Reif Larsen - I Am Radar

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.

“Easy,” said Danilo. “There’s time.”

“So you’re happy?” said Stoja. “What’ve you been doing with yourself?”

He brought out a black box about the size of a milk crate, which he placed carefully onto the dinner table. A black velvet curtain flowed down from one side. He ducked his head underneath the curtain for a moment, fiddling with various unseen things before reemerging and motioning for his father to put his head beneath it.