"MOMENT" "Based on the work 'Moment 1' by Antonije Isakovic" "When I wake up, from my skyscraper I see Sava, Belgrade." "Windows, yellow and red." "Sun is shining in the panes." "And the city is buzzing with the cars and stations." "And houses are everywhere." "It's seems that those toothed walls will fall, will collapse." "Buildings are standing, still it seems they're running." "This morning, while I was fishing the whitebait, water is running, the same one." "But when you look closer, you find a difference every day." "That's the river." "You came." "You're imperceptible." "I know, you're here." "Sit next to me." "What do you say?" "You were waking up last night?" "In our age, you sleep less." "Who are you, little one?" "You're a patient mule, you know how to listen." "Great skill, you get everything out from me, and then you fall asleep." "And who am I telling to?" "Who?" "You're asking what happened." "It was war." "White dawn woke me up, like in the war." "In my head is white porch, hospital, and white grass." "Dawn is dead." "I was a battalion commandant." "Fifth offensive, my little one, they didn't give us a moment of rest." "We were all young cadets." "We started beating them back, but they destroyed us." "The difference was in this:" "we're fighting for our lives, that becomes a tactics, and they obey their orders." "Our advantage was in that difference." "And for Kraut, order is like a Swiss watch." "So you can imagine that fight now." "In our battalion, there was my countryman, Jovan Grabljanovic, we called him Jesus." "He kind of looked like saint." "Some Dositej was with us too, some teacher from Belgrade, my deputy." "They were both younger than me." "These two have stayed in the back of my mind." "Since the war's over, I still have dreams about that Dositej." "He always knew everything." "He never made one little mistake." "Dositej..." "I hope I'm not dreaming, a horse!" "You're not dreaming, Dositej, black horse." " How's the horse here, and a black one?" "From us, about 300 feet distance, black horse." "Arsen, since when we didn't eat?" "Eat that sower grass." "And a horse, a meal for the whole battalion." "Germans are here somewhere." "It's their horse." "Someone has to get the horse." "Look." "Give the order." "Germans are on the edge of the forest." "They're always on edges." "Don't talk stupid." "This time the order has to be given by itself." "You're always twisting." " Quiet, Dositej, I'm in charge." "I didn't give the order to kill the horse." "I knew that some fool will volunteer." "No, little one, there's no world without them." "Horse meat is sweat." " What?" " We can't shoot, we have to come near and slaughter him." "Who will slaughter him?" " Not me." " Shall I shoot?" "In a horse?" "Who ever did that?" "I won't take his head." "Here, shoot." " I can't do that." " Something must be done." "They're going." "I knew it." "I know everything." "That's the worst." "Horse doesn't get headache because of human shooting." "And I forbade, no one will go to get the horse." "When I catch the whitebait, I see those two that stayed in the grass." "They spared me from blame, they saved my sleep." "Little one, you never know where the cleverness is coming from." "And that same day I get the order to capture village Suvac at all costs." "At all costs." "How many times in our lives we heard that?" "There's no going back." "Remember, going back doesn't exist." "Both of you remember, going back doesn't exist." "Don't go back." "I don't need you, I need to pass, at all costs." "Tell the fighters, we have to go trough here." "This is the only passage for everyone, for hospitals and for divisions." "Jesus, you're staying here." " I want to go with you." "Come." "Tower of the fortress is in front of us." "And I'm looking at my battalion." "They're so white in the dark, like the forest has dried them out." "We have to go trough here." "So the others can go too." "And so we can move on." "It's not needed tonight." "There will be no command." "You're all becoming commanders." "You're ordering to yourselves." "Who wants, can smoke a little." "It was a very dark night." "No one had a watch, we lost them all, broke them in the fifth." "Crawl, smell, jump over the fences then smell again, in the ditches, across the dump, branches." "We forced Germans into the building." "We palpated each other under the reflectors, like always." "Now it's starting." "I have a feeling, it's not just one German squad." "The first group of our bombers went, half of them didn't come back." "My people were leaving hunched, foot by foot." "And in a second I felt, I realised," "Germans are retreating, like