Давид Албахари - Checkpoint

are the enemy. We’re in a new war now; the other one ended but we were never informed.” “So what do we do?” asked somebody. “Go home?” “No,” answered the commander, “we wait.” He assigned soldiers to dig the graves for both our casualties and theirs—ours, each with a separate grave, and theirs, in a single pit. As long as it’s large enough, said the commander, so their feet or hands don’t protrude. While digging, the soldiers grumbled. Soldiers generally grouse about things, especially things they’d rather not be doing, and who likes digging a pit for a mass grave anyway, especially a proper grave, which means it must be deep, meaning they had to excavate a vast quantity of dirt. Yes, the soil was soft (and fragrant) after all the rain, but soldiers’ shovels are the size of spades: for each shovelful of dirt that a real digger would excavate with a single toss, the soldiers needed five tosses. This would wear anybody down, not just a soldier, and anyone would muse on their own death while shoveling, and imagine who would dig their grave. This is, no doubt, an anxious task, but keeping in mind what it entails, the soldiers’ grumbles are preferable to Liza Minnelli’s screams in the movie Cabaret while the train thunders overhead. There were no railway lines or trains here, and above them, in the sky, there were no airplanes or helicopters; in fact, there was also no automobile traffic and one really had to wonder what good there was in having a checkpoint here at all. Sure, a few days ago a column of refugees passed this way, but how often did that happen? Not often, though globally speaking, more frequently than one might suspect. There are places where war never ends or where displacement lasts longer than the average human lifespan. The checkpoints there are not, as they are here, carbuncles on the face of the planet, but instead they’re a basic part of humdrum existence, though, of course, one would find it hard to describe life in a refugee camp as humdrum. Language betrays us when we least expect it to, just as, in a way, the commander betrayed us: keeping an eye on all the frenzied activity around digging the graves, he felt that if this kept up he’d start weeping and wailing. It is nothing unusual to see a soldier crying, as the commander knew, but still he felt he wouldn’t be offering the rest of the soldiers a good example if he wept. Soldiers, after all, need a firm, manly hand, and though history does record several interesting examples of women leading armies, not one of them can compare to Alexander the Great, Attila, or Napoleon. We don’t know why this is, though we wonder whether it might be an absence of vision, the inability of women to shape a visionary image of the world. Women are masters of detail, and here no man can hold a candle to them (except, perhaps, men whom many don’t consider to be men), but they are at a loss if you ask them for a global vision. How much would Attila have accomplished if he’d been keen only on the details in his corner of the world (a different question is how he even knew there was more world out there somewhere). So the commander didn’t dare succumb to his emotions: doing so could possibly lead to the ruination of the world. “Our front line remains as was,” said the commander, “because no one has told us anything, no one has made contact. If we do something wrong, the misstep will not be ours.” By this time the soldiers had dug the graves, piled the dead bodies in, and begun filling them. The commander, however, retreated to his office and by counting on his fingers and tallying, worked out how many soldiers he could rely on. He counted ten dead—nine privates and the corporal—a third of the company. If the enemy returned and attacked them full force, they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. What a pointless loss that would be, especially as they were guarding a checkpoint and they had no idea why they were guarding it or whose it was! They could, of course, retreat, but which way to go? The time had come, realized the commander, to dispatch Mladen again to scout the terrain. And as if he’d known, Mladen was ready to go, dressed in fatigues and equipped with a hefty arsenal of weapons. So hefty that he cut down on food supplies and left the canned goods in his cubby. A well-trained soldier, claimed Mladen, never need worry about food; he will have learned how to survive; the hundreds of plants, insects, and fruits in the forest offered him a varied, vitamin-rich diet. He hadn’t mentioned mushrooms, he said, because saying “mushrooms” would make him salivate. And sure enough, a few droplets leaked out of the corners of his mouth. He brushed them away with his sleeve, shrugged, and left. The commander realized he hadn’t given Mladen a precise list of things to check, but no matter. With soldiers like Mladen, one could always expect them to go above and beyond. He called a meeting of the command staff, the two corporals, in his office; he was of two minds about whether to summon the stand-in for the corporal of the third squad, but resolved to have a word with him later. He also didn’t summon a junior officer who hadn’t been showing up and had even made himself scarce during the heat of battle. The junior officer, felt the commander, was ripe for a court martial, or maybe a hospital stay, best not leave anything to chance. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn, thought the commander, that the officer had been slipping secrets to the enemy, whoever the enemy was. Wouldn’t it be odd if only the junior officer knew who the enemy was? Or maybe he didn’t, maybe he merely hoped to give that impression, for the sake of people who appreciate such impressions? The commander looked sternly up and down at the bronzed corporals (they were, after all, outdoors all day long, while the commander sat in his office), and then his expression suddenly changed and the commander asked them if they’d like a shot of brandy. But what are we drinking to, asked one, his voice quavering, as if they needed someone or something to drink to or they wouldn’t be able to drink the shot down. “We are here,” said the commander, “to set the stage for what we’d need for a hasty retreat if faced with a superior enemy. We’re already down by a third, and if the number falls to half or less, we’ll be easy pickings for a cull or a massacre.” The corporals nodded. “So,” said the commander, “any suggestions?” One raised his hand and said he had no suggestions, but he did have questions, and he immediately asked, “Where is the enemy?” As if he’d been expecting this, the commander unfolded a map and laid it out before his corporals, almost as if setting out for them a spread of exotic fruit, kiwis, perhaps, or papayas. The commander lowered his fingertip to the red dot that, apparently, represented the checkpoint. The spot was on one of several small clearings, surrounded on all sides by dark shading that signified forest. The commander tapped the red dot several times and said: “The enemy is in the forest.” The corporal was candid in his disappointment. “In the forest?” he said. “Of course they’re in the forest, but where?” The commander shook his head. If he’d known, he said, he’d have chased them out long ago; as it was, he had no other option but to hazard a guess like everybody else. This is why he’d sent Mladen off to scout the territory, he said, and everything might soon make more sense. He looked at the corporal and again shook his head. He didn’t like the looks of this corporal much, but appearance matters less in war than skill, and the commander had to admit that the corporal was better at leading his squad than were the others. Other, he corrected himself silently, because the third corporal had been dead for some time. Not so long ago, thought the commander, and then realized he was no longer able to gauge how long they’d been there by the checkpoint. Was it weeks? Months? Years? If he’d been alone in the office he probably would have started to cry. Commanders don’t cry, he thought, and for an instant—only briefly—he felt a shade headier, though no better. You can’t have everything, the commander thought, and told himself that between “something” and “nothing,” he’d always choose “something.” The corporal meanwhile shifted from foot to foot, swaying like a sunflower, and this made the commander smile; he’d enjoyed nibbling sunflower seeds at the movies. There were always little heaps of the discarded black shells under his seat. He also liked pumpkin seeds, but there was a real skill to nibbling sunflower seeds, and the commander was, in this, unrivaled. Countless times he’d been challenged to duels, but he always bested his opponent in shelling and devouring the seeds. He could hardly wait for the war to end so he could buy seeds from the snot-nosed vender out in front of the movie theater. Meanwhile, the corporal stopped swaying and lowered his head as if listening to catch the commander’s thoughts. “Ultimately,” said the commander, “I don’t see much choice. We die heroically or surrender like cowards and commend ourselves to the enemy’s mercy. We could also, of course, kill each other off, Masada-like. No matter which we choose, history will refer to us as heroes who gave their lives for their country.” The corporal coughed discreetly and said, “You don’t think we might win?” The commander measured him from head to toe: “And you?” he asked. The corporal said nothing. Some questions should never be asked, that’s a lesson for everybody, no matter how quickly one person learns and another slowly catches on. He’d have been happiest going home, thought the commander, and then he snarled and chastised himself by the book for such defeatism. He thanked the corporals and when he was about to close the door behind them, the sound rang out of a shell exploding. It shot high above their heads, as if only testing the area that lay below it. A second, the commander knew, would be aimed much lower, with more precision, and the third would strike right among them. And that is what happened; they had nowhere to go. They ran around like headless flies, buzzing and waving with their little legs, but there was nothing to be done. The shells dropped among them like ripe apricots onto the heads of picnickers who’d fallen asleep in an orchard, but unlike the picnickers who’d gather up the bursting apricots and toss them into a barrel for distilling, the shells tossed the bursting soldiers high into the air from where they dropped to the ground and groaned aloud. At first the commander shouted orders, but soon he gave up and swore furiously. He even leaped up onto a table, or rather the bench that stood by the barrier, as if daring the enemy to shell him alone, but then, just as suddenly as they’d begun raining down, the shells stopped. The commander remained frozen atop the bench, half a swear still on his lips. “They’ve stopped,” said someone, pointlessly, as always at such moments. They could suddenly hear the wrenching screams of the wounded and then somebody shouted “Fire!” and everybody spun to stare at the flames licking the roof of the sleeping quarters and blazing up and up. Several soldiers grabbed rainwater buckets and battled the blaze, while the commander focused on the worst task: identifying the dead men. Five soldiers lay in the grass; three of them were dead, two wounded, one of them slightly while the other, as the soldier assigned to the wounded slowly stammered, probably wouldn’t live through the night, which was inching in among them like damp into bones. Then they heard shouts from all sides and the commander, who came running over, pistol in hand, saw Mladen emerging from the forest. He shouted to them not to shoot and raised his hands in which he was holding something, and only when he came closer could the commander see what Mladen was carrying: two human heads from whose severed necks the blood still dripped. This, thought the commander as he watched the soldiers press with curiosity around Mladen and his trophies, is the way other soldiers must have pushed and shoved around the first murdered savages. In line with service regulations he should punish Mladen for the unnecessary