Portrait of a Man from the Krajina

By Daniel Pérez

It was early morning, and the silhouettes behind us portrayed two perfectly content men sitting side-by-side, drinking from cups that were attached to their arms. Of course, the cups weren?t really attached to their arms, but it only appeared that way.

And no, we weren?t two perfectly content men.

So let?s just say we were two men sitting cross-legged near the base of a fire that I had prepared one hour prior.

I was an early riser then. I was the one who woke up the earliest, before anybody else, the one who would clench his fists if someone else in the household were to get up earlier. I also was the one to fall to sleep last.

I relive this morning simply because it sticks out in my mind as the day that I first learned to become annoyed by my mediocre existence. I won?t tell you why. I won?t tell you how. I will only convey the course of the little events of that morning, and I will leave it up to you, the worldly reader, to interpret them as you wish.

15 years ago, I left my home in the Krajina, a region in Croatia that you probably don?t know about, except maybe through little newspaper articles written by some mediocre reporter or young historian. I?m tired now; I?m a tired Serb. This is the morning in which I first realized how tired I had become.

It?s now half past eight in the evening. I will relive these events for you, and then retire for bed. I?m doing you a favor, remember.

We were sitting near the fire, which sporadically crackled between three dried logs. Outside played the sounds of everyday life that I recognized only because I had heard similar things while living as a refugee in other towns. I knew that there were passing cars and barking dogs outside only because I had seen dogs barking and cars passing while living in other places.

Some of the fire?s smoke entered the room. Petar coughed a few times, then he fanned the fire some more.

"Better to be warm than to breathe well," he remarked.

"Yes, well it?s better to die late than to die early," I responded. "Let?s open a window."

I scratched my head, and he breathed some more.

I had met Petar one week before, and I had required only a few moments to understand that he was, indeed, an odd man.

The day that I speak of is June 29.

I remember that it was June 29 because the day before (you see, that?s the day when Serbs celebrate Serbdom), Petar had been more strange than usual. He had spent all morning whistling like a bird, looking outside our building?s only window. This event wouldn?t have been so strange in itself, except for the fact that the view outside the window wasn?t much of a view. The view consisted of a red brick wall.

The sounds that we heard from that room everyday led me to believe that the building next door, to which the brick wall was attached, was a theater or auditorium of some sort.

The sun was shining, I think. (It?s difficult to tell, you see. The sun doesn?t shine through brick walls, or through concrete roofs or ceilings. It?s funny how a force of nature as strong as the sun can?t penetrate brick walls, but something as flimsy as a little weed can seep through cracks in the floor.)

Between crackles of firewood burning, I started a conversation.

"Where?s Ivo," I asked Petar.

"He?s in Belgrade, with his family.

"Ivo has family in Belgrade?"

Petar pressed the palms of his hands against the flames? edges.

Ivo had been with us for about a week. He had been a businessman who had first moved to Prizren to open up a café with the money that he had inherited from his now-dead father, who had also worked as a businessman. Ivo had been successful in his work, having opened up three cafes in Prizren in the course of only four years.

But I hadn?t known that he was from Belgrade.

"Yes, he?s from there. Born there, raised there," said Petar.

He flipped his hands around. The insides were brown now. "And now, he?ll die there," he added. He eyes scanned the room. "And we?ll die here."

?Here? was an Orthodox Church in Prizren, Kosovo. It was an old wooden building, painted white. The only door onto the main street stood guarded by German soldiers. If I remember correctly, our roof had been lined with barbed wire, and decorated with a sign that read: "Come in Peace." (I don?t know if the sign is still there. I can?t imagine that it is.)

Then Petar began to clean the dirt from underneath his fingernails. The top of his body hovered over his right hand.

"You?ll get used to it." I said. "I?ve become used to living in strange places. Remember, I?ve been away from my home a lot longer than you have."

He looked up from his tedious task. His ears went up about an inch. The volume of his voice increased.

"How could you have lived in places like this for so long? We?re living like caged dogs."

He continued talking, and I pretended to listen to him. I nodded my head in a timely manner, made gestures with my face. I even said the usual "I see" and "Hmmm" and "Oh really". I was a good pretend listener. Really, during that moment, I didn?t care what the man had to say. He was, after all, a Serb from Prizren. He had owned a yellow home on the hillside, underneath the old Ottoman fortress. He had been a history teacher at a secondary school, and, as far as I know, he had been despised by the local Albanians. He had been the first to inform the Albanians that they couldn?t come to school anymore, that if they tried to enter his classroom that the police would come to take them away, and that their homes would be attacked.

When the bombing ended the week before, (that is, the day before we met), his home had been the first to be attacked by them.

And that?s why we?re here, in this sanctuary for Serbs, in this enclave. (What a strange word. Imagine saying that to people. ?Hi, I?m John, and I live in an enclave.?)

He was still cleaning his fingernails while talking to me.

But it was hard not to feel sorry for him then. It was his first week there, in that hole. His children weren?t yet old enough to speak, and their mother sat next door, cuddling them like the creature of God that she was. They sat in the next room as we spoke, along with my son, and my wife.

