t you rather the war ended as soon as possible? You should be on their side."
     "Well yes, but in the state of war you can’t rebel against the war", says the policeman.
     Before we parted I wished him never to be sent to Kosovo. And he thanked me. 

Tiny Letters

     A well-known Belgrade writer has given me a ring. He wants to see me at once. Several days ago in an official daily appeared an article in which he was accused of being "the Serbian people enemy".
I can see that he is excited but does not want to show it. He says he is not afraid but thinks Serbian PEN should protect him. It is not a private matter, of course and even anti-Semitic statements written in the article are not of utmost importance, he says. It is the matter of principle and does concern us all. After all, other writers are mentioned in the text, too.
     I say it is unnatural not to be scared. We live in a country in which this sort of article, at this very moment, can imperil many lives. Then I notice with relief that the article is printed in extremely tiny letters. My journalistic experience tells me that somebody wanted to "hide" the article. Well, do tiny letters save lives?
     I immediately ring up Serbian PEN-centre President, Dr Predrag Palavestra. He says we must react at once. We quickly schedule PEN Executive Board meeting. After the meeting the following announcement was issued:
     "Serbian PEN-centre strongly protests due to malicious insinuations said against the respected Serbian intellectuals and writers, Dr Vojin Dimitrijevic, Filip David and Biljana Srbljanovic, in the Tanjug article written by the Rome correspondent, Dragos Kalajic, published in "Politika" on May 27. 1999. By incorrectly cited and spiteful qualifications, intellectuals who freely express their minds are insulted and directly endangered. They have in no way endangered the interests of either the nation nor the state by saying publicly what their opinion was. In the existing tense and dangerous atmosphere such behaviour, as well as the previous flat rate attacks of the Democratic Party president Dr Zoran Djindjic, might have tragic consequences. In accordance with the International PEN Charter, Serbian PEN-centre feels responsible to protect the endangered writers and intellectuals as well as PEN members who happened to be in the way, from such dishonest abuse of the common misfortune due to settling the accounts of either political or personal nature".
     I feel well after the meeting. I think we have really done everything to protect our colleagues. Then it occurs to me: maybe their only protection can be derived from those tiny letters.

Tomatoe

     The first tomatoes have arrived. Serbian word for them is "paradaiz" which is a mutated form of the word paradise; some two hundred years ago somebody advertised the new fruit claiming that it is good and red as apples are supposed to be red in paradise, so they were “paradise apples” and the word stayed. This now is not the early sort from glass-covered greenhouses, this is the real one, ripened in the free sun. At the end of May, the greenmarkets of Belgrade are flooded with "paradaiz".
We ask a peasant woman: "You are not from around Pancevo, perhaps?"
     "No!"
     "Could be, from some village from under mount Avala?"
     "No, no way."
     "Aleksinac, Krusevac, Prokuplje, Cacak?” No no, on all the markets of Belgrade there is not a single one peasant from any of the bombarded areas. Everybody claims they are from Leskovac. Which is where best tomatoes grow and, incidentally, an area not bombarded at all.
     The bombs falling down on Serbia are modern ones. Rumour is: filled with depleted uranium. That's why we do not buy tomatoes which grow in the vicinity of military targets. Everybody is afraid of radioactivity and of chemical poisoning also. And that is the reason why exactly all the farmers have raised their tomatoes in the best and cleanest place, in Leskovac.
     We are distrustful, we have been since Chernobil. The authorities, in 1986, kept their silence for a long time, and prohibited any talk about the danger we were in. Then they started giving us unobtrusive, meaningless instructions: put a wet rag in front of your doorstep and wipe your feet well, before you enter the flat; if rain gets you, take a shower immediately, more plentifully than you normally would; wash your lettuce really well, and in fact you do not really have to eat lettuce and other green salad foods this season. No panic! Peace and order are more important than life.
Today’s authorities also dislike panic. What kind of totalitarian government would they be if they couldn’t keep everything under control. But circumstances have altered since Chernobil. We are less scared of panic, we need more propaganda. For this reason, we are told that a colossal ecological catastrophe has occurred in Serbia. Radioactivity and chemical poisons are in the air, in the water and in the ground, they endanger us on every step. Children in puberty are especially threatened. Infants also. Pregnant women? Should discontinue the pregnancy, better.
     A few days later there is an official announcement that there is no increase in radioactivity. Chemical poisoning yes, in some areas, but it is localized and not very dangerous. Several more days pass, and exactly the opposite is announced. And so, for a few days we hate more and more the enemy who is creating the ecological disaster in our land, then for several days we love more and more our good authorities with whom we live in this clean and beautiful country, then all from the beginning.
     We trust no one any more. At home, we put the tomatoes in a large salad bowl, we turn on the water, and let it flow. So our "paradaiz" remains several hours in flowing water. And only then do we eat it.

Miracle

     The President says that we have successfully defended ourselves. It is our victory. He congratulates us all on the peace. He says we are all heroes. The entire population is hero. And we must remain united, as we have been in war.
     This time the President speaks self-assuredly. No trace of Churchill's uncertainty. The camera angle has been altered too. Now we see the whole big painting behind him. I still do not know which painting it is. Next to it are two smaller paintings, one to the left and one to the right. I should say these are Dutch masters. And, the President shows his whole figure. He stands legs apart, somewhat bent to one side and mildly humped-looking.
     Several days later I see the President on the ruins of one of the bridges of Novi Sad. Faithful assistents are behind him. The people cheeer from time to time. The State television says 15,000 people were there. Others say, several thousand, brought from afar by specially rented busses. It looks as if the President will, any moment now, cut the ceremonial tape to mark the opening of the destroyed bridge. But, no! The President talks about the restoration of what’s ruined and building up new. He uses two specific words which resound in people’s consciousness very clearly. Everybody immediately thinks of the period after May 1945. That's that period of restoration and building up. They demanded unity at that time, also. They repaired the knocked-down buildings. And they knocked down what was old and obsolete: political pluralism, human rights, private ownership. We lived under the principles of dialectical materialism, then. And a leader was elected who will stay in power until the very end of his life.
     The President claims the bridge will be restored in only forty days. And not only that. We will re-establish our links with the world. We will show that we are the most democratic country in the world.
     Later on, I hear ironic remarks from many sides. But, all those who laugh at this President, or who do not believe him, are wrong. That one bridge will, probably, really be repaired in forty days. I talk to R.P., a civil engineer. He says: “This bridge is not accidentally selected to be repaired first. It differs from others. Only one section is knocked down from it, at its very beginning, where in fact it is still over the land, not water. A simple, improvised earthen embankment will support it at that point, and it can be brought back into use nicely. Anyone can do it in forty days. That is how miracles are made.”

(From the book in manuscript A Crumb Between the Lines)

Copyright 1999, Dusan Velickovic