abuse and torment of enemy soldiers. He didn’t know who’d carved that in stone—it was probably somewhere in the Geneva Conventions—but who gave a hoot for Geneva, and how could he deny the therapeutic impact of Mladen’s act, because it was clear that the decapitated enemy heads were having a positive effect on the soldiers who had just been through the hell of shelling. One group had already begun tossing about the bearded head (the face on the other head was clean-shaven, though it had a dense mustache), laughing when droplets of blood fell on their faces, and then someone kicked it, and the shrieks of the soldiers became almost unbearable. Mladen turned and saw the commander. He wiped his hands on his trousers, strode over to the commander, saluted, and said: “Private Mladen Sova requests to address the commander,” and the commander, to this, replied: “Cut the shit. Sit here and tell me what’s new in the forest and would you like a shot of brandy?” Mladen took a seat and asked: “Only one?” “Two if you like,” said the commander. “For you, two.” Mladen drained the first to the last drop, licked his lips, smacked them, and said that throughout the forest there were, on the move, fighters from three armies, but there were, possibly, even more armies involved. Some were wearing our uniforms, but whether those soldiers truly were ours, he couldn’t ascertain. He came up closer to them but they communicated without words, using only mimicry and gestures. He bared his teeth, stuck out his tongue, rolled his eyes, and crossed his hands. “That means,” he said, “that they would like to sit down.” “If they want to stand,” the commander wanted to know, “what do they do then?” Mladen bared his teeth again, stuck out his tongue, rolled his eyes, and spat. “What do you know,” said the commander. “How interesting.” He, too, spat in the same direction but missed Mladen’s spittle. He hit a neighboring blade of grass just as a ladybug was climbing up it. Then he said that any men wearing our uniforms were not our men, because if they were, they’d have been talking among themselves. Our inability to be concise and to keep quiet at moments when silence is a prerequisite for any sort of action is well known. “My impression,” said Mladen, “is that all these soldiers, from all three armies, have been left to a free-for-all.” The houses they’d seen earlier were burning, and he’d come across murdered civilians and farm animals more often. The commander said this was something he’d never understood: to kill a man, even a woman, that he could understand, but a child or a cow? His head couldn’t take that in. And speaking of heads, whose were those two the army was having such fun with? Mladen didn’t know. He came across the two of them at the end of a path and thought he’d walk peaceably by them, but then they erred and aimed their guns at him and there you have it, a mistake they wouldn’t make again. He stood before the commander, smiled, and quaked like a girl who has come to be introduced to her future husband. By then night had fallen and some of the soldiers were asking where they should sleep. The sleeping quarters had burned, the cots were partly charred and partly soggy from the water used to douse the fire, but even if they were all still intact, what would happen if the enemy shelled us again? “Let’s take this one step at a time,” said the commander, but his head ached suddenly so sharply that he had to shut his eyes. That same instant, as he shut them, he felt himself lose his balance, and he would have fallen if Mladen and the other soldier hadn’t caught him in time. They straightened him up and settled him slowly into the nearest chair. It took a vast amount of energy for the commander to open his eyes and then he saw he was among unfamiliar people. They were all in uniform, mainly in boots, and many of them were wearing helmets. In the air he could smell the soot of the doused fire, and the stink of excrement and human sweat. The commander wondered aloud what he was looking for here, but then someone’s face loomed, indicated a large hypodermic needle and said it wouldn’t hurt. “You’ve got to be kidding,” howled the commander, but too late. He felt the little prick somewhere on himself or near him, he wasn’t sure, and when he opened his eyes again it was already morning. And what a morning! Sunny, fresh, drenched in the fragrance of flowers and somehow full of promise. The commander twisted around and realized that he was lying in his cot, in his room, except that above the cot where there used to be a ceiling, he saw a tarpaulin stretched. The chamber pot wasn’t where it should have been and the commander thought the soldier who’d failed to bring it in should be punished with at least three extra duty shifts. “The army means order, or it isn’t an army,” said the commander to himself and then he staggered out, stood by the nearest tree and began emptying his bladder. He squinted with pleasure at the relief this brought him, but suddenly he went rigid and froze. There, only sixty feet from him, was a group of journalists. He was first spotted by a woman in a red dress and red-framed glasses, and then they all turned to him and pointed their cameras and photography equipment, as well as tiny recording devices, in his direction. The commander barely had time to shove his private parts back into his pajama pants and then, as the reporters slowly but surely advanced on him, he thrust out his chest and announced, “Not one step further! You are in a zone that is off limits to civilians, and anything you record, write down, or take pictures of must receive the approval of the military authorities. You’ll be given the forms for your request for approval a little later, and there will be a tax to pay for a fee regulated by law.” “Just one question,” said a tall photographer. “Yes?” said the commander. “Do you accept credit cards?” asked the photographer. “Why, of course,” said the commander, and turned toward his room. “If you take a closer look you’ll see that Visa and MasterCard are our sponsors.” Where did all of them come from, wondered the commander, and who gave them permission to move around the barrier? He thought heads would roll for this, and then he remembered the two heads with which the soldiers had played soccer and he was swept by a terrible crush of shame. Dressed in his uniform, cap in hand, he came out again, but now on the other side of the barrier. Nowhere, however, did he see a single soldier. Not many of them were left, of course, roughly half had already been killed, but still there ought to be at least one sentry on duty. Then he thought: “What if they all deserted?” and suddenly he went pale. Then he had to admit that he wouldn’t have held it against them if they had, because they were clearly fighting a hopeless battle. His company was halved, out of the thirty soldiers only some sixteen were still alive. At least that is what his calculation had told him the day before, but that was last night, before he fell asleep, who knows what horrors had played out while he slept. Then someone’s words reached him, fragments of a conversation, and when he peered around the corner, he saw all his soldiers. They were sitting in a circle eating cornmeal mush. The junior officer was the first to catch sight of the commander, he leaped to his feet and inhaled noisily, but the commander didn’t allow him to speak; he ordered him at ease and said they should go on with their meal. “We’re eating cornmeal mush with cheese,” said some of the soldiers and the commander decided to join them. Soldiers need, as the commander knew, to see as many examples as possible of officers with the highest ranks and medals doing what they’re doing or eating what they’re eating. The rank and file was thereby shown that the officers were flesh and blood like them, and despite military hierarchy they were only human. “Real people, first and foremost,” the commander liked to say. However, this time he didn’t say it because he, too, loved cornmeal mush, especially when mixed with milk, and if there wasn’t milk then cheese would do. He turned to look in every direction and only then saw the extent of the damage from the shelling the day before. Had that been only yesterday? It might have been yesterday, thought the commander, or maybe ten days ago. All the days were the same, though the deaths differed. When he dwelt a little more on it, in fact, all deaths are the same, death comes to everyone the same way. As the poet said: “Death will come and will have your eyes.” It won’t have my eyes, thought the commander, I’d rather pluck them out myself than let death carry them off on its face. A face with nothing anyway, because death is a skeleton that walks and carries a scythe instead of crutches. Death walks with a limp, and since it’s terribly vain, it leans on the scythe as it approaches those who are on its list. It doesn’t carry the scythe to cut anyone down because death doesn’t kill, it comes to fetch those who are already dead, and the scythe simply serves to channel the flash of light in the eyes of those waiting for it, so that, blinded, they won’t have the time to see how lame death is. The commander finished his portion of mush and burped. In another situation he would have asked for seconds, but now there was no time. And besides, he wanted to know why nothing was functioning. Where, for instance, were the sentries? Were the observers in their positions? Had the radio operator attempted to reach somebody? What was the condition of the wounded, and, more important, why had they let him sleep? The commander rose slowly to his feet, cleared his throat, and waited for the soldiers to quiet down. Then again all the questions, adding in the end, as if summing it up, “Who’s at fault for this morning’s chaos?” The junior officer raised his hand and, without hesitating, said he’d made the decision because it was clear to everyone that this is a pointless battle, a battle that makes sense only if it is understood as an insane clash in which they are condemned in advance to death. “It’s obvious,” added the junior officer, “that we were sent here with one goal only: to stave off the enemy as long as possible, meaning as long as there were soldiers alive. That’s why I decided to free the soldiers of their duties, and we are prepared to surrender to the enemy as expediently as possible.” The commander, who until then had been listening closely, his head slightly tilted to the side, howled that this was treason punishable by death and reached for his gun. Before he’d had the chance to unbutton his holster, everywhere around him he heard the chink-chink sounds of weapons being cocked and found he was surrounded by barrels of the most varied assortment of guns, including a mortar. “Fine,” said the commander, “I understand.” And besides, hadn’t he himself thought the very same thing, hadn’t he said he wouldn’t hold it against any soldiers who deserted? Shooting began just then, and everyone dashed for shelter. They needed a breather to figure out that the bullets weren’t intended for them, somebody else had joined the game, renegades or rebels, or the residents of yet another country, in any case someone whom the commander and the remaining soldiers knew nothing about. The commander shouted to the radio and telegraph operator that he should try to locate the frequency of one of the enemies and do what he could to ascertain who they were. A little later, he lay down beside the operator and listened to voices that sounded Chinese, though it could have been any Asian language. The operator turned the dial to other voices, equally agitated, but by then the commander had no doubt. The language was Czech, and the commander thought back with regret to the many trips he’d taken to the former Czechoslovakia, where, for a person who had foreign currency—and the commander had a pocket full of deutsche marks and American dollars—life was cheap, beautiful women were easily accessible, not to speak of the beer. In a word, paradise. Yes, yes, old chap, said the commander to himself, that was the life and not this crap with only death to offer, as if death were something you could taste-test for a few hours and return if it didn’t