Nothing in the World Read online

- Of course, but who else?

  Papiga guessed Namibians. They were the wrong answer.

  - Cubans, the mercenary said. Very good soldiers. Very smart. It was a good war.

  - A good war.

  - Yes.

  - What, exactly—

  - When both sides are the same. Both have good weapons, good soldiers, and the smartest man is who wins.

  - Did you win? Joško asked. In Angola?

  The mercenary looked away and smiled.

  - The government has offered to stop fighting, and Savimbi will accept. Does this mean the war is over? I don’t know. But while I was there I won nine thousand dollars each month. And I am not dead.

  Bakalar laughed, called to Vlade that once the war in Croatia was over they should sign up for Africa.

  - You will all be dead before this war is over, the mercenary said.

  He started walking in circles again, not staring at anyone now.

  - You understand, yes, that this is not a good war? It is a terrible war. The Serbs have solid equipment, thorough training. I have garbage like this 88, and to operate the garbage, instead of soldiers I have children and old men. You argue about women, you argue about football, you argue about whether Vukovar will fall. Of course Vukovar will fall. It will hold on as long as it can, and then it will fall. I was there, you know, at the beginning. One time a boy, maybe fifteen years old, is the only one I have left. He is not so smart so I tell him things simply: I say, ‘Look, I need the big gun from those dead men over there.’ He does not wait for me to tell him how to go. He just runs. Bullets are everywhere. He gets to the bunker and picks up the Browning. He cannot run fast with it, and I yell for him to wait. He runs back without waiting.

  - So he made it? said Mladen.

  - Yes. But he did not bring the ammunition. I tell him we need the big bullets for the big gun, and to wait for my signal. He says he does not need to wait because he is very lucky. He runs again to the bunker, gets the ammunition and runs back, all the time with the Serbs shooting at him.

  - Lucky kid.

  - Not so lucky. He was killed the next day. Brave, yes, but not so smart and not so lucky. In war, if you are stupid, if you do not listen to me, you will die. And if you are not stupid, and you listen to me carefully, you will probably also die, but maybe your country will survive.

  * * *

  In the morning the mercenary sat them down and said that it was time for them to learn infantry tactics and sniping. Vlade asked why an anti-aircraft squad needed to know infantry maneuvers. The German stared at him, then pointed at the nearest ridge and said that sixty Serb tanks and a thousand foot-soldiers would be arriving in two or three weeks to answer his question.

  The mercenary brought out a roll of maps and spread them one by one across the ground. He spent the next hour asking the men how they would attack a given target, and ridiculing their answers.

  - You speak as if there will be no one defending the trench. There will be many, you understand? They are something you must get past, like a river, and you kill them like building a bridge. Whoever builds their bridges fastest, to the best places, that is who wins.

  They drilled for twelve hours, the German screaming each time someone hesitated or fumbled a piece of equipment. There was no break for lunch, and none for dinner, but his shouts and insults thinned out as the evening wore on. At last he told them that if they continued to drill like that, someday they would be soldiers.

  Joško ate his rations, washed his face, and sat down alone on the beach. He was searching the sky for Venus when the German came and sat beside him. The man rolled a cigarette, lit it and lay back. Joško cleared his throat.

  - What we are doing here is pointless, isn’t it.

  - With the 88? Yes. But most of what is done in most wars is pointless.

  - I wish I was somewhere I could use my rifle.

  - So do I. You are shit at everything else, but if I could find you a proper weapon and get you out on special missions... Anyway, it doesn’t matter. With the way the Serbs are advancing, it won’t be long.

  Joško stared at the sea, wondering, and finally asked the man how long he’d been a mercenary.

  - Sixteen years.

  - And when will you stop?

  - I will fight only four years more.

  - Why four?

  - That is when I will have enough money not to fight anymore.

