The main thing to be cleared up was who, on that fall morning of October 25, 1945, had been the first to notice the sign—“in the immediate vicinity of the power plant, attached to a wooden pole with 2 (two) thumbtacks obviously removed from a notice of death on said pole.”
This unimpressive scrap of yellowed paper (“half a sheet of typewriter paper of No. 3 quality, folded and cut with a sharp object”), the same size as a death notice, might indeed have gone unnoticed by the citizenry. “This is where the weather factor comes into play: it rained the entire morning, with only a few breaks, and a cold north wind was blowing. The majority of passersby were carrying umbrellas and for that reason did their passing by hunched over, fending off the gusts of wind and the showers of rain. Furthermore. it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that this portion of the street leading to the power plant is somewhat remote and is little used by pedestrians. Apart from some of the residents of the new public housing projects (two buildings) and some employees of the power plant, hardly anyone passes this way. The residents make use of the new road, the one that runs along the back of the plant, along the edge of a field. (The old street has been torn up by bombs and tank treads.)” And so on.
But that it would have gone entirely unnoticed, even if it was raining cats and dogs out, right up to eleven o’clock — now that just can’t be.
As such, Budišić took his investigation in the following direction: Who had walked by on that morning, the 28th of October, 1945? When? And why?
First of all, let’s have a look at the residents of this New Town housing complex. (This housing project, incidentally, is not new; it was built before the war and has remained unfinished.)
In Building Two (No. 1 has been destroyed) lives a certain Donka, Donka Bojačić, née Žunić, a retiree. Her son fell — on our side — during the war. She didn’t manage to get away — for “medical reasons.”
Her subtenant Đorđina Prokeš studies at the teachers’ college, twenty-two years old, from a Partisan family: left her house about 7:30 on the day in question, toting a man’s umbrella; didn’t notice anything. (“You can trust her, seeing that she’s a Party member. ” etc.)
Building Three: the Ivanovićes: father Stevan, sons Dane and Blažo. Daughters Darinka-Dara and Milena, mother Roksanda-Rosa. (Took the Chetniks’ side. Active for some time in the enemy’s employ. Under investigation. Dane carries an automatic pistol around in the city. They’ve been interrogated. I caught up with them when they were dead drunk. Alibi verified: the night before and right up till ten a.m. they had been celebrating the mother’s birthday: Rosa, whom they call Madame. Impudent behavior. “Arrogant.” Do not own a typewriter.)
In the electric power plant there are four workers, all members of the Party. Supported our National Liberation Struggle. Alibis verified. Don’t own typewriters.
A certain Pajkić had left for home about seven a.m., after the night shift. Near the plant he ran into Steva Ličina. Ličina lives at the other end of town (in the Zekić complex).
Who else could be a suspect?
The pupils of the elementary school named after “Pinki the War Hero.”
And thus the circle closed. In the center of this circle, as in a mousetrap, was Mr. Ličina, Steva Ličina, pensioner.
What moved the retiree Steva Ličina to write verses directed against the Party and government is hard to say. Their exact content isn’t even known, since Budišić, on the same morning that Ličina was arrested, burned them in the “mother of all stoves.” Accordingly, we know only this much (or perhaps a bit more): the poem was typed on a (Cyrillic) typewriter and spoke in a deceitful and slanderous manner of the National Liberation Struggle, the Party, and Tito. Ličina was a quiet, diminutive, unprepossessing man. He wore a French cap (beret), and was always properly dressed and shaven even though he lived alone, a widower. Before the war he’d worked as an official of the provincial government. He was a clerk (“a pen-pusher”) under Bodnarov (who fled to America) in the Ministry of Schools and Education.
As we said, the poem by Mr. Ličina was destined to have a short life, and no one knows (and we don’t believe anyone will ever learn) its exact content, either, especially not the offending lines. It’s true that Budišić had read the poem, yet he couldn’t recall a single line of it. I mean, nothing at all. That means that only the most important thing stuck with him: that the poem offended his (Budišić’s) sensibilities and “spoke disparagingly of the Party, the National Liberation Struggle, and Tito.”
How many lines were in the poem?
Budišić asserted: More’n thirty!
Mr. Ličina: Fourteen. It was a sonnet. Renaissance style. Two quatrains and two tercets.
Budišić: Don’t lecture. Just talk.
Mr. Ličina: I’ve told you everything. Two quatrains and two tercets. Two times four makes eight, plus two times three, which is six. Together that makes fourteen. A sonnet.
Budišić: Nope, there were at least thirty! Or more!
Mr. Ličina: I tell you it was a sonnet. Dučić and Rakić wrote sonnets too.
Budišić: They were traitors.
Mr. Ličina: Perhaps Dučić was, I’ll grant you that. but Rakić was a patriot.
Budišić: How come you wrote it? Who told you to do it? Who were you in cahoots with?
Mr. Ličina: I sincerely regret it.
Budišić: Too late, too late. You should have thought of that earlier.
So they led him away into investigative detention. These were the days when the new regime had not yet consolidated its power, and the Chetniks, “bushfighters,” and other renegades were still hiding out in remote districts. Sometimes they would come down into the cities and — in the coffee houses, under napkins — leave behind messages such as: “Mile Kožurica ate here, Chetnik rebel. Long live King Petar!”
Budišić, accordingly, had more serious matters to deal with than the case of Mr. Ličina. One day he was summoned to Kosovo, where the “bushfighters” were wandering around wreaking havoc, so Mr. Ličina remained in detention for two or three months. He was a model prisoner. He mingled little with the other inmates, and he barely ever spoke. Sometimes he recited, half to himself, this or that verse. Dučić and Rakić for the most part. (“Thus they say to us, children of this century. ” and so on. Or: “Tonight, my lady, at the prince’s ball. ”)
In January the interrogations began. He was now being questioned by a certain Projević.
“So, Ličina. You wrote a poem against Tito and the National Liberation Struggle. Do you know what we were doing with the likes of you less than six months ago? You know exactly what. You know. Remember that I’m not Budišić. Remember that. There’ll be no dilly-dallying with me. Go on, spill it. Who put you up to this? Who helped you write it? At whose behest? Who paid you? Answer each in turn.”
Mr. Ličina: I have already answered everything forthrightly and freely.
Projević: Leave your feelings of sincerity out of this, you miscreant. What do your feelings have to do with it?
Mr. Ličina: Believe me, sir, I don’t remember anything else.
Projević: Should I help your mem’ry along a bit?
Mr. Ličina: I admit that the verses were inappropriate. Morally I bear full responsibility.
Projević: And you say you don’t recall a single line?
Mr. Ličina: No. I give you my word of honor. I wrote the verses at four in the morning. Composed them at the typewriter.
Projević: Go on. Keep talking. We have a lot more important things to do than this.
Mr. Ličina: Then I put on my coat and picked up my umbrella. Forgive me, but what’s become of my dog?