suit you. But there was no answer to the question of whose side the Czechs were on, the same as a question the commander might have asked: whose side are we on? Who is who in this mess, thought the commander, and then a hand grenade, activated, rolled his way. So that’s that, thought the commander, this is it, and he decided to let it explode. Then he caught sight of the horrified gaze of a soldier, a boy, lying there next to him, his mouth opening. The commander grabbed the grenade and heaved it as far away as he could into bushes, a thicket, by the path leading to the forest. A little farther off were heard shrieks and cries, and soon a group of soldiers ran out from the thicket, hands held high. The shooting, which had begun abruptly, ended abruptly, and the soldiers trotted slowly up to the checkpoint barrier, which, throughout the melee, was unscathed. The commander rose and went to the barrier. He knew he was standing completely exposed to enemy snipers, he even felt a little itch in the places they were aiming at, his forehead and chest, but as a true soldier, and he felt he was one, he had only one thing in mind: completing the task he’d undertaken and never, remember this, he said to the kids standing by the checkpoint, never show fear. “I am not afraid of death,” said the young soldier, “but I am afraid of a gradual, inching death.” “And boring,” shouted another, “there’s nothing so awful as a boring death.” The commander felt something tugging at his pant leg and saw that the young soldier had crawled over to him. “I can’t get up,” whispered the soldier, “because I think I soiled my pants. If I’m wounded and am suffering would you put me out of my misery?” “Stop talking nonsense,” said the commander, he crouched and slipped his hand under the soldier’s belt, then turned him over on his side and moved his hand to the man’s scrotum. When he withdrew it, his hand was covered in blood and excrement. With the same hand he greeted the soldiers who, a few seconds later, hands still high in the air, trotted up to the barrier. He went over to one of them who wore symbols on his sleeve and, waving his bloody, putrid hand in front of the man’s nose, asked, “Where from?” “Where from?” repeated the soldier, and shrugged, plugging his nose and breathing through his mouth. “Not ours,” said the commander, “that much is clear.” “Not ours,” echoed the soldier, “that much is clear.” The commander turned to his soldiers and asked them what they thought, were these clowns messing with him and what should he do. He received so many suggestions that he could have spent the rest of the day weighing which was best. The soldiers, meanwhile, had chosen a suggestion that someone, sniggering, shouted out: “What about: kill the lot!” and immediately most of the others began a chant, softly at first, of “Kill! Kill!” The commander only then wiped his hand off on the grass and someone’s shirt hanging from the barrier post, and then he asked the foreign soldiers whether they had passports. They shrugged and the commander flew into a rage. He turned them, one by one, to face the enemy positions, repeating: “Go there, you’ll be better off there.” He gestured for them to keep their hands up and gently nudged the soldier who wore the insignia of rank on his sleeve. In the hush that followed, all that could be heard were their agitated voices, and soon, not even those. Whoever was hiding in the bushes on the opposite side let the group approach until they were about sixty feet away, and then a blaze of gunfire erupted as if an entire armored unit were on its way. The commander peered out just when the soldier wearing the insignia was blown toward the checkpoint, probably swept by the force of a strike, and in one endlessly brief moment his gaze found the commander’s eyes just long enough for all his bitterness and pain to spill over and for them to communicate the commander’s betrayal. “How could I have betrayed you,” said the commander aloud, “when you aren’t even my soldier?” He shivered because he knew better. Somebody surrenders to you in a plea for clemency, and you, without so much as a twinge, send them to their death. That sentence doesn’t read well, thought the commander, no matter which end you read it from. In fact, he thought something different: chaos now reigned and there’d be no turning back. A war is a game in which there are rules to be respected, and as soon as these rules are skipped, the war is no longer a game in which the foes are bent on outwitting one another. Until the First World War, thought the commander, wars were a lot like chess, even the rulers and generals saw them that way. They perched here and there on the surrounding hills and watched how their armies advanced or retreated. Until then a ritual, a theater of manners, a well-rehearsed ballet or operetta, war was now verging on chaos, arbitrary unpredictability, slaughter for slaughter’s sake. The commander knew that none of this justified him in the eyes of the soldier, in that immeasurable moment when their gazes locked. But that doesn’t mean, thought the commander, that he was flailing or had lost his will. Not at all, indeed he suddenly came alive, rushed from man to man, spurred them with encouragement, offered to be a father or mother to them, and then went over to the young soldier and told him to change his clothes before he stank up the place. Somebody might accuse us of jeopardizing the environment on top of everything else, that we’re destabilizing the ecology. He went looking for the radio and telegraph operator but, instead, came across the cook. Everything’s all set, said the cook, his stove was working, he had enough fuel, and was about to start flipping pancakes. The commander asked that two with jam be saved for him, and then he spotted the operator. There the man sat on an empty barrel, smoking. “So, do you want to go home,” asked the commander, “like those men over there?” The operator looked at him with clouded eyes, and said, “My father died.” The commander felt his shoulders and back heave under the weight of his own stupidity and shame. He wanted to say something more to the operator, maybe to himself as well, but all that came to mind was a sentence he’d read somewhere that all words were pointless in such situations, because no matter what a person said, the dead were still dead. A person should not, however, be left without hope, one should continue using one’s words. The commander whispered a curse and then asked the radio and telegraph operator how he’d heard of his father’s death. “My brother let me know,” said the operator. “Your brother?” repeated the commander. “Yes,” said the operator, “my brother.” “I didn’t know you had a brother,” said the commander, his voice shaking. “A cousin, actually, my aunt’s boy,” answered the operator. The junior officer, standing not far from them, said that when a family member dies, a soldier is permitted a four-to-seven-day furlough for the funeral. The operator said he’d go only if he were allowed to travel in his civilian clothes, because in his uniform he was a sitting duck. The commander took a deep breath and asked who would replace him as radio and telegraph operator, and the junior officer said he was prepared to take over the man’s duties. His expression was so doleful as he said this that the commander thought the junior officer was about to ask that the father’s death be ascribed to him as well. “There is no such thing as double dying,” said the commander firmly and sent off the radio operator to change his clothes. He gazed up at the sky: it was crystal clear, endlessly blue, and only here or there was it shrouded in a pale mist. The blue was somewhat paler there, but no less beautiful. What is wrong with me? thought the commander, somebody might think I’m in love. He really was the kind of person who was always falling in love, and this wasn’t just from time to time, but regularly, the way a passionate reader devours novels. His civilian librarian was glad for this and told him the poetry collections shelved in the library were surviving thanks entirely to the commander. “No one,” said the librarian, “no one reads poetry anymore!” Someone then piped up to ask whether any new poetry is being written. The librarian was about to respond and provide figures from an article written for the recent annual conference of the Librarians’ Association, but he was interrupted by an impatient reader who wanted to hear how many readers were borrowing books of poetry. “Well, the commander and… and…” stuttered the librarian, “and there was a girl who once borrowed Lorca’s poems, but she hasn’t yet returned them.” The commander cautioned them to retreat to their shelters because at any moment the afternoon session of gunfire would begin. The enemy stopped its shooting at around 11:00 in the morning and this tacit cease-fire would last until 4:30 in the afternoon. Why sweat out there in the heat of the day? asked the enemy commander once when they’d spoken to each other over the radio, we have plenty of time for fighting when the sun isn’t beating down quite so fiercely. “A genteel man if I may say so,” said the commander to the radio and telegraph operator and that prompted him to wonder where the operator was now that he’d sent him to change his clothes. He should be leaving now, thought the commander, because at least one of the enemies won’t be trying to kill him. As for the other—or others, who knows how many were out there—he couldn’t say. If the united Europe had broken asunder, and if clashes had begun in a number of the countries with pro-European against anti-European forces, it would be realistic to imagine that there might be dozens of potential and/or genuine adversaries. It wasn’t clear to him how the radio and telegraph operator planned to get home, but he understood this feeling of misery, self-pity, and self-accusation, because he, too, had been away from home when his father died and until recently he’d been blaming himself for that. As if his father would have survived had he been by his side, thought the commander. He came across the radio and telegraph operator who, dressed in his civvies, was kneeling by his belongings. The commander thought the man might be praying, but it turned out he was actually asleep. The commander touched his shoulder and, bringing his lips to the man’s ears, he said: “It’s time!” The operator started, rammed the back of his head into the commander’s mouth and both of them swore. “Scram,” said the commander, “they’re about to start.” The radio and telegraph operator scampered off down the hill. He stopped for a moment before turning into the forest, straightened, thrust out his chest, and flew into the woods. A little later three shots rang out and though the chances were fifty-fifty, the commander was almost certain the radio operator was still running. You could see right away, thought the commander, that he was one of those people bullets didn’t want to hit. There aren’t many folks who enjoy that kind of luck, though they’ll pay for it elsewhere, as things tend to go with good and bad luck. Life is impartial, it plays no favorites. If a person is offered something that is not equally accessible to all in equal measure, they’ll also be given something bad, meaning they’ll be greater losers in other realms. So the radio and telegraph operator, say, was spared the bullets, but he often tripped and fell, and it may have been a fall that additionally shielded him from bullets. The radio and telegraph operator may have stumbled exactly when the fingers of three snipers were on their triggers, and his tumble removed him from the enemies’ field of vision. But why shoot at him when he was merely passing through, peaceably, in civilian dress? That is what the commander wanted to know, and he’d have given anything to find out who was hiding in the forests around the checkpoint. At the moment when the shells began to fly, a thought popped into his mind that would come back to haunt him many times during yet another sleepless night. And what, said the thought, what if there never was a war to begin with, if all this was just somebody’s huge experiment, an attempt to test the mettle of various categories of soldier