  The German seemed suddenly very tired and very happy. Joško thought of Jezera, of Klara, of how far things were away. He looked back at the mercenary, and the man’s eyes were closed; his cigarette was almost gone, and ashes littered his uniform. Then the coal burned into his bottom lip and he woke shouting, spitting the heat away. He pressed his hand to his mouth and looked at his fingers carefully, studying the spittle like tea leaves. He laughed, and held out his hand for Joško to see.

  - Do you know what this pain is?

  Joško shook his head.

  - This is paying for what you do not have. It does not matter if there is rain or sun. The men put vinegar on the sponge and lift it to you, but it doesn’t help the pain.

  Joško looked around. Papiga had the binoculars, and the other soldiers were talking quietly as they cleaned their equipment.

  - Do you understand? the man asked.

  - Not really.

  - You will.

  Papiga shouted that the jets were coming, and Joško was the first to his feet but slipped in the sand and was the last into position. He flinched as the gun fired, and stared at the jet that staggered, stalled, and arced into the sea.

  They heard the remaining jet coming back, and Bakalar slammed another shell into the breech. The jet passed overhead, the gun fired, a wing folded and the jet flamed and dropped.

  - Both of them! Joško screamed. We got both of them!

  He threw back his head and howled, the pleasure of it, his throat went tight and the darkness fragmented and spun.

  3.

  The next morning the German was gone. He’d left a note taped to the 88 warning that more jets would be coming, and they would no longer fly in so low. In a nearly illegible postscript he’d added that he now knew he’d been wrong, that Dražen and his men were excellent soldiers, that Croatia was lucky to have them and they would be fine as long as they didn’t do stupid things.

  Vlade and Bakalar took turns reliving the night before and reminding Joško that he’d passed out just as the celebration started. Then a group of reporters arrived and informed them that they were the first heroes the war had produced. Most of the interviews that followed started with variations on one basic question: How had it felt to send those bastards to the pits that waited for them in hell? The other soldiers talked about duty and justice and freedom, but when Joško’s turn came, the hair rose on the back of his neck, and the only answer that occurred to him was, There’s nothing like hitting what you aim at.

  A few hours later the reporters threw their equipment into their cars and sped away. Papiga blamed Joško for not giving better answers, and Mladen was convinced that a major offensive was about to be launched somewhere in the northeast, but Bakalar had heard from a cameraman that one of the army’s roving squads had been nearby when the two jets went down, and that in fact their Stingers had made the kills.

  While the others argued about who should be getting the credit, Joško reread a postcard that had arrived from Klara that morning. It said that she hoped he would soon be sent to Dubrovnik to protect her from the Serb ships that were shelling her beautiful old city. The postcard didn’t mention her husband. Joško had already asked Dražen a dozen times if he could be transferred south. The answer was that Dražen didn’t know how the transfer process worked, or even if there was one, and that if Joško abandoned his post he would be hunted down.

  * * *

  The air attacks on Šibenik ceased, but over the course of the next week part of the Serb army moved in through Bosnia to attack central Croatia and split the country in two. They took a swath from the
eastern border to within shelling range of the coast, and from Gračac in the north to Sinj in the south. Dražen spent hours each day on the phone, begging for reinforcements and trying to find someone who could show them how to reconfigure the 88 as an anti-tank weapon. He always hung up hollow-eyed and hoarse.

  One morning a courier arrived from Zagreb with a crate and a sealed directive. Dražen read the directive, pried the lid off the crate, and called for everyone to take out their plastic ID cards.

  Joško handed over his card, and Dražen gave him a set of dog-tags and a box bearing his name. Back at his cot Joško set the tags on his pillow and took out his knife. Inside the box he found a bottle of rakija, three bars of chocolate, a carton of cigarettes, a plastic case and a fat white envelope. In the envelope was a sheaf of money bound with a rubber band, and a letter from the President of Croatia. The letter began,

  Valiant and Distinguished Soldier:

  Your role in the defense of the Motherland will not be forgotten when the history of this glorious war is written. Your courage and selfless sacrifice...

