6

My name was Simo. And this is my story. A dead story. One of two thousand three hundred dead stories. Our stories, each and every one of them, died with us. On the same day: Saturday, February 7th 1942, according to the Gregorian calendar. All of us Serbs from Drakulic, Šargovac, Motike and the Rakovac coal mine were slaughtered then. Slaughtered between four o'clock in the morning and two o'clock in the afternoon. In a single working day of slaughter. That's right: in a single working day of slaughter! We were slaughtered by the Ustashi brought over from Zagreb for that purpose. The local Ustashi helped them wholeheartedly. We had no idea that they had arrived here from Zagreb. We neither knew nor sensed anything. However, my grandmother, Joka, a blind, God-fearing old woman, was standing in front of our house on Friday evening, February 6th, while dark clouds spread across the sky. Placing her hands on her hips, she raised her head towards the sky. Then she went into the room, feeling her way inside with her hands; she was very anxious when she sat down on her three-legged stool next to the big stove.

- A great many stars have fallen tonight. Lots of them. The sky is shining in the East because of them. Good God, a burnt-out star means an extinguished life. Many lives have been extinguished tonight. So many of them! And many more will be. Holy Mother of God, for all of them this is their last Friday, a black Friday. A sad, black Friday... Whose last, black Friday is this, our Maker in the heavens? - my grandmother, Joka, asked, her blind eyes directed towards the low ceiling of our room. She said that humbly, in a low voice, as if He, our Maker, was right there above her on the ceiling.

After that, she kept mumbling barely audible, unintelligible prayers, sitting with her arms crossed in her lap, crossing herself from time to time. Quite unexpectedly, she went out into the yard again. She felt before her with a hazelwood stick, lest she should run into some obstacle. We distinctly heard the sound of the door closing, then her loud scream: too piercing and too loud for her frail body. On top of that, it was a sort of wailing, almost inhuman:

- Stars are falling! Stars are falling, children. The sky is on fire... Woe is me, the whole sky is on fire. Stars are falling from our sky, our heads are falling... Don't you see the Devil up there? Holding a sabre in each hand, beheading us all?! Don't you see all that blood? Blood fills the whole sky, it has swallowed the Moon, the stars. A bloody sun will rise next morning, it'll shine thus above us, bleeding.

My father, Miloš, was the first one to react. He ran out, took Grandmother Joka in his arms and carried her inside quite effortlessly. People from the village gathered in our house, filling up the room, for that's the way they are. They just stood there, watching my grandmother in utter silence. Only old Zorka Mitrovic was heard. She waved her arms, trying to make the people leave, addressing them in an angry tone of voice that admitted of no disobedience:

- Everybody out, the lot of you! She's gone completely mad, the poor soul - she added, whispering. "Something must have happened to her. Bitten by a snake or what? No evil ever comes alone. It never rains but it pours. O Saint Nicholas, guardian of wayfarers and heavenly paths, I beg of you, show her the right way. Give me a few embers and some water, let me wash the fear off her. Let me drive the curse away from this honourable house. Come on, what are you waiting for..." - old Zorka grumbled on, driving everybody out of the room, villagers and household members alike.

Even though old Zorka kept pushing me out of the room along with the others, I managed to snatch another look at my grandmother, the best grandmother in the whole wide world. I saw her lying on the bed, huddled up, grown quite small all of a sudden, shivering violently. She looked like a little chicken, wet through, its feathers plucked off. That was the last time I saw her alive.

I omit, intentionally, other strange things that occurred that evening while we waited in front of our house, impatient to get back in.

- Grandmother Joka was right: look up there! - my elder sister, Vida, screamed all of a sudden, directing her eyes towards the sky. "Don't you see - she asked me, pulling my sleeve feverishly - that the whole sky is burning with a blood-red fire? And that winged demons are flying across the sky, cutting up tiny angels with their sabres. The dead angels are falling down, their wings and heads cut off. There's blood, blood pouring down from the sky! Don't let them get me, brother: there I go, headless. All of us are headless. Save me, brother..."