in an atypical situation? Perhaps the victims had already been marked in some way in advance and they didn’t protest being chosen to leave the scene of life so early. The commander curled up in an even tighter ball in his hole, listening to the malevolent whistle of shells. One exploded not far from him and covered him in a mound of dirt. Then silence, and the sound of someone crying. The person wept and shouted a few times: “Mama, oh, Mama!” After a while the weeping changed to whimpering that sounded as if it would never stop. The commander tried blocking his ears, but the whimpering was merciless and nothing could stop it. A little later the enemy’s weapons thundered again, and then, when they subsided, there was no more whimpering. It had been a direct hit, the commander later ascertained, but though a complete identification of the remains was not possible just then, he was certain this was the young soldier who not long before, on this very spot, had been sobbing in shame for having soiled himself out of fear. So it is, thought the commander, that nature makes its selection, leaving the toughest and most tenacious, and then his gaze shifted from soldier to soldier, and he had to admit that the demands of natural selection were truly bizarre. He’d expected to see a dozen of the most vigorous soldiers, the healthiest, most robust, most determined, but instead he saw a motley group with the tall and short, fat and skinny, sour and bright-eyed. “How many of us are left?” he asked the junior officer who checked his pad. “All together,” he said, finally, “nineteen.” “Maybe we should split into two groups,” said the commander, “and steal away from here by night somehow.” “But,” said the junior officer, “which route do we take? There are enemy forces all around us. If we go to the right, downhill, we’ll run into the ones who shot at the radio operator: on the left are the ones who attacked us from the forest and did so treacherously, from behind, while facing us are the first enemy units who mowed down that group of unarmed soldiers in cold blood while hitting us so savagely with all their different weapons. If they’d had an atomic bomb they’d have dropped it on us, they wouldn’t have even waited to check which direction the wind was blowing, or where it would blow the radioactive dust.” “How about over there,” said the commander, and pointed to the most distant part of the forest, and a wide meadow near it. “Ah, yes,” said the junior officer, “what’s there?” “Nothing and nobody,” said the commander, “just what we need.” “But how do we go from here to there?” asked the junior officer. “Isn’t that area perfect for hunting rabbits?” The commander scratched his sweaty head. “If that’s so,” he said, “we’ll have to think of ourselves as rabbits; it’s our only way of getting out.” “But what about our dead?” Asked a soldier when the commander and junior officer told them of the still half-baked plan. “We can’t leave them to the enemy!” “For God’s sake,” said the commander, “they’re dead, and we aren’t about to disinter them.” “Oh yes we are,” shouted the soldier, raising his spade high in the air and calling out, “Who is for taking them with us?” Most of the little spades waved high above their heads. “But if they see what we’re up to,” the commander played his last card, “they’ll know we’re preparing to leave.” “No, they won’t,” barked the necrophiliac soldier, “because we’ll pretend we’re just tidying up the graveyard, and we’ll pretend that they are up at the top of the hill and the graveyard is right at the bottom, and they won’t have a clue what we’re doing.” The commander threw up his arms in a gesture of surrender and sat down on the nearest chair. He could do nothing more than look on while the “deadly rebels” marched down to the graveyard. He was suddenly left alone, which had always suited him, but he’d found this easy to forget these last few weeks. Everything is so easily forgotten during wartime, even that commanding officers were ordered to assign duties to their soldiers, preferably in teams, if only a team of two. What matters, as stated the order that was circulated to all the officers who were kept in combat readiness, is that no one be allowed to distance themselves and as soon as someone is noticed growing distant, they should be steered, at all costs, in the proper direction. At what cost? All costs. Yes, sir! At ease! The commander thought he heard gunshots, but when he opened his eyes, nothing. Devil take it, thought the commander, there must be something, while twigs were snapping behind his back. He grabbed his revolver and, with the chair, toppled over onto the ground. He was about to shoot when he saw Mladen waving his arms almost frantically and shouting something, and the commander barely managed to reverse the pressure of his finger on the trigger. “Are you mad?” he asked Mladen. “You could have been dead by now.” “Lightning never strikes a beech tree,” laughed Mladen, and then, looking around, he asked where the others were. “At the graveyard,” said the commander. “Every last one?” asked Mladen. “Yes,” said the commander. “How did they manage to kill all of them at once?” asked Mladen. The commander said he hadn’t understood the question and only then did he get the gist. “They’re in the graveyard,” he said, “but they aren’t all dead.” “What are they doing?” asked Mladen. “Bidding their fond farewells?” “No,” said the commander, “they’re readying the bodies for transport.” “For transport?” repeated Mladen, astonished. “What? They had it with war and wounded each other and now they’re lolling around in hospital beds?” The commander carefully related some of the more recent events and the moment of deciding they’d leave. “I could no longer play the rabbit in the hunting grounds,” said the commander, and besides, our forces were halved, and fifteen soldiers gave their precious lives—for what? Could somebody tell me for what?” Sounds reached them of excited voices, among them women’s. Soldiers soon appeared leading two young women. They’d found them at the graveyard, said a soldier, though it now looked more like an archeological site from the Middle Ages. What were they doing? the commander wanted to know, and did they say anything about this place? We didn’t understand them, Mr. Commander, sir, and we think they’re speaking the same language the refugees spoke. The commander needed a moment to recall the refugees, but he couldn’t remember their language. Then somebody mentioned the lady translator and this drew the commander’s lips into a grin that he hastily suppressed, though not hastily enough, at least not for the soldiers standing by his side. No, not that side—his other side. The commander recalled how she’d whispered incomprehensible words in his ear, and later, in a somewhat throatier voice, she’d said them in his language. The commander’s cot was narrow and one of them had always been in danger of tumbling to the floor, but she’d twist up high or lean down low, and kept the balance. He wondered, looking at the two girls standing there in front of him, whether they’d know any of these skills, but their free, cheerful glances told entirely different stories. They were the advance team, sensed the commander, but he couldn’t sniff out what would be coming after them—a new day, a new human being, or new words, something unheard of. The girls pursed their lips as if they were about to say something, then looked at each other and giggled. Why hadn’t the soldiers raped them down by the graveyard and left them there to guard over the emptied graves and toppled crosses? He felt a surge of strength well in him and wondered whether it might be best to pull out his pistol right there and kill them both without a word or any commentary. He even dropped his hand to the pistol grip, but his pistol told him, “Don’t you dare! Understood?” “Understood,” whispered the commander, and then looked around: it would be terrible if anyone caught him conversing with his pistol. They’d immediately declare him mad, which would be silly—weren’t soldiers expected to become one with their weapon, to treat it like a close cousin? In public life this is called a double standard, thought the commander, or: do what I say, not what I do. No matter which way you look at it, life is worth less than a wooden nickel; there’s always someone standing over your head and noting what you’re doing, turning life into a list like those long lists one writes when going off on the weekly or biweekly grocery shopping. Of course, all this has nothing to do with the army, nothing whatsoever, and yet the army is so vital for everyone. It would be easy to say that the army is foisted on the state like a cuckoo bird’s eggs, that society has embraced the army as a necessary evil, except it revolves around the question of war. War is so unnatural, so different from all else, that no one in their right mind can grasp why war would be a part of human culture. The commander turned—he ought to love war at least a little, being a man in uniform, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Never would he admit this to his soldiers. But he also couldn’t abandon them to this hell. So like a good fairy he hovered over their preparations for departure. Everything was supposed to look as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on, because who could say how many observers and spying eyes were trained on them. The soldiers took turns at their regular duties, the cook cooked up hot dogs for supper, the commander fiddled with the dials on the radio and bobbed his head to the rhythm of the various languages coming over on it. Meanwhile the other soldiers were loading up their backpacks, pretending to inspect the contents or getting their dirty clothes ready for the laundry. The two girls were still alive, sitting on the ground, tied to a tree, while the commander again thought there was only one solution for them: a bullet to the brain. He was horrified by his thoughts, but still he felt his hand jerk and inch toward his pistol. At one moment his fingers even brushed the grip, and the meeting of skin and metal seared him as if it were an open flame. This is a sign, thought the commander, that I must go no further. He turned to look around him but no one was watching, no one speaking to him, they were all busy with their jobs and seeing to their own troubles. Then they switched places, the ones who’d been packing pretended they were sentries and observers, while the others, dodging behind charred ruins and tent flaps, readied their munitions and cleaned their uniforms and boots as if sprucing up for a parade. The evening settled down around them like a sheet scattered with crumbs doubling as stars, thought the commander, and felt he could fall in love at that very moment. It’s a lucky thing women don’t serve in our army, he thought, and his mouth went suddenly dry though it had just been full of spittle. The commander imagined a girl curled up on the edge of his cot, and he made her turn to face him and smile. She threw off the cover, sat up straight, and spread her arms. Lie down, shouted the commander, lie down! But too late. The bullet struck her on the back near the heart and she flailed as she fell. The commander whimpered as if about to cry, but he held back the tears. He had nothing against tears, he even felt soldiers ought to cry and tears were a handy way of easing burdens, but he also felt that an officer, meaning, a soldier with rank, must never weep in front of his subordinate officers and ordinary privates. Someone else might deduce, thought the commander, that I am strict and squelch feelings, both those of the soldiers and my own, but nothing could be further from the truth, I’m as soft as cotton, thought the commander, or even softer. He poked his arms and legs with a finger, but nowhere did he feel softness. He squeezed tendons, muscles, bones, and skin, but they were hard, firm, and prepared for every possible further turn of events. If you’re not prepared for every eventuality, you’re prepared for nothing, no matter how differently he might think, thought the commander. He made the rounds of the soldiers and checked each of them, one by one. It wasn’t easy. Tears