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 a screw, thought the commander, then what could he—meaning the commander—say for himself? He wasn’t a screw or even a tack, smaller yet, or as thin as a straight pin, coming back—as he was—alone, without a single soldier, without even a cook. He did quickly make a point of saying that the story of the cook was a mesmerizing one, so he’d leave it for better times, because the cook’s heroism, he said, definitely deserved that. But first of all the commander thought he’d go to the military archive and investigate what had transpired with the various alliance treaties and protocols for collaboration; this might be the only way to explain the fact that his unit, obliged to hold the only checkpoint in the vicinity and beyond, had always been in the crosshairs of the opposing forces, even when the current opponents had until very recently been allies. And while he mused over the last few weeks, the thought kept bothe