Then all the household members, except for my father and grandfather, lifted their eyes upwards, searching for winged demons armed with sabres. One by one, they started crying and letting out guttural screams, quite beside themselves. Soon enough, they were joined by all the female members of the neighbouring Savic households, then children and adult men. I started shouting, too. I tried to explain to them: stars do not fall. Only meteors do. Possibly comets, as I had learned. Up there, far away, in the great cosmic expanse of space.

The sky cleared. I wanted to calm them all down, to tell them that they could all see for themselves that nothing was falling down from the sky... It was no use. It was impossible to make out who was saying what or to tell whether anyone could hear anything the others were saying: all the voices had become one - an incomprehensible, deafening moan, horrifying to hear.

I don't know who managed to calm down the frenzied crowd, or how and when, all I know is that they gradually turned quiet and dispersed. I don't know when I went to sleep either. I distinctly remember being woken up by a loud, unknown male voice and the light of a flashlight being pointed directly into my eyes. The man swore at me hoarsely, placing the point of his bayonet on my neck.

- Get up, student, to get your food. You don't imagine that I'd deliver it to you personally - he barked, cutting my neck below the ear. From the yard, one could hear quite clearly hollow thuds, somebody's muffled screams and low moans. Although still dazed, I realised immediately what was happening: slaughter, the Ustashi were slaughtering us! Then, my eyes having grown accustomed to the half-darkness, I made out the scene in the yard: it was full of mutilated bodies. There were smashed skulls lying in the snow, brains spilling out, entrails dangling, pools of blood. Right next to my feet was a cut-off head. Its eyes were wide open, bulging. As if surprised to see me there, they fixed me with their frozen stare. The nose was smashed, a bloody mushroom. Under the mushroom was a moustache. Long, bent, dishevelled, hairs glued with blood. Grandfather Stevan! My good, taciturn, quiet grandfather Stevan! My grandmother Joka lay on top of him, their bodies forming a kind of cross. Motionless, tiny as she was, she appeared smaller than ever. My little sister Djuja lay there, the back of her head smashed, her silky hair forced into the opening. She was holding on to her grandmother's black apron with her left hand. Her right hand lay in the snow its tiny fingers spread. Her bare feet, spread apart beneath her dark-coloured skirt, had turned blue. In a flash, I had a most unseemly picture of her as a tiny swallow, a little bird trying to fly away. My elder brother Djuradj, our Djuka, lay next to her. His neck was cut right through, the body still twitching somewhat. In his death throes, I concluded dully. Mother, her stomach cut open, looked at me with eyes wide open. Her lips moved, she might have been trying to tell me something. Djuka's wife, my only sister-in-law, was being assaulted by three Ustashi: they were trying to rape her. Young and strong, beautiful even at such a moment, she wouldn't give in. One of the Ustashi grabbed her clumsily by the right arm, she bit him hard. Then she was hit by an axe. She fell down, a mad sort of smile on her face. She didn't move after that.

The day had dawned, everything could be seen quite clearly. A few of my kinfolk, the Vasics, were still alive. They just stood there, frozen, dumb. And the Ustashi? They went about their business, quickly and efficiently. One of them crossed himself at frequent intervals. With every new slaughter, he would cross himself. While doing so, he mumbled something or other. Might have been a prayer. The others wasted not even that much time. They just panted, wiping sweat off their faces. Their hands being bloody, their faces had turned black from the clotted blood. They reminded me of a theatrical performance of all things. A student thing, staged in Zagreb. I, too, had appeared in it, in the role of the chief of a tribe of black cannibals. We all laughed at one another in front of the mirror in an improvised dressing-room. How absurd that I should think of that at such a moment!

The one who kept crossing himself came up to my uncle Stojan from behind, moving sort of lazily. Swinging his mace, he bashed Uncle on the back of the head. Without a sound, Uncle fell into the snow face down. Immediately afterwards, he was hit on the neck by an axe. He shivered briefly, then remained quite motionless...

