William Vollmann - Last Stories and Other Stories

Years later, Ivan’s guest seemed to have discovered peace; perhaps it was fair to state the case more definitely; since no one gets full measure of anything but death, why expect more tranquillity than this? He kept his habits, not to mention his memories, which made him prouder as he corrected them; his health wasn’t bad; his wife loved him.

At the border there were many tour buses and a Tiško-Benz truck blowing diesel. Two policemen boarded and began to check documents, their manner less intimidating than merely formal; he worried because his wife on principle refused to pull out her passport before the last minute. DOBRO DOŠLI — WELCOME, he read within a grey rectangle. Past the lowered red signal bar at the stop signal lay a hill of bushes and trees, for all he knew still mined, although that would have been discouraging, and then those red-roofed two-storey houses with the windows shuttered — just like before, those silent houses. The beautiful blue and yellow flag with its white stars barely quivered.

The signal bar ascended; the bus entered the new country. At this moment Ivan used to get as excited as a child. On the righthand side of the road, a man stood behind his car, holding out his passport while two white-clad officials peered beneath his car, presumably for contraband or bombs.

His wife was tired. He stared at ivy on a ruined wall.

On the Rijecka Krupa road the Cyrillic had been blacked out by hand on the bilingual sign for Sarajevo-Mostar. He had seen that years ago, in Kosovo, where an old Serb had told him: We must live here. We have no choice! — and a pretty young Serbkina whose family had lived and died in that place for three centuries had said, smiling bitterly: I can’t walk across that bridge anymore. — Had they blacked her out yet? — Evidently some good Bosnian wished to assert that Rijecka Krupa likewise was not and had never been Serbian.

There were grapes fat on their arbors, figs and pomegranates. He wife took pleasure in the apricot and peach trees. Here came the tower of a mosque.

At the next road sign the hand on the spray can of paint must have trembled, for black mist wavered over Cyrillic and Roman alike. Here came the yellow sign for Karatok; the Cyrillic had been sprayed out again. For some reason he could not pay close attention to anything but the signs. Now swelled the sign for Medjugorje; he remembered that place all too well; his wife pointed out an onion field. The sign for Kelpci remained stencilled in both languages, but at the sign for Čapljina the Cyrillic was blacked out as before. Knowing what that might again portend, he endured the clenching within his chest. On the trees by the bus station the peaches were already pinkening. They passed a troop of young soldiers brown-green in camouflage, who marched happily swinging their arms; he felt sick.

A soldier approached, with his duffel bag pressing him from shoulder to hip; he walked in small weary steps. Then the bus pulled away, past grubby white and tan apartments which had not been scorched full of holes; laundry hung over the balconies; but a moment later they passed a brick building with darkness punched through it. (This was his wife’s excursion; he had not expected to feel anything.) At least in this zone the local talent left the Cyrillic on the road signs undefaced. On the high point by the river rose an old wall and a stone tower. A pair of tour buses were parked below, on the edge of a poppy meadow. His nauseating dread increased. His wife saw white potato blossoms.

The semiarid hills ahead had an evil appearance to him, simply because he remembered expecting to be shot.

At Buna they drew up to a long narrow concrete bridge or dam, which resembled the place, but was not, he realized. He had thought to recognize it right away, but of course landscapes do alter in eighteen years, particularly in war zones.

He could not recall whether they had come into the city before it happened. It seemed so, because he remembered photographing Croatian soldiers on the west side. In a steel cabinet in his office he still kept the negative strips; on his return he might take them out and place them under the loupe, although it would be preferable never to see those images again. His wife closed her eyes; she hated the heat, and the seat hurt her back.

Three women stood at the side of the road, selling cherries, and he remembered the two pretty rose vendors with whom he, Ivan and Ted had flirted in the last minutes; the girls had given them each a flower, and he could not remember what he had done with his; probably he had affixed it to his bulletproof vest. The other two roses must certainly have remained in the car. There had been a Croatian checkpoint before they met the rose vendors. Then they had entered No Man’s Land.

Now they had arrived. His wife felt very tired. He changed money at the bus station, and then a taxi rolled them past a scorched building improved by time into a mellow ruin.

It was very humid, the roses practically wilting in their little planters. At the hotel, the waiter asked if it was their first time in this place. They ordered lunch. At the next table a young couple were holding hands. He had already quarreled with his wife, and felt bitter and furious that she could not understand him.

The muezzin’s call to prayer wavered beautifully over the river. He saw two birds in the sky. The green river descended the steps of its straight stonewalled channel.

The young couple gazed stupidly into each other’s eyes; they held hands; he could hardly endure it.

His wife stared down at her wineglass, while he remembered how after days of submissive waiting for Ivan’s family to claim the body and ask of him whatever questions they cared to — hence the inquisition from Ivan’s brother, who naturally sought to establish through circumstantial proofs the guilt of the hated survivor, followed by dinner with the well-mannered, exhausted old mother, in company, of course, with the brother, who, it was made clear, held him accountable not only for Ivan’s death, but also for declining to take the blame for it — he found himself home again, some weeks after which he came to be drinking with his friend Sam, whom he admired for being a more mature person, in possession of many adventures and sufferings; and Sam, whom he had first introduced to Ivan and who had not paid for any of the drinks, now rounded on him, shook his fist, and said: Don’t think I’m forgetting about Ivan; someday I’m going to revenge myself on you! — Since Sam was drunk, he contained himself. A month later — the next time they had met — he said: Sam, I’m going to ask you to apologize to me, which Sam readily did, at which point he forgave him. Now he unforgave him. He wished to punch Sam in the teeth. Then that too passed, and he waited for his wife to finish her wine. How he hated sitting here! But lying down in the room would be worse. Actually it was interesting here; he was glad for these people that tourists had begun to come.

High up on the far side of the river wall, the old foreigner in a silly hat was showing his old wife something. The foreigner stretched out his hand and pointed, as if he had been to the place he indicated, or somehow had something to do with it.

His wife ordered another glass of wine, probably out of loneliness, while he remembered how en route to the place where he would await Ivan’s mother and brother, he had returned to Zagreb, because he and Ivan had left their extra suitcases in Zrinko’s apartment, and Zrinko said: Tell me one thing. The radio said that you were in another car, and Ivan was following you. Is that true?

No. We were in the same car. Ivan was in the front seat, and Ted was driving—