welled, his stomach clenched, his handshake was limp, and his heart, the old traitor, pounded like a rabbit’s. “We’ll wait a little longer,” whispered the commander into each soldier’s ear, “till dark, and then we move.” He’d squeeze the soldier’s shoulder and bring his lips to their cheek. Each time he did, he’d feel the cheek tense, the skin fear his touch. But maybe it’s always like that, thought the commander, when a man kisses a man, in war or peace, in an amorous encounter or a farewell to a warrior whose fate was long sealed, this is as unchanging as Greek myth. The commander would have been glad to imagine himself as Zeus, especially as the Zeus who’d turned into a swan, but then he hastily spun around, certain everyone must be eyeing his crotch. The commander was wrong, as was obvious to all of us but not to him because even if we’d wanted to stare at him there, and we didn’t, we wouldn’t have had much to see. The dark was as thick as dough, affecting every thought we entertained, every step, not to speak of our mood. But the commander had resolved that we’d play the game, he placed his people in positions, ordered us to set out the manikins that were designed, the next morning, to mislead, though the commander knew the deception wouldn’t last long, the motionlessness of the manikins would first stir suspicion, and then this would swell until the enemy commander finally chose three or, maybe, four, or even five soldiers—never underestimate the enemy—and in total silence, like true professionals, they’d traverse the distance between their positions and the checkpoint, but in such a way that not a single blade of grass would shiver, not a branch would sway and not a bird would flutter skyward, stirred from sleep or luring those strange creatures away from her nest and fledglings. Yes, thought the commander, as far as birds are concerned, people are indeed strange creatures, nothing more, and if things stood differently, if birds and people truly were buddies, they’d now be hidden away somewhere, carefree and certain that no one would ever find them. No, thought the commander, no one ever will find us, and then, by mysterious pathways, the thought popped into his head that he should whisper a warning to the soldier walking in front of him that if a flare were to be fired off they should freeze and stand that way until the light faded. He added: “Send it on,” and he saw the soldier lean toward the soldier in front of him, and just as the message reached the head of the column, they could all see the slender trail of a flare mounting in the sky and then blazing and spreading its phantasmal, wan light across the slope. The rigid, frozen soldiers looked like enchanted ballet dancers in a grotesque dance. Many of them found the muscles on their legs trembling and the light of the flare seemed like it would never dim. But no flare lasts forever, they are all transient, as are we all, thought the commander, as are we all. The soldiers barely had the time to stretch before a new flare had them freezing again, clinging to the nearest vegetation. “Down!” spat the commander to the shadows in front of him, and the soldiers, as if they could hardly wait, plunged to the ground. The flares lit the sky and the clearing several times and then stopped. The dark was still thin for a little longer, and then it thickened again around them like a curtain. The commander straightened slowly, rose to his feet, and drawing his head into his shoulders, strode to the head of the column. Just then they clearly heard the ringtone on somebody’s cell phone and the first notes of the popular song “Marina” jangled like a bomb blast. Where had this phone come from when they’d been without electric power for days? “Hello?” said a voice in the dark, and then they could hear the phone being flipped shut. “Wrong number,” said the same voice, defensively. “Turn off that piece of shit,” ordered the commander. He was doing his damnedest to sound fierce and stern, but it wasn’t working because he was also remembering how once long ago at the seashore he’d held a girl with ashen hair by the hand while that very song drifted their way from a hotel. He could even remember the words: “For days I’ve loved Marina, but her cold glances hurt me….” Then, for the first time, he wondered what point there was to a war in which you don’t even know who your enemy is, or why you’re fighting, or whether a peace treaty has already been signed, or who will end up envying whom: the dead—the living, or the living—the dead. Later on, in the woods, on the ridge, the commander chided himself for the defeatist thoughts, but they offered him some brief comfort. To be honest, war is a holy mess, we all agree, there’s no dispute. Every war is like that, the just and the unjust wars, the wars of conquest and defense, war on land and war on the sea, and war in the air and war underground, all of them are the same. War is shit, that’s that, period. Later, on the ridge, the commander would feel shame at these words, changing nothing. There is no particular use for words, read the commander a long time ago in a story by a local writer. The story had stayed with him for years, especially a scene in which the mother pricks her finger with a needle and then explains something to her daughter, and, in the end, the mother licks the welling blood from her fingertip. The commander winced: yes, he had been exposed to many deaths, both day and night, but the needle prick to the fingertip made all the deaths seem pointless. Meanwhile the soldiers had come up to a twisted old fence that once probably served as a border crossing. In a whisper the commander cautioned them not to approach the fence and even ordered them to stand back. He huddled with Mladen and a corporal and they concurred: the fence was the last barrier and the enemy would have focused on it. No matter how hard they tried, however, the commander and his advisers could not agree on the next step. Dawn would soon be breaking, thought the commander, and he was at a dead end. A little later, in front of everyone, he whacked himself on the head and said now he understood. He spoke softly into the dark and sounded as if he’d never stop. In short, he explained he’d suddenly seen through the enemy’s game. They’d figured the troops would assume the fence to be mined; he and his soldiers would be expected to detour around the fence and proceed, together, beyond it. Therefore, said the commander, we feel the fence itself won’t be mined, but there will be pressure action mines planted alongside it on both sides to catch us when we go around it; the closer we stick to the middle section the safer we’ll be. And as soon as he said this, the commander walked right up to it, threw his leg over the fence, and then, when nothing happened, called the others to follow. Alone or in pairs, the soldiers hopped over and soon it was behind them. The commander went back for a last look. He really wanted to toss a heavy rock sideways to set off one of the mines, but the blast would have given their location to the enemy. Better not, they thought, each of them, the commander and the soldiers. There are happy little moments like this of harmony, and everybody felt it. Far away before them the sky began to tear apart, and out of the crack gushed the bright, still sheepish, light of dawn. The commander summoned Mladen, told him to take another soldier and scout out what was going on around them. “You have ten minutes,” said the commander, “because they’ll see they’ve been hoodwinked, and they’ll do their level best to find us.” And so it was. First they heard shouts and random shots, then it was alternating bursts of gunfire and shell blasts. The checkpoint, thought the commander, has been obliterated. The shooting thumped a little longer, hand grenades blew and shells whistled, and then just as the shooting died down, everything reverberated with an explosion. “Yes,” whispered the commander, “oh, yes!” The magazine of weapons and munitions they’d left behind had just gone up, taking with it, hoped the commander, five or six enemy soldiers. Ah, the commander’s thoughts continued, if someone had told me I’d in any way, at any time, and in any place actually desire a person’s death, I’d never have believed them, but he was a soldier and he knew no one comes home unchanged from a war. It was good that he was surrounded by people in whom he had full confidence, at least he could trust them never to inform on him to the authorities or the police, though he always needed to be cautious, because if somebody reported him for having been earnestly sympathetic toward our alleged enemies, the commander would quickly find himself in a pickle. And even exile, whether forced or self-imposed, wouldn’t save him. Had the weather been just a little more agreeable, he’d have gone, long ago, to a village by a shore. Which shore? we asked, the shore of a lake or the sea? Whatever, said the commander, whatever. We chose a boat. The weather was sunny and mild, no one was in a hurry, it was warm, July or August, we could hardly wait to stretch out and bask. The commander did a double take and saw he’d been left completely alone. He’d been asleep behind a bush, probably why they’d abandoned him. They have no idea, in fact, where I am, thought the commander, though they were all sure he’d be back. He always came back, so why not now? Then a gust of wind blew by and brought with it fragments of a commotion. The commander licked his finger and raised it into the air. Their fate, he thought, depends on which way the wind is blowing, and he set out in the direction it came from. He pushed his way through the bushes and came upon his soldiers, gathered around a hole in the ground; at the bottom there were sharpened spikes and on them were impaled three—three!—soldiers. The legs of one were still jerking and the soldiers were barely able to convince the commander that these were nothing but belated reflexes of the muscles and tendons, like a headless chicken lurching madly about the yard. They’d been walking down the road, they explained, and nothing hinted at the likelihood of a trap or threat. The pit was dug smack-dab in the middle, so sooner or later somebody would have fallen in. But who dug it and when? asked the commander. He’d have given anything for a proper answer, but apparently this was not sufficient. Some things are worth their weight, some their length, and some the degree to which they’re absent. The more absent it is, the more costly a thing becomes—such a paradox. The commander finally realized that a buzzing sound he was hearing was coming from enemy soldiers who were streaming, in total disarray, down the slope and talking intensely, and the multitude sounded like the buzz of bees. The commander stepped back and cocked his head to the side, trying to stretch his field of vision to encompass all the participants. He tried to imagine his life elsewhere, but what reached him was the hum of the enemy’s discontent, and he sought out Mladen: “If this continues,” he said, “we’re plunging straight into chaos.” Their duty, the commander went on, was to settle on a secure route that would take him and the soldiers to safety. Mladen asked him, cautiously, how he knew which route was a good one. He didn’t, said the commander, but he was absolutely certain he knew which of the routes was no good, so by the process of elimination it would be easy to ascertain which were viable, or at least had been viable at the outbreak of the conflict. What was expected of him? asked Mladen. The commander rubbed his chin and eyes, he was tired, terribly tired though he stood there and smiled, and it could be said that he wasn’t present, or, perhaps, he was more present than ever, and he told Mladen to take two soldiers and lie in wait for the enemy riffraff that was obliterating everything as it passed through. The idea was for Mladen to fake a battle and keep moving to entice the enemy to follow him, not along the route their men were taking, but along another that splits off and leads across a ridge at some distance. On that path there were several huts and an old mill. A stream used to run in a torrent through there, especially in spring, and spin