I was slaughtered in my native village of Motike around ten o'clock that morning. It happened on the day of my twentieth birthday. I was born on February 7th 1922, slaughtered on February 7th 1942! To be quite precise, that's how they finished me off. An Ustashi, a young man approximately my age, red in the face, with watery blue eyes, hit me on the back of the head with a mace first.

- That's right, Mariofil - another Ustashi, a big fellow, roaring with laughter as if he was neighing, shouted to him before he swung at me. "Hit him with that Serb-basher of yours! Check how hard his Serbian skull is. Let the motherfucker have some of our Ustashi-style anaesthesia. Let him feel the effectiveness of Ustashi science: our anaesthetised patients never wake up..."

The other Ustashi paused briefly to laugh at his joke. They laughed in a mad way, baring their teeth. Their white teeth shone from their faces, all black with clotted blood. Then they went on with their work - slaughter. When I came to again, that Ustashi of my age had already mutilated me thoroughly: next to my head, there lay my fingers, nose, ears, hair, all cut off. My right eye was there, too, it had been gouged out. I concluded that he had been working on me for quite a while, slaughtering me with obvious relish. He must have believed that he was causing me unbearable pain, so he took his time at it. Actually, I had felt no pain at the time. I started feeling it only when I became aware that I was still alive, after all. It was a dull sort of pain, internal, right inside my heart, more than mere physical pain. It was probably due to the fact that I had acquiesced to that kind of death, without any attempt at resistance. If only I had jumped at one of them, sunk my teeth into his flesh, scratched him with my nails, spat in his face, thus humiliating him at least... Instead of which I...

My slaughterer kept threatening me:

- You Serb motherfucker, I'll slaughter you all day long. All night, if need be. I want to enjoy your suffering, you shitty animal. I hear you've been studying in our Croatian city of Zagreb. You a student - a piece of pigshit is what you are! Studying in Zagreb of all places! The only thing you are fit for is grazing in the meadow like any other ox! I'll tear your guts out now, drink your filthy blood! What was it you were studying in Zagreb? I studied there, too. If I'd known you were there, I could have slaughtered you right there and then! So I don't have to waste any time on you here, you shitty tick...

He might have said even uglier things. I don't know, I can't remember. As I've already said, before slaughtering me, he had hit me on the back of the head with that mace of his. He swung at me, and I, the fool that I was, still believed that he wouldn't do it to me: I had done nothing wrong, no harm to anyone whatsoever. Never ever. So why should I be afraid now? In a flash, I remembered something: some time before the day of the slaughter, some people in civilian clothes had passed through the village. They were making lists of the villagers. They said that everyone who needed food should write down a full list of their household members. And so they did: the village was full of hungry people. So they were slaughtering us going by this list! The harvest of 1941 had been a poor one in the whole of our region. The new Ustashi authorities kept demanding food, requisitioning foodstuffs from the population. Even if they hadn't been taking them forcibly, my fellow villagers would have given them some. How could anyone dare refuse to do so, despite the general poverty and lack of food, when Serbs were being killed at the slightest show of disobedience? A lot more got killed in Banja Luka than here in the village, they said. Whenever one of our villagers went to the town, stories would be spread in low voices upon his or her return: this one had got killed, that one had been slaughtered, another one was missing. Entire Serb families would disappear overnight. The village was filled with fear, darkest of forebodings. Very often, people talked about the speedy capitulation of the Yugoslav Army. In particular about the whole of the Banja Luka Infantry Regiment surrendering to the enemy. And how the Regiment's commanding officer, Colonel Bogoslav Mažuranic, a Croatian nobleman, had come out before the unit, lined up in its entirety, and said:

- Gentlemen, officers and non-commissioned officers, my faithful soldiers! I have received horrible news: that our homeland, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, has perished. That it has disgracefully capitulated before the German military power. I have been ordered to hand this renowned regiment into the hands of the Germans. I am a soldier, gentlemen. As a soldier, I must inform you of the order of the Army High Command about the capitulation of the Yugoslav Army. Personally, however, I have no intention of surrendering to the enemy. I am still bound by my oath to the King and the Homeland: never to betray the Army and never to surrender. You, my sons, do as your conscience bids you to do.

