Goran Vojnovic - Yugoslavia, My Fatherland

I kept staring at the valleys of Austria, resisting the feeling of guilt for finding some kind of understanding for a man who was no longer deserving of the name. But my understanding only extended as far as his feelings, his disappointments, and the extreme boundaries of his humanity. Beyond this boundary, there were his gruesome acts that I continued to refuse to understand. Beyond this boundary, there was no despair, no sadness, and no anger. Beyond this boundary, there were only the instincts of a killer, an insensitive monster who did not kill in self-defence, but who killed in self-offense. I didn’t want to breach this boundary, and I didn’t want to enter this inner world of his. I actually wasn’t even interested in how Nedelko himself could have overstepped this boundary, as this was a question only he could answer.

I had no questions for him.



It was rage that turned me around and dragged me off that train somewhere in the middle of the neatly mown, green panorama between Vienna and Graz. Nadia silently followed me, exhausted and reconciled, while I was torn up by rage, asking Nedelko, in my name, why he decided to live, and why he wanted to meet me now, after all those years of hide-and-seek. Why did he suddenly choose to appear? Of all those questions, only the seemingly trivial ‘why’ was actually still bursting inside me, a question I wanted to throw in his face, like a glove with which I would challenge him to a duel and settle the score with him, right there in the middle of a restaurant in Vienna. I was furious because he was toying with my life, and this rage drew me to him.

Now Nadia toddled behind me, catching the first train back to Vienna and sitting down in the first empty place on the train that drove into the station, to who knows where, from who knows where. I could only see seven o’clock in the evening, and a table in the corner of the terrace of a dark restaurant with low ceilings, as I had imagined, under the influence of last night’s dream: the Stomach Restaurant.

In Vienna, Nadia felt like she should take charge again and I followed her to the Wild Pension, along a familiar path. But this time, I was no longer able to listen to people around us, I only obliviously stared through the window of the subway train, and waited patiently for speed to blur the point upon which my gaze was fixed. Everything that was happening to me, since getting off the Ljubljana-bound train, only counted down the minutes, and I thought I felt those seconds and minutes rolling past me, slow and tired. And then they paused for a moment, and everything stiffened, and I panicked again, and then they started moving, and the world was unnoticeably turning round again.



After a while, I found myself sitting on the edge of a bed, watching Lange Gasse street grow lost in the dark, while Nadia lay behind my back, trying to be inaudible and invisible, while she waited for a moment when she would finally be free of this unbearable burden. Then she minutely described to me the way to the Stomach Restaurant, for the third time, and for the third time, I rejected the offer for her to accompany me, or for me to call a taxi, or take the underground. I decided to walk — convinced that treading the long Viennese streets would steal some excessive time.

It was five o’clock, and I decided to set off towards Seegasse Street. Nadia said that it was too early, but didn’t insist. She kissed me on the cheek, and told me to call her when I was done. I nodded and took off. There had been no trace of the rage that had brought me there for quite some time.

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

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

His greeting seemed so usual and inappropriate.

‘What will you have?’

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

‘You’re alone.’

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

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

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

‘Have you seen the photos?’

‘I have.’

‘Then you know everything.’

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

‘Why did you want me to come?’

‘Excuse me?’

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

‘You know… I can’t… ’

‘What?’

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

‘Yeah, so?’

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

‘Of what?’

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

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

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

‘So? What do you want from me?’

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

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