us." "I ordered 'Quickly go back!" "'" "My little one..." "In a moment I realized, and I won the battle." "Now the moment comes more often." "Brigade commandant said 'You did good!" "'" "We did good umpteen times." "After the fifth offensive we came to the Eastern Bosnia." "They sent us in some village near Drina." "We're going down into the village, not a living soul anywhere." "Everybody are killed." "In one thicket we found six children." "They are wild children." " They were eating dirt, and roots." " That's because of plums." "What's your name?" "How about you?" "What's your name?" "Mladen." " And their names?" "They don't know their names, they forgot." "I saw everything in war." "All miseries and death." "But I haven't seen this yet." "Comrade commandant," "I suggest, since they forgot their names, to name them first." "Correct." "To name them." "You do it, Jesus." "You're Marko, you're Milos, you're Novak, you're Djordje, and you're Stojan." "Come on, repeat, what's your name." " Stojan." "And you?" " Novak." "And you?" " Djordje." "You?" " Milos." "Go on, eat." "Slowly, chew, don't swallow." "Slowly." "I ordered to wash them, cut their hair." "Nurses made them come clothes in the afternoon." "That rose from the burned village." "Little village stayed under some rock, trough, under some miracle." "Who knows in what hole has life stayed." "My little one..." "When the village is burned and killed, do you know how big shout is that?" "What breaking is that." "Curses, voices are fainting all the time, blood smells!" "Children had to see, to hear." "Later it was all quiet, night has came." "Where did they spend the night?" "Under dead cow or under dead mother?" "Which one of them moved first?" "Where did they gather?" "That was going trough my mind." "So the children got used to us, we got used to them." "We stayed there for one week, and for our war, that was a long time." "Orders came trough, to move out." "What else the army can expect?" "Everything is coming from the movement, conquering, retreat." "But what to do with the children?" "And here, to leave them to who?" "Down on the bank, I found a miller, muslim Avdaga, he agreed to transport them." "Water is black, Drina is running." "And the children are waiving to us with their hands." "I thought, what can I say," "'Stop Arsen, harden yourself, harden the soldiers'." "Nothing can soften us." "We're in a war, little one." "And I'm cursing inside me." "How do these children know to waive?" "Waters are running, time is passing by." "One morning, while I drank my coffee, I saw a young man on the scow, across my raft." "He's strolling and looking around." "Hey, boy!" "Young man, come for some brandy." "Nice crib, old man." "Why do you need a rattler?" " So I can rattle." "Old man, you're metaphysics." "Don't talk like that, you're too young for me." "You're right, sorry." "Why did you call me?" "Just like that, to drink brandy." "Old man, you thought something else." "You thought I wanted to drown." "You're thinking you did a good deed." "I don't think anything, I'm alone." "It's better to drink brandy with company." "Correct." "But I didn't want to jump in the river." "I came to see the water running, do you understand?" "How it's running." "Where are you from?" "I don't know." " How can you not know?" "It was war, I was a child." "Do you have memory of your parents?" "They said everyone was killed." " From which area are you?" "They said across Drina." "Across Drina?" "What's this?" "People are looking for their family." "Some of them even find them." "What si your name?" "Novak." "I started questioning him." "Novak, was there any more of you?" "I mean children." "He said: 'Yes, why do you want to know?" "'" "'Mladen for example', he's answering short again." "'I don't know there was some guy, Toma." "He told us we're from Bosnia.'" "'And other one was Marko.' - 'Marko who?" "What do you do?" "'" "'I have a scholarship, I'm studying, I'm near the end, I write poems.'" "Novak was coming to me often." "And day before yesterday, on friday, he came with his girlfriend." "When he just entered he said:" " 'I'm getting married!" "'" "He brought a book." "I looked and on the first page he wrote:" "'To my father on Sava.'" "I can't open the book, and I won't." "But I know, inside are poems." "He started to recite, I don't know why, song of our partisan poet Goran Kovacic, who got slaughtered by Chetniks." " Our freedom." "Freedom is eating the flesh and devours the blood." "Freedom is crushing legs, and breaking arms." "Her presents are graveyards and suffering, freedom is scary, cold and stiff." "Crawl, freedom, you don't need to