Impeccably dressed in a smart officer's uniform, most dignified in appearance, Colonel Mažuranic saluted his lined-up soldiers once again, then slowly made his way towards the regimental headquarters building. A few moments later, a dull revolver shot was heard. The Colonel had sealed his soldier's oath with his own death!

My uncle Bogdan arrived in the village one night. His uniform and army boots were torn, and he was unarmed. Unshaven, grown visibly thinner, he looked like an ascetic monk, he reminded me of a saint. He explained to us that he had been running all the way from Metkovic, that he had barely escaped with his life. On his way to the village, he gave Croatian villages a wide berth; he mostly travelled at night: he had heard that they hunted down Serbs and killed them like wild animals. And he couldn't stop wondering:

- My commanding officer was Major Rudolf Primorac, a Croat. He fought with the Germans tooth and claw. A real hero and a great man... And as for the others, God preserve us all...

Later, elderly villagers would praise the Colonel and the Major to high heaven. They would maintain, steadfastly and with great conviction, that not all Croats were the same. And that there was no need to be so afraid of them. That there would be more honourable people like Colonel Mažuranic and Major Primorac, who, as they said, would preserve Serbs from harm. We had lived together there for centuries, we'd never done them wrong. Why would they now repay us in this way? - they would ask one another, not really expecting an answer. Then word reached us that the Air Force Regiment in Zalužani had surrendered, then the Artillery Regiment in Kastel, the Cavalry Regiment... The soldiers were afraid, disorientated, many of them passing through Motike while on the run. The Army was visibly disintegrating, people were running away in all directions. Our Croatian neighbours, with whom we had lived in great harmony, as I knew full well, suddenly turned their heads away from us. When, around the middle of April 1941, I had come to the village from Zagreb for a short while, there were few among them who would reply to my greetings. I was able to see, because none of them were particularly secretive about it, that at night they hauled over arms, uniforms and other military equipment. My grandfather Stevan, who had fought on the Salonica Front as a volunteer, a quiet, reticent old man, suddenly became very talkative indeed:

- When I saw that they had dared to kill our King, and in a friendly country, no less, I knew that this could come to no good. There'll be blood, there's no way that this could end bloodlessly! Catholics have risen against us, Orthodox Christians, again. God preserve us from what I fear will happen... - he would say nervously, pulling at his long white moustache. He warned me not to confide in anyone, under any circumstances. And not to enter into any arguments with our Croatian neighbours.

- As for them, whatever you happen to see, pretend that you haven't seen it, whatever you happen to hear, pretend that you haven't heard it. God only knows whether even that will help us, but... Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you, as they say. And whatever is happening to us, son, is our own fault, it's all due to our lack of common sense. Not even the greatest evil and misfortune can teach us anything. And if it so happens that, through some miracle, we do learn something, we never keep it in mind. That's how it is...

He sat for a long time, motionless, reminding me of an old, blackened stump in the clearing behind our house. Thus he sat, gazing in front of him, at his army boots, worn out long before.

- I fought against the Croatians who served under Emperor Franz Joseph - he added in a low voice - and they did more evil to us than the Germans and Hungarians put together... But even that - Grandfather sighed - was not enough of a lesson to King Aleksandar: he let our greatest evildoers into our common state. He turned wartime losers into winners. He did not listen to my wartime Commander, Duke Živojin Mišic. Having made a tour of the Croatian region, Duke Mišic told him...

Grandfather turned silent all of a sudden: a stranger, to me at least, was approaching us, dressed in town clothes, wearing a tie and glasses. He held a walking stick in his left hand. I remember distinctly, he dragged his left leg, he was lame. The handle of his stick shone as if it was made of gold. He greeted grandfather Stevan very cordially: they hugged and kissed for a long time, patting each other on the back. They both shed tears, grandfather Stevan even started sobbing. I thought immediately: this could be Grandfather's wartime comrade-in-arms. Grandfather then motioned the household members who had gathered around him, except for my father and myself, to move away. Although everybody looked at the newcomer with undisguised curiosity, they had to leave: Grandfather's gesture was the law for all of us, the word of God coming straight down from the heavens. And I had never heard Grandfather raise his voice. He was, quite simply, our living household icon, visible but inaudible, our guardian angel, a saint that we swore by. Concerning him, this will suffice for now.