the water wheel, but then the stream dried up, leaving behind it a narrow ravine. If Mladen could lure them into the ravine, they wouldn’t change direction until they’d realized their error, and by then it would already be night, or at least late evening, and this would allow the commander to cross the ridge at a much lower point, after which they’d have only a few miles left to the place where all units would assemble. Mladen nodded tersely and went off to find the soldiers. There weren’t many left, and nobody, but nobody, was eager to accompany him. Mladen coaxed, pleaded, begged, made promises, but the soldiers had had it. “Somebody else can play,” said one. The commander heard the words and was dismayed. Direct insubordination meant only one thing: a court martial and, probably, execution before a firing squad. The commander was overcome by an abrupt headache. He went over to the soldier who’d refused Mladen’s summons and asked him whether he had any ibuprofen or aspirin. The soldier dipped a hand into a pocket and brought out a small white pill. “I wasn’t asking for a sedative,” said the commander. “If there’s no proper medicine, any pill will do,” said the soldier with a sudden grin. The commander shrugged, swallowed the white pill, and later, truth be told, he felt much better. He’d never learn whether it was the sedative or his immune system rebounding, but so it was with many things: there could be no talk or whining here: you took things as they were or you didn’t take them at all. No negotiating or bargaining and wasting time on nonsense. This is life—thought the commander, wrapped in the white veil of the sedative—not literature. As if confirming his words, shots could be heard being fired somewhere behind his back, exactly where Mladen was supposed to be drawing the enemy away onto the wrong route. “Aha,” whispered the commander to himself. “If only we’d had the time to dig a pit trap for them, they’d all be in it now.” But if there was anything they’d been short of in this war, it was time, and when he gave it a little more thought, the commander had to recognize that the speed of events simply did not allow him to come to a timely, fitting assessment, to weigh them in their elemental and cosmic meaning, especially in the cosmic, because there everything was pure, untainted by malice and envy. The shots behind his back grew sparser and soon they stopped altogether. There were two or three spurts of gunfire, the sort usually used to finish off the wounded and superfluous soldiers. The commander trembled with a sudden bitter taste in his mouth and hurried the troops. Some ten minutes later, however, they had to stop and wait for him to vomit. He retched long and hard, his face drenched in an icy sweat. His belly swelled and clenched though it was already completely empty. He crouched by a beech tree and a soldier held his brow till the commander told him to stop. As soon as the soldier withdrew his hand, the commander sank to the ground next to the pool of vomit. As far as he was concerned, the war was over and he was prepared to lie there to the end of the world, but reality was something else and it compelled him to get up, so he summoned the strength and struggled to his feet as if he were rising, at the very least, from the dead. He stood there and stared at the soldiers standing before him: six soldiers, two corporals, and Mladen, who at that very moment stepped, blood-soaked, out of the brambles. “Where is my deputy?” asked the commander, but no one could say. He’d simply disappeared, period. No asking around would help and, besides, whom to ask? There is a misleading and heart-wrenching notion of war as the ideal time for forging friendships, rich with opportunities for self-sacrifice and dying for one’s ideals, when, instead, these notions are all part of the farce that is war. War is a business like any other and these stories are merely a manifestation of efforts to consign the truth to oblivion, whence it will only be allowed to emerge once it conforms to the government’s truth, but the honest truth would never accept that, and doesn’t even now. “My dear soldiers,” began the commander, but he stopped immediately because he felt tears welling. The commander, as is well known, had nothing against tears coursing down a man’s cheeks, but he believed there are moments when one may cry in public, while crying at any other time would not do for men, and this moment was one when he was supposed to be spurring them all to finish their combat mission, to inspire them not to give up on life before their time, and one cannot do this with tears in one’s eyes, right? The commander plucked a blade of grass and nibbled at it, sucking out its bitter sap, until the bitterness calmed him. “My dear soldiers, fellow combatants, brothers, the end of our part in yet another pointless war is upon us. We had no idea what we were fighting for, nor who our enemy was, and to be honest, we don’t know what we’ll find back home. I hope our houses are still standing, cozy and intact, like when we left them. The last stretch will probably be the most challenging: all the factions will be assembling here, and when faced with the absence of an enemy, troops often turn on one another. In any case, I wanted to warn you, whatever happens, do not break into song. There is always one of our number who doesn’t appreciate that particular song and who will be out for revenge for no other reason.” He stopped, he’d meant to say more but couldn’t remember what. The soldiers applauded, and he ordered them to disperse. From afar they could hear the rumble of trucks and tanks that, apparently, had not bought into the pretense of Mladen’s feigned combat, but guessing that he wanted to mislead them, had chosen the right path. “They’ll be here any minute,” repeated the commander, and Mladen, urging the remaining soldiers to disperse and get going uphill, along the route that would bring them home the fastest, as the commander had, apparently, announced in one of his earlier speeches when there were twice as many of them. They came over for a hug, but he shooed them off. “Once we make it home there will be time for that,” he said, and brushed away a secret tear. It was time for him to go, the rumble of motors and caterpillar vehicles was so loud that he felt as if he were perched on a roof, waving a little flag with the coat of arms of some country during one of those big military parades. Up he shimmied into a tree. He climbed till he reached the densest part of the canopy, where nobody could possibly spot him, but he could still find the occasional gap between leaves to afford him at least a partial view of what was going on. He was surprised when he realized how vast a military force had been sent to chase down his handful of soldiers, as if liquidating his men was the primary objective of the military and civilian leaders. Hadn’t the Nazis, once it had become clear that they were losing the war, proceeded with a panicked liquidation of the Jews, as if the outcome of the conflict depended only on that? In another, perhaps more courtly time, he would, by now, with full confidence, have sat down with the commander of the enemy troops and, over tea, or, why not, schnapps, traded anecdotes from their school days at the military academy, until they finally shook hands and congratulated each other on a well-earned victory or an amicable defeat. And each would then return tidily home to their impatient wives who, what with the long wait, had, probably, shown so much willingness to annex the new territories that everyone, in an odd way, was a little sorry the war was ending. Suddenly, right beneath the tree where the commander had, shall we say, nested, shouts went up. Through a gap in the leaves, the commander could see three of his soldiers. They were waving a piece of white cloth and walking slowly down the hill. When they reached the meadow they’d left only minutes before, on their way home, one of the tanks rolled toward them. Was it sniffing them? The gun barrel swiveled toward them, but then the tank kept rolling on. The soldiers, who hesitated longer than they should have, suddenly realized what the tank was up to, but by then it was too late and it rolled right over them, stopped, and reversed. The commander bit his hand to hold back the sobs and to stop himself from sliding down the tree, hot with the desire to give them what for. They’d kill him before he had the chance, of course, to pull a hand grenade from his boxers. He was left waiting and hoping there’d be people interested in a future project in which there’d be a role left for him to play the venerable gramps who’d been living in his coffin for years, but lovely Mistress Death wouldn’t show her face. And then the enemy soldiers brought in their dogs. A dog loped right over to the tree where the commander was hiding, but nothing interested it beyond lifting a leg and spraying its mark; in a few days’ time the mark would send a black bear scampering back to where it had come from because it wrongly assumed the scent was left by a grizzly (and it wasn’t keen to run into a grizzly). The dogs raced off into the woods and soon their urgent barking could be heard, followed by gunshots and shouts. The commander was able to see the two corporals: the one covered in dog bites and gore was left to the dogs, while the other was sat down at a collapsible aluminum table and questioned quite calmly. And while the first corporal was dying in horrible agony, the other corporal sat cozily on a chair and responded with civility to the questions. They asked him for his name, what did he do, any brothers and sisters, how long had he been serving in the army, did he enjoy war, and other things to pass the time of day, his favorite writer, favorite actress, wife and kids, was his mother alive, and his father—was he retired, did he send him letters or postcards, and who were the smokers in his family? While he was answering, the corporal would occasionally gaze up into the treetop above, and at one moment, as he was staring at the mottled leaves, he was certain he’d seen someone’s eye. He blinked and the eye was gone. This must be the eye of the Lord, and the corporal felt now God himself was looking after him. True, the eye reminded him of somebody, but of whom? As if through a fog the idea occurred to him that it was the commander perched in the treetop like a good-luck woodland sprite. Perhaps he might be able to climb up there once he’d finished with the questioning and pay him a visit. Then he told himself he was crazy, how could the commander be up in the tree, he was no owl hiding from the light of day, nor was he a songbird that had stopped chirping for a moment to peer down at a corporal who hadn’t learned yet how to say “my death,” but was studying hard and was a diligent student. And when, after some ten additional, courteous, and totally pointless questions, a knife flashed in the hand of the investigator, and he told the corporal he’d now be given his prize for his cooperative spirit. The corporal gave a slight smile, said he’d be glad to share his prize, threw himself with lightning speed on the investigator, wrested the knife free, and in what was almost a single move, slit the man’s throat and in the same continuous sweep slit his own from ear to ear. The commander nearly found himself down there by the aluminum table, he was so wrapped up in the drama that had been playing out before him. Who knows, maybe he really was an owl and could see better in the dark than by the light of the sun? He’d wait for night to see; he wasn’t going anywhere. He wondered how many of the soldiers were still alive, and he thought of Mladen and another two or three. And the cook? Really, where was the cook? Our cook is a fine cook, we all repeated, as if that fact—that the cook cooked well—was the standard response that included defense from any criminal proceedings that might have pertained to the cook, in uniform or civilian dress, regardless. But no one, not even the commander, could accuse the cook of a thing. There was that once, recalled the commander, when the hamburgers were not quite soft enough, but one doesn’t go before a court for that, especially