  Joško scratched at the previous night’s mosquito bites—one on each shoulder, another on his forehead and a cluster below his navel. He read the letter twice, then took out the sheaf of money and counted it. It came to almost fifty thousand dinar. He liked the sound of the number, though it wouldn’t buy much. Perhaps he’d get a new set of clothes for the party his parents would give once the war was over and he was home again.

  Inside the plastic case was a medal. It was large and thick, but not very heavy, made of something not quite like gold. On the front were the words “Medal of Honor” and an imprint of the Croatian flag. The back was almost smooth.

  Joško wondered if he really was a hero, if the girls in the cafes would now stop to talk with him, if his teachers would remember his name. He didn’t feel particularly heroic. Something else was needed, he thought—something bigger. Maybe if he could track down the German, learn from him, get chosen for a special mission or two...

  As he put the medal back in its case, Joško thought he heard a noise, something like the buzzing of a mosquito, but thinner, and very far away. Papiga and Bakalar had opened their bottles of rakija, were competing to see who would finish first, and Vlade was clapping, urging them on. Joško tucked the plastic case into the box and got to his feet. Perhaps the noise was coming from the radio.

  The sky was not cloudless but bright, and the sea was quiet, almost asleep. He walked down to the beach, and saw a large gray seashell that hadn’t been there the day before. Could the wind cause such a sound, playing through the shell somehow? But there was no wind. He picked the shell up, walked back toward his cot, and a white flare filled his mind, a surge of heat lifted him off the ground, a roar like the birth of a world carried him away.

  * * *

  Joško opened his eyes, and the sky was a thin whitish blue. There was the warm salty sweetness of blood in his mouth, and behind his eyes he felt a strange dense presence. He raised one hand to his head. Above his left ear, a shard of metal protruded from his skull. He wrapped his hand around it and ripped it out. Pain deafened him, and strips of sky floated down to enfold him.

  He opened his eyes again, and now light from a lopsided moon sifted around him. He lay perfectly still, trying to understand what had happened, and then, of course—more jets had come.

  Joško looked down at his legs. They didn’t seem to be injured. He drew his knees to his chest and ran his hands from his hips to his ankles. Not much pain, no broken bones. He touched the side of his head softly, his fingers tracing the edge of the hole, then stopped, afraid of touching his brain.

  He rolled over and got to his knees, squinted through the silty darkness, and on the canvas of a mangled cot beside him there was a single arm. It was silver, almost white in the moonlight, and there were no rings on the fingers of its hand. He stood carefully, and picked the arm up. It had been torn off above the elbow, and the severed end was black and shredded. He wondered whose it was. Then he saw a soldier lying face down in the rubble, stretched out as if diving into the earth.

  Joško turned the man over, and it was Bakalar, his moustache limp over broken teeth. Both of his arms were still attached. His eyes were open, and on his face was the expression of a man holding very good cards.

  He left Bakalar staring up at the sky, and one by one he found the other soldiers. Papiga was curled up like a bird that had flown into a window; there was no blood on his face, but Joško could not wake him. Vlade was splayed and twisted, a piece of metal tubing driven through his stomach, out the small of his back and into the ground. Mladen was draped over the low stone wall on the east side of camp, his jaw hanging away from his face. And near the ruptured water barrel, Joško found Dražen lying loose-boned in the sand. He looked comfortable, though his right arm was missing. Joško remembered what he was carrying, dusted the arm off and set it in place. It seemed to fit. This relieved Joško immeasurably.

  He headed back through the camp, hoping to find the things he was responsible for. In the wreckage where his cot had been he found his rifle, but the barrel was bent, and after trying to twist it back into shape he gave up and let it fall. He scrabbled around for his new metal tags and couldn’t find them anywhere, but he did find his rucksack and the box he had received from the President.