- Ah, Stevan, my dear Stevan... That we should live to see this: that those we have accepted as brothers, whose evil deeds against us we have forgiven, to whom we have given everything, more than we gave ourselves even, have destroyed our state. The way they have grown depraved, I pray to God that they don't obliterate us altogether - said the well-mannered town-dweller, not taking his eyes off my grandfather.

- I see all that... - grandfather Stevan said, then fell silent.

My father and I kept silent, too, as did everybody. So we stood there, silent, as if nailed to the place. Everything around us seemed to have gone dumb. No barking, miaowing or bird-song could be heard.

- Stevan, you're a sensible man, can you explain what is happening to us and our neighbours, Catholics and Mohammedans? All too often we've been at each other's throats lately...

- It is not for me, Vojo, to explain that to you, a well-educated man. But... It would appear to me that the evil is right underneath us, in this soil upon which we tread. It is a cursed soil. I think that, due to this curse, evil people are being born, evil seed sprouts, evil grass grows, poisonous waters flow, evil thoughts abound. And everybody in these parts thinks of how to catch the other by surprise...

- So you, Stevan, think that we, Serbs, are like that, too: that we are scheming to catch those on the other side by surprise?

- I do! That's what I think, Mr Vojo. And I also think that...

- Stevan, do stop addressing me as Mr Vojo... You know all too well how many bitter days we have seen through together. What was it you were going to say?

- Well, this is what I think. If we hadn't caught others by surprise, we wouldn't be here today.

- How come, Stevan?

- As some have said, we have built our houses in an evil spot, in the middle of the royal road. That is why only evil has come to us down this road...

- Do you have in mind all the peoples living in the Balkans, not just Serbs?

- You, Vojo, come from an upper-class family, you were educated in France, so you can put it much more nicely than I can. But that is what it boils down to. Why should we carry so much hatred and evil in our souls if it were not so? Remember us and the Bulgarians at Kajmakcalan and Dobro polje? Didn't we fight tooth and claw, worse than beasts? Have you forgotten how Croats came at us in Poland? And both are supposed to be our Slavic brothers. And we theirs. All that, unfortunately, is going to be repeated now. I pray to God that I shall be proved wrong.

- You won't be proved wrong, Stevan. I've found out that all Serbs will have to leave Banja Luka. Viktor Gutic has ordered that, you know him. I, my family, all the Serb families that do not accept conversion to Roman Catholic faith, will have to leave. That is why I've come here, that the two of us should part in a proper way. We cannot remain here and survive in the face of so much hatred, pathological hatred, both Catholic and Mohammedan.

- And why do they hate us so much, Vojo? Why in such an insidious way, from the bottom of their hearts? Until yesterday, as it were, my Croatian neighbours would come up to me with the utmost respect. Today, they insult me openly, make threats to me and my family, beat our children. They even beat our cattle whenever they snatch an opportunity to do so...

This Vojo did not answer for a long time. A cool spring wind was blowing, coming from somewhere far away. From time to time, it brought the words of a tired ploughman addressed to his horses, presumably to pull harder, not to let him down. Occasionally, larks were heard from the ploughed-up fields.

- Why do they hate us, you ask? Because not so long ago, most of them used to be what we are - Serbs. Then they betrayed their Serb roots, were converted to either Catholic or Mohammedan faith. They betrayed us! Possibly, they hate us even more due to the fact that they consider us to be traitors because we didn't follow suit. I believe that they want to silence us forever so as not to leave any witnesses to their conversion...

- And that is the fate we shall have to suffer? - Grandfather asked, almost tearfully.