not a court martial. Beyond that, a few soldiers once criticized him for spending too much time in the kitchen, in the hot seat and center of all life. The cook’s answer was simple: “I like listening to the radio,” said the cook, “and the reception is best there.” This, regarding the quality of the reception, was later confirmed by the commander, who also liked to listen to the radio and often went to the kitchen, he said, “for the good reception.” He now cocked an ear, certain that among the various planes and helicopters flying overhead he’d be able to discern the sound of the motor of the plane that was waiting for them at the airport in K. to bring them to the capital city. We don’t know whether there is an international landing strip at K. but the toilets in the parking lot by the airport are clean, cleaner than many facilities in Europe and North America. That must have been heard by some of the soldiers who, below the commander’s treetop, were at a loss because toilets had suddenly become the main topic of conversation and everywhere people were talking only of them. And besides, if there were no more soldiers to kill, let’s at least talk about something meaningful for all of us in war and peace. The conversation about toilets stirred the commander from a precarious doze, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The doze was precarious because man is not a bird that can snooze on a wire or a branch, and he always feels as if he’s sinking, dropping through whatever space he’s in toward the very end of the world. Voices whispered things again to the commander, there’s always someone who wants to be part of a secret alliance before all others, the more secretive the better, but then the commander had the impression he’d heard a familiar voice, he shifted silently and, sure enough, Mladen’s voice. The commander wondered what miracle this could be, though he was perplexed, musing on what could have brought Mladen to the enemy’s encampment. And then everything halted, transformed, and we were left alone as we’d never been before, because everything took on a different meaning, and the world became a backward mirror in which nothing was as it was, but as it might be. The commander looked into the mirror and saw himself tiny as a frog. He’d have been happiest stomping on himself, thought the commander, and he relished the scene of the actual act of dispersal, the heart flying off to the right, the liver to the left, the brain straight up, aspiring—in vain, of course—to celestial heights. The brain can ultimately be deep-fried; that is, probably, the only thing it is useful for. And what else, thought the commander, when it hadn’t warned him in time of what, even without his brain, he should have seen: that Mladen had been playing a double game the whole time, and he was, in fact, a spy for the enemy. Everything abruptly assumed an altered aspect, what had been unclear became clear, the inexplicable could be explained, and comprehension replaced incomprehension. All of Mladen’s undertakings, his triumphant arrivals after finishing his tasks, the conversations when he’d asked detailed questions about the commander’s plans and intentions, the ease with which he insisted there was no point to investigating the whole passel of murders of soldiers around the checkpoint, all this now suggested a different story, a story in which Mladen played the leading role, including the most sinister role, the role of merciless executioner. The commander had known, of course, that a different explanation was also possible, one by which Mladen had been compelled to obey commands from the highest military authority to convince the enemy of his loyalty. This would be easy for the commander to test. All he had to do was jump down and see what Mladen would do then, if he’d kill him or protect him in some way. But why should he, thought the commander, something should be left for the historians, those parasites who shape history whichever way they like, they who were themselves never part of history. Something had started happening down below, the soldiers were preparing to move, but first, as the commander could see, they were laying mines along the path that led upward, toward home. Several mines they planted around a nearby stream as well, and there would be woodland creatures killed by them that very night; the next morning the stream would be littered with the body parts of the animals. The people would be killed later. Not daring, still, to come down from the tree, the commander again fell asleep in his treetop and missed seeing the arrival of what must have been his last two soldiers, and hence he was unable to stop them from treading on the mines. The commander started from a dream in which he’d been eating a cheese burek, and for a moment he didn’t know what was happening. Then he understood, but first he thought of Mladen. He’d find Mladen a little later, along the path the enemy soldiers and tanks had gone. They hadn’t taken him with them for long, and besides now this was one less mouth to feed, and that seemed most important just then. The commander leaned over and rifled through Mladen’s jacket pockets. Apparently someone had already done the same before him, because, aside from an old bus ticket and a few coins, he found nothing. Then he remembered to check the pants pockets and there he found a black booklet in which Mladen had entered all his meetings and contacts with the other side. For us, this was a bonanza, it was nothing short of a list of the people who had worked to disappear us from the face of the earth. In the end they’d have all fared as Mladen did, this was the gruesome truth and nobody could fathom their willingness to do something that ultimately brought with it only loss. He continued searching Mladen’s corpse, and came across a thicker place on the right front side below his belt. He started unbuckling the belt but heard voices approaching and quickly dipped into the woods. While he was waiting for the voices to move off, he mused how he could have cashed his chips in with such a lack of caution, and then back he quietly went to where Mladen’s body lay—the body was gone. “Who could have taken it?” asked the commander softly, though he knew there was nobody around who could answer. Such things happened elsewhere, didn’t they? If they did, then they did, and there’s no cause for concern. He circled some twenty paces in both directions, but nowhere did he see footprints. He probably hadn’t looked carefully enough or hadn’t counted his paces well, but when he turned, prepared to head home, he saw two soldiers carrying Mladen’s lifeless body. He didn’t know who was more surprised, the enemy soldiers or our commander, but he collected himself quicker and with lightning speed (though to observers on the sidelines, had there been any, it would have looked incomparably slower) he aimed his weapon at them. The soldiers simultaneously threw their hands up, and Mladen’s body plunked down onto the path. “Watch out!” shouted the commander. “That’s not scrap iron to be thrown around like that.” The soldiers looked at each other and then one said, “But he’s dead, sir, nothing more can happen to him.” The commander wagged a finger: “You can never be sure of that, soldier. Miracles might happen at any moment. But first tell me: how did you learn my language?” The soldier laughed: “Your language? This is my language!” The commander nodded, pensive, then suddenly stared at the soldier. “My, my, are you one of the Dejanovićes?” asked the commander and when the soldier said he was, the commander asked, “What are you after here? Hands down and scram, you and your buddy.” The soldiers dropped their hands and trudged slowly downhill, but the soldier Dejanović stopped and asked, “And you? What are you after here?” The commander said nothing for a time, then pointed his gun at them and barked, “Want to see what I’m after, really?” He aimed a short burst of gunfire above their heads and, bumping each other, they sprinted away. The commander waited for them to move beyond some bushes and then he went back to Mladen’s body. He saw his belt and pants were unbuckled and he knew that whatever was hidden there had been forever lost. He should have frisked the soldiers. And now he had to worry about a new posse of the enemy that would be organized as soon as the two of them reached the meadow. He should have killed them then and there instead of inquiring about their language. One speaks the language one speaks and everyone will always speak the language they speak, and the language of the victors will always be on top, and so it goes. Besides, it would be funny if the victor were to speak the language of the loser, just as it was entirely natural for the loser to speak the language of the victor. But what about when the victor and loser speak the same language? What then? The commander didn’t like these writerly tricks that threw him into doubt and required of him at least a measure of wisdom, but still he tried to wriggle free of the trap and said, “Then, quick, think up a new language. That, at least, is easy!” Nothing is easy, thought the commander, but for language, at least, this couldn’t be easier. All I need is a little persistence and everyone will accept what is foisted on them. “Language is habit,” whispered Mladen softly as if to himself, but with a ring of triumph. “Repeat a word or phrase long enough, and you’ll end up thinking you came up with it yourself. And when you think you’ve created a word, you can allow yourself to feel that you created the world.” The commander couldn’t believe his ears: the body they’d all thought to be dead was now talking, and it showed no intention of stopping! He went over to it again and at that very moment Mladen’s eyes popped open, he sat up, and looked around. “Nice,” he said, “nobody’s here. The whole area is only ours, yours and mine, or, if you prefer, yours or mine. A big difference for such a small word, eh?” He squinted slyly, which he’d never done before and which sent our commander into shivers. But nothing could be predicted here, though the commander did think the time was nigh for a final reckoning, and, indeed, this swiftly led to further developments. Mladen had risen to his feet, made an effort to tidy up his uniform and put himself in order, and then from an embroidered sheath he pulled out a long, gleaming knife. With a bent finger he beckoned to the commander to come over. “What’s this,” wondered the commander, “a horror rerun of the events that played out just now, or a real game of fate that could turn a vegetarian into a meat-eater and then promote the meat-eater to a cannibal?” All these, he knew, might merely be symbols, pretense, empty lies and promises, nothing had to be substantial, obligating, genuine. But Mladen was brandishing a real knife with a sharp blade and there could be no doubt that the wounds inflicted by the cold steel would be every bit as real. The commander, however, did not have a knife; he had only a small spade he’d forgotten to take off his belt, so he pulled it out and with it rebuffed Mladen’s first attack. All the while he was trying to remember what this whole event reminded him of, and he finally realized it was one of those mixed-genre movies where for the first half they develop into something like a police procedural, and then, when a clock at some point strikes midnight, everything shifts to a saga about vampires and an assortment of living dead. He’d rather have tossed away the spade that, panting, he was holding out in front of him, but then Mladen would have to put down his knife first or slip it back into the embroidered sheath, and he showed no inclination to do so. Instead he began moving slowly toward the people who were waiting in line to buy tickets for the New World. “New Belgrade?” asked the man at the bus station counter and the commander had to gently but confidently repeat: “The New World.” “I don’t see much difference there,” said the man and lowered the curtain. “And what now?” asked the commander, and Mladen said, “Now we fight.” And with a wild shriek he threw himself at the commander. The people who had been waiting peacefully in line scattered with shouts