  The bottle of rakija had shattered. Joško started to cry as he pulled the pieces of glass from the box and flung them at the sea. He dried the letter as best he could, but the President’s signature was smeared, unrecognizable.

  Then he heard a faint song. At first he thought it was Klara singing to him from Dubrovnik—the voice was so similar to hers, so rich with love and so distant—but there were inflections he’d never heard before, and this voice came from somewhere to the east.

  He listened carefully as he stuffed his possessions back into his rucksack and took one last look around the camp. Near Mladen’s body was another rifle, this one undamaged. Joško slung it over his shoulder, and decided that nothing more needed to be done.

  4.

  Joško followed the girl’s voice deeper and deeper into the night. She sang ballads and folk songs and at times only his name, and he wondered if she was beautiful. He skirted the few towns he came to and crossed all roads at a run. The moon slipped below the horizon, and a few hours later the sky began to glow.

  As the sun rose over a range of hills in the distance, Joško entered the mouth of a shallow valley. There was a grove of willows whose thin leaves twisted like the fingers of the deaf. He rested for a moment in the shade, and the girl’s voice faded away.

  There was now no sound except for the wind. He started walking again, and his cheek began to twitch. He slowed his pace so that the twitching was more or less in time with his steps. Then across a draw he saw the dark green of a pear orchard, and realized that his stomach was burning with hunger.

  He crossed the draw and entered the orchard, picked a pear from a low branch, bit into it, and his whole spindly body sang with the flavor. He finished the pear in two more bites, and was about to pick another when he heard someone shout.

  He turned, and on the far side of the orchard he saw a small stone house. There was more shouting, and the door swung open. Out came an old man waving a long stick.

  - Dog! the man shouted. Mongrel! What makes you think you can—

  Joško cocked his rifle and brought it to his shoulder, and the old man grew young, his stick was a rifle too and Joško shot him in the head. The man fell simply. Joško ate three more pears, put half a dozen into his bandana, gathered the corners together and tied the bulging pouch to his belt.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon Joško came to a creek, and stopped only long enough to fill his canteen. The girl’s voice had not yet returned, and he was starting to worry. He waded quickly across and walked into a field of wild poppies. The flowers shifted around him, and it felt as though he were bathing in their color.

  The field ended
at the base of a steep shale hill. It was a long climb to the ridgeline, and from there he saw a string of mountains in front of him, and another beyond that. Waiting for his lungs to calm, he looked downhill, and saw a ditch where three Croatian soldiers were huddled together. All three were waving their arms, and one shouted, Get down!

  Joško hurried off the ridge and crawled in alongside them. The nearest soldier had fouled his pants, and the odor curled around him.

  - Is it true? he asked Joško. Is it him?

  - What?

  - The sniper! said another. Is it Hadžihafizbegović?

  - What sniper?

  - For fuck’s sake! the third one said. The one who’s shooting at us!

  Joško peered over the top of the ditch, and saw a dead soldier stretched out in the dirt not far away.

  - From six hundred meters! said the soldier who stank. Six hundred meters, and he shot Marko right in the ear!

  - An artist! said the second.

  - We aren’t sure it’s Hadžihafizbegović, said the third, but we heard that he’s around here somewhere, and the Muslims have no one else who shoots so well.

  - The Muslims? Joško said. Are we fighting them, too?

  - Not officially. But there have been incidents.

  - Like what?

  - You know, people getting carried away.

  - Oh. Well, I’m sorry about your friend.

  - That’s okay, said the first. He was an asshole.

  After the men had introduced themselves, the second soldier looked at Joško’s uniform and asked, What unit are you with?

  - It’s a special mission, Joško said.

  Now all three soldiers were staring at him, so he gazed at the horizon and asked how long they’d been hiding in the ditch.

  - Half an hour or so, said the third. How can we move?

  - And where is the sniper?

  The first soldier pointed across the canyon to a sharp peak.

  - You can stay here with us if you want, said the second. There’s no point in making a run for it until dark. What happened to your head?