- Why, no, it is not! They won't succeed in it. For those of us still left are nothing but insubordinate, wayward and pig-headed. We can't come to terms with ourselves, let alone with others. Those of us who were not like that to begin with have long since been converted to either Islam or Catholicism, or they have run away. Or they have simply faded away, disappeared. The rest of us are stubborn and crazy. Eternal and indestructible like time itself...

- That, Vojo, is the right word: crazy! Just before you arrived, I was telling my son, Miloš, and my grandson, Simo, what Duke Mišic, having returned from Zagreb, had advised King Aleksandar back in 1919. Could you tell them about it, you are better informed...

- Ah, what! The most important bit I know by heart: Your Majesty, on account of what I have seen and heard there, I deeply regret that we have ever allowed ourselves to be deluded by the notion of brotherhood and a common state. They all think the same, they are a law unto themselves. Whatever suggestion you come up with, the thing is bound to come to no good... We shall be able to do nothing about it. Those are not people whose word you can trust. They are the world's worst scoundrels and won't be satisfied whatever you offer them. The thing to do is: separate from them completely, give them an independent state of their own, then let them take care of themselves... The state border will be where we draw it, and we shall draw it not where our ambitions bid us to but where history and ethnography say it should be, in accordance with the dialects, customs, tradition and the freely expressed will of our people, which is the only way for it to be just and pleasing to God. I am deeply convinced that we cannot live in peace with them. All those people are transparent like glass, insatiable and so mendacious and hypocritical that I doubt if there exist greater scoundrels, mountebanks and self-seekers on the entire globe...

- Simo, my child, you've heard what Mr Vojo has just said, right? Duke Mišic would never have said something like that if he hadn't been very bitter inside. His Majesty, the King, didn't take his words very seriously, or even more likely, everything was forgotten much too fast. All the same, it cost him his life, the poor wretch. God forbid that we suffer the same fate! Isn't that so, Vojo? - grandfather asked his wartime comrade-in-arms in an uncertain tone of voice, as if expecting that he might think differently.

- That is, unfortunately, so... But I have no more time to talk to you, my dear friends. Do tell me just this, Stevan, as you see it: shall we who live in this, as you said, cursed land, go on exterminating one another until there is no-one left?

- No, we shan't. We don't have to: we should just be separated! Each bird to its own flock... I think there will be no hatred either then. Nor shall we be able to blame our troubles, whatever they might be, on one another... And hatred is a grave illness. That is why, deep down, I pity those who hate us, the way all who are sick should be pitied...

- You are wise, Stevan, very wise. But even wisdom, as I see it, can't help us now. Human folly has overcome wisdom now: it seems indestructible and eternal, my good Stevan...

When we parted, Grandfather's friend, Vojo, looked rather older and more tired than when he had arrived. He got up from his chair very slowly, with visible effort, supporting the entire weight of his body with that walking stick, or so it seemed to me. The food and drink that Mother had brought us remained almost intact.

The cold spring sun was slowly sinking towards the west, the wind was getting colder and colder. Both old men, what with the cold and ominous thoughts, began to shake. They hugged each other again, started crying.

- We shall never see each other again, my dear Stevan. I can feel it here - Mr Vojo said to my grandfather, pointing to the left-hand side of his chest with his right hand. Then, saying goodbye to my father and me, he added in a subdued voice:

- Run away from here, all of you. Anywhere, just run away. I suppose you have heard of the Ustashi solution to the "Serbian problem": kill one third, exile one third, convert one third to Catholicism. Do the smart thing: run away!

I, who am testifying this and am not of this world, cannot remember exactly where Mr Vojo went that day and how. Sometimes it even seems to me that he never existed. That it was just some well-intentioned spirit whose advice we didn't take. I don't know...

Whatever I have said about the slaughter in my home village, Motike, is the absolute truth. I hand it over as a dead story, so that it should come alive! And as I have said, all our stories are dead. I don't know if anyone survived the slaughter, if there are any living stories.

Content | Next: 7th chapter

Copyright © 1998 Jovan Babic
Copyright © 1998 Zaduzbina Petar Kocic, Banja Luka - Beograd