At that moment, however, I was only concerned with Ivo. I hadn?t known that he was from Belgrade.

I took off my hand-knitted sweater. Peter again warmed his hands against our fire.

"Did Ivo say anything before he left?" I asked.

"Of course he did. He was a good Serb."

"What did he say?"

"I don?t remember." He stopped. "Anyways, I wasn?t finished with what I was talking about."

I took off my hat.

"You weren?t talking about anything, Petar. Petar, what did he say?"

"Why don?t you put your sweater back on, aren?t you cold?

"Aren?t you going to answer my question?"

"Well, if it?s so important, this is what he said: (I inched closer, I think.)?Only unity can save Serbs.?"

I inhaled.

"You?re very strange today, Milosh," he commented.

I exhaled.

Then he started to talk some more, and then I glared at the fire.

"And he?s in Belgrade, is he?" I asked.

I knew the answer to that question, but I needed to hear something other than the voice of that annoying Serb from Kosovo, and the crackling of that fire. So I spoke aloud whatever I felt like saying.

One of the logs had become completely charred.

"He always used to say things like that, didn?t he?" I asked. (Again, I knew the answer.)

Petar was really annoying me. He stopped warming his hands and placed them in his lap.

"Why, what?s it to you?" he asked.

I responded, in a whispered voice, "What do you mean, ?what?s it to me?? It?s everything to me."

It was everything to me because I had been away from my home for nine years. That home, over there, was my own.

As you already know, worldly reader, I?m from a village in the Krajina, where the Yugoslav wars began ten years prior (prior to that day). I was a playwright there, and had two sons and a wife. The four of us lived in a house that my grandfather had built after the Austrians left a while back. I wrote plays during the week, and two Fridays each month my family would come to see them performed, in an outdoor theater that I had built.

Our house had eight windows and three rooms. The front door was twice my height; the ceilings, three times.

"That man, Ivo, he was very proud to be a Serb, wasn?t he?" I asked.

Petar scooted away from me a few inches. I continued.

"Do you remember what he said to me when he first met me?"

"How could I? I wasn?t there." He scooted some more.

"He said: (and I licked my lips before beginning my rendition of Ivo) ?A Krajina Serb! I am honored to meet you!?"

I stood up, and placed both hands on my heart, face down, the left on top of the right. I tilted my head toward the ceiling (Not the sky. There was no sky).

I continued my rendition: "I am honored to meet you, you, for whom our nation first began this honorable struggle against our enemies, against America, the Arab world, the Vatican, the Croats, the Albanians, those who devilishly conspire against us at this very moment, as we speak."

I returned to my spot on the floor. Petar flipped his hands back around. Both sides of both hands were equally brown now, crisp.

"And, Petar, do you know what I said to him? Do you know how I responded?"

"How could I? I wasn?t there."

We heard the muffled sounds of children singing from the theater (at least I think it was a theater) next door. I ignored Petar?s observant remarks.

"I said: ?Then, my friend, we must whisper.? He smiled, and then he embraced me."

"That?s a nice story, Milosh." But I still think you?re acting a little strange today."

The choir?s muffled sounds from next door filled the room, and the weeds seeped through cracks in the hardwood floor. The fire?s flames danced, entirely out of rhythm with the tune being sung. There were now two charred logs (and two crisp hands, and two Serbs, one from the Krajina, one from Kosovo).

I couldn?t quite understand what the voices next door were singing about.

"If we ever leave this place they?ll kill us, you know," Petar said.

"Who?" I asked. "The Albanian tenors next door? The choir boys in black robes?

"You don?t know what?s underneath those robes."

"The same thing that?s underneath yours."

"You?re strange today, Milosh."

"Maybe they will kill us. But you should have thought about that before raising your arms against them," I told him.

And then Petar said what was probably the most straightforward, confident sounding sentence that had ever leaped from his lips.

"And you should have thought about your future before you raised your arms against the Croats."

It was a stupid thing to say.

"Shut up, Petar. You don?t know what you speak of. I never raised my hand against anyone but my own wife and two sons. I wrote plays, and?"

I paused, and listened. "And I don?t need to justify my life to you."

"You?re strange."

"And you?re sick. And you?ll be sicker once you?re away from your home for nine, ten years-- like me."

Then, as if the past ten seconds hadn?t occurred at all, he remarked, "He?s in Belgrade now, so that?s the end of him, as far as we?re concerned." He looked at his hands. "Gee, I got them burnt."

I noticed his features, his course skin, thin white hair, like an old man. (He was only forty then.)

I took off my socks. I drew my still un-charred hands to the fire.

"Our wives will come get us soon," he said. "It?s almost time for breakfast."

I spoke softly.

"I know, but you go on ahead. I?ll stay for a few more minutes. Tell my wife and my son that I?ll be right there, and not to come get me."

I could hear the choir teacher yelling at his students in a language I couldn?t understand. The fire crackled, and I stared intently at its heart. The last log broke into pieces.

There, I?m through. It?s time for bed. Goodnight.