and curses, and the commander and Mladen stopped to let them pass. The commander did not stop to ask where this line of people who were waiting to buy bus tickets in the middle of the forest had come from, with not a single bus route in sight. “Well, there you’re wrong,” barked Mladen and threw himself, again, like a wild beast at the commander, who had more luck than smarts. For a moment he was distracted, and it could have cost him his life. Instead it was just his shirt that suffered. Mladen aimed his knife well but the loose, blousy shirt threw off his calculations and, at the same time, saved the commander’s life. The commander shook his head to free himself of unwanted thoughts about buses for New Belgrade or the New World, whichever. The miss threw Mladen off-kilter, and for a moment, when his knife fell from his hand, he found himself in a completely hopeless fix, the whiteness of his neck even flashed as if summoning or answering the gleam of the knife. “Now!” the commander heard a loud and unfamiliar, clear voice. “Now’s the time to grab the knife. Next time will be too late.” “And maybe there won’t be a next time,” added yet another voice, much softer than the first. The commander stared at his hand and then at the hands of his opponent. The opponent was gradually recovering his balance, this could be seen by his focus, his furrowed brow, the tip of his tongue between his lips. And the commander raised the knife and lowered it, raised it and lowered it, and went on raising and lowering it until he felt it plunge into something solid, something tangible, something that bled. Everyone seated around the table had bloodied lips and many drops of blood on their cheeks, collars, cuffs, pants. Meanwhile Mladen was dying, bereft of any hope of surviving such an attack and so many stabs and wounds around his head. He lay on his side, coughed and spit blood, and, all in all, felt decidedly under the weather. He thought he’d appreciate the opportunity of holding a farewell speech, but the growling of the dogs warned him that, with their change of owner they’d changed appetites, and, shuddering, he sighed once more and soon after that felt his life ebb and that instant he, Mladen, was officially dead. “I’m not sorry,” thought Mladen with his last prickles of consciousness, he’d lived a pleasant life, traveled the world and… and… that was it, that’s called death. “So, kids,” said the commander, “you see why you shouldn’t succumb to crime, drugs, unprotected sex, and unlimited time in front of the television. Moderation and modesty are the two essential virtues, and it’s enough to hold to them; they’ll replace all others….” In the end it always turns out that the commanding officers are safe while they send the rank and file—the young who still haven’t inhaled the aroma of life—to the sacrificial altar. Out of the corner of his eye, the commander could see Mladen’s body jerking and was seized by terror at the thought that the agony might not be over. Mladen’s eyes were still open and the commander tried shutting them, but no matter how hard he struggled he couldn’t, even with the help of members of the blues group Fruity Juice, who suddenly appeared on the path, going from house to house, though nobody asked them anything, offering services, church almanacs, and wooden spoons. The hippie attire of the members of the group and the kerchiefs over their frightful shaggy heads of hair couldn’t dupe the commander, who was certain they were Jehovah’s Witnesses in disguise. All this meant that the commander was no longer at all sure, to put it mildly, of where he was. If he was still on the path, why didn’t a single driver take an interest, why didn’t they ask what this young man was doing here, and if he was waiting, for whom? And where was the posse? Did the dogs get it wrong and lead them off elsewhere? And then an awful thought occurred to him: what if they were already right here, standing close by, hidden by the bushes? The dogs, of course, would be shushed, waiting only for the commander to finish his story and then they’d attack. But the commander didn’t wait. He bent over, pretending to fiddle with his shoelaces, and he only used this as a pretense to inch over to an automatic weapon lying on the ground. He made as if to straighten up, then flung himself down, snatched up the gun and began shooting in all directions. While shooting, he rolled over to the right toward the path’s edge and from there scurried on all fours into deeper underbrush. Behind him, on the path where Mladen’s body lay, staggered wounded soldiers, some dropped dead and others cursed. He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of capsules marked with a skull and crossbones. This was dog poison, and he strewed it around on the path over Mladen’s body, to take effect immediately. Sure enough, soon he could hear a dog whimper, then another, then a third, and all three wailed together a little longer until an uncomfortable silence took over. Now he could move on, thought the commander, and, crouching close to the ground, he crawled toward an opening in the shrubs. In order to make himself even smaller and less visible, he imagined himself a worm or a slug and squirmed among the brambles and twigs. Reaching the end of the thicket, he saw a great meadow, a slope thick with grass and other greenery, which at first glance looked like a rug carpeting a room from wall to wall. However, soon it became clear that this was an illusion; his feet sank into the dense grass or slid over it, especially where the slope was steeper. Luckily, what was impeding his progress did the same for the men who were after him, except that in their efforts to be as speedy as possible they tripped with each step and tumbled down the hill. They were at the foot of the slope just as the commander had nearly scrambled to the top, or, actually, not far from a spot where the grassy slope became a rocky ridge; on its other side—the same place the path with the land mines had led to—would bring him to a border crossing and safe return home. Slipping, but this time on rocks skittering out from under his feet, the commander thought about how he’d set out with many, but now here he was returning alone. “I am Odysseus,” he sobbed bitterly, but he soon stopped mainly because he was no longer sure whether Odysseus came back alone or with a few surviving warriors, and besides, unlike Odysseus, he, the commander, had nobody waiting for him at home. Just then, the commander thought of the cook. Whatever happened to the cook? Only moments later the commander came across a gruesome sight: a dozen large birds crouching on a carcass, ripping off chunks of flesh with their hooked beaks. The commander thought, a mountain goat, but only when he came closer and shooed away the greedy raptors did he realize that before him lay the half-gnawed body of the company’s cook. He recognized the man by his large head and one pale blue eye—the other eye had been devoured along with the tongue and a part of the cheek. While he was inspecting the cook, the commander felt a wave of nausea, staggered over to the nearest rock and heaved, whimpering like the dogs who’d been poisoned a bit ago. Who knows, maybe he’d ingested a little poison while scattering the capsules around Mladen’s corpse. From childhood he’d had the habit of licking his fingers after everything he did, regardless of whether he was laying heads of cabbage in a sauerkraut barrel, or feeling through a fish fillet for the treacherous bones, or sprinkling salt on food, or adding the sugar to the cream filling when baking pastry. He’d always lick at least one finger, regardless of whether he’d actually touched something with it, so he’d probably done the same after scattering the capsules. What an idiot I am, muttered the commander, and went ahead lambasting himself with choice curses. Though he’d already retched, his belly was still distended and aching; he shoved two fingers down his throat to empty his stomach. The new wave left him gasping, and he thought his end had truly come. His gut tightened and stretched in attempts to separate the good from the bad, but he knew it was a lost cause that would only end when his stomach was completely empty. As he was gagging, the scavengers began to move freely around him. The commander felt a moist fog had settled over him; he kept having to squint and wipe away the sweat from his brow and cheeks. He could no longer stand, his legs were wobbling, so he dropped to his knees and found himself eye to eye with the cook’s remains. Maybe, he thought, he was destined to meet his end while guarding the hollowed remnants of the cook. He peered down the slope but didn’t see anyone. Again he was nudged by a presentiment that the enemy was at hand, watching him and sneering and waiting for his attention to flag, and when it flagged they’d rush in and snatch him along with the other prisoners, as if preparing for their triumphal return to Rome. The commander winced, crossed himself sneakily, and began collecting his belongings. He couldn’t find the key to his apartment but breathed a sigh of relief when he remembered he’d left it in the pocket of his other pants—stuffed into his pack, as were all his other clothes, his shorts, socks, underpants, handkerchiefs. He remembered how he’d packed while he was readying to leave with the company for the new combat situation, and it seemed that six months had passed since then, perhaps even eight, though everything had, in fact, happened over some fifteen days, three weeks, a month, maybe, no more, for sure, absolutely sure, which would mean that he must have at least twenty-one daily reports in his ledger, maybe twenty-five pages of notes, which would be easy to check by leafing through the ledger, but it was at the bottom of his pack under the dirty laundry, out of reach, especially now when at any moment the company would start to march. The commander knocked his head, yet again he’d forgotten there was no more company, he was alone. He looked at the sky and saw the sun had begun to set, it was squeezing the tube from which night would squirt, and under the cover of dark the commander would trek across the last miles separating him from home. At first this seemed the most challenging stretch of the whole journey, especially because the passage would transport him through the border of another country, across terrain that yawned open wide, which the soldiers had to traverse as speedily as possible, hoping to dodge enemy bullets. But now the commander was alone and he couldn’t decide whether this heightened his chances, or, possibly, diminished them. Diminished probably: when fewer were crossing, the gunfire would be focused on each soldier. So if the commander dared to dash across the unsheltered ground on his own, he could count on all the officials at the border post training their weapons on him. He wasn’t overly concerned, he was still confident that his lucky star shielded him as it had so far. He tossed his pack onto his back, darted a glance at the slope and again thought back to their arrival. He saw himself at the head of the company, talking cheerfully as they approached the spot where they’d been assigned to operate the checkpoint that had been held by their allies. Everything else, admitted the commander, was an improvised and endless frustration. Who needed the checkpoint, and what was it checking? When he’d asked that question of the colonel who delivered the order that had come from the Supreme Staff, the colonel replied that such things would be dealt with in stride. Ultimately, said the colonel, the checkpoint is a two-way street, somebody is always crossing from one side to the other, meaning, added the colonel, that there would always be work for those charged with its maintenance. But, the commander dared interject, does that mean our position in the conflict will change, or that we’ll turn our backs on old alliances and form new ones? The colonel’s face fell, and he said the commander couldn’t have heard any such thing from him. He, meaning the colonel, had merely served as a bearer of tidings, a courier, a screw in an intricate mechanism, no more. If the colonel was nothing but aЧитать дальше