fly, may your bones be covered by rags." "But once, under our dead pile, you'll revenge to the death with life!" "Come to see me when you get married, so we can celebrate." "Little one, it was when it was." "It' all in the present again." "You come when you need me, and when you don't need me." "Do you remember?" "The whole book exists inside you." "One layer, than another, just like when you're making a pie." "Even now the words about freedom by our poet are in my mind." "But do people know what's standing behind our freedom?" "How many suffering, death, Chetnik's terror, Germans, Italians..." "And we are against all of them." "Germans and Italian divisions," "Nedic's people, Ljotic's people, Ustashas, Muslim police, all kinds of Chetniks brigades." "Chetniks were nasty." "They were slaughtering partisan sympathizers and innocent people." "Is this the house of Jovo Dukanac, Chetnik commandant?" "Is this Jovo Dukanac's house?" "It's lousy thing to burn houses." " Shut up, what do you know rookie?" "In war, houses burn most often." " We don't do that." "Listen, granny, I'm asking you again, is this Jovo Dukanac's house?" "Jovo is Chetnik's commandant." "I have an order to burn down this house." "We're punishing the cutthroats!" "With his hand he slaughtered Muslims and Serbs." "Take everything out of the house, and everyone get out." "Take everything you can out of the house." "Did you see?" "It's not convenient to burn in front women and children." "That's opportunism." " What did you say?" "The order is clear!" "But we don't do that, these children aren't guilty for anything!" " We're not harming them, but order must be executed." "Wait a minute." "We found something else." " Nothing else." "We went to find Jovo Dukanac's house, and it's in front of us." "Why should be thinking?" "You're soft, and can endanger the mission." "I'm older than you!" "And I know more." "Hot head!" "Arsen is right, we shouldn't burn this." "An order is an order." "Cutthroat must be punished." "Hurry up!" "Hurry up with that stuff!" "You go now and take the children." "You don't have to see everything." "Why are you burning my house?" "Cowards!" "We're burning Chetnik's house." " That's my groomsman, and my husband Djoka is a partisan commandant!" "We took the stuff out here, but at Djoka's everything is burned down." "I advised them, one of them on one, the other on the other side." "so the house is divided." "What more could I do, this illiterate?" "It was a winter day." "The whole battalion in one corner." "They burned some rotten wood to keep warm." "And I'm down there, us to be exact, our machine gun squad." "Protruding position, dead watch." "Snow was firm, wind blows and sends the white in our faces." "Valley in front of us, forests, and another peak." "In the afternoon, a meeting was held in some forest." "Fighters have gathered around the fire." "I was quiet the whole time." "What can I say?" "Everything is known." "I think everyone realize that." "Arsen is completely immature." "He's prone both to left and right mistakes." "His guilt is established." "He, as a commander, is directly responsible for burning down a partisan house." "For the first time in my life, I was on trial." "I mixed up everything." "I didn't know where I am, it's useless to check geography." "Everything was quiet, fighters were silent." "I remember it so well now, but I remember it well, big hill, big forest," "In fact, steep slope, a lean." "But which slope when there's so many of them there." "I was quiet, we were all quiet." " So I suggest, that we punish him most strictly!" "It was your order to burn that house down." "You know that." "Here's a chance to make up for your mistake." "In the headquarters was decided that you shoot the German." "Nasty." "I've never done that before." "The German is walking on the path in the snow, empty whiteness, not a single sound." "The sky was clear, not a single cloud." "How?" "Nothing." "Coldness gapes from above." "We're alone on the path, I look him in the back." "he's straight up." "So, that's where the heart and other frippery are." "Head is up there, nods." "He's thinking now, he doesn't have a choice." "I was thinking: 'Suddenly with a machine gun, trough his back, that he doesn't know.'" "And there was a man once." "Why am I troubling myself?" "Everything is simple in war." "They gave him to me, and what?" "Their grenades blew up my comrades into the sky." "Why is he so numb?" "If he wanted to run, escaping attempt." "It would be much easier." "He's my enemy." "That's how people shorten and create life." "I didn't see his face good." "It'll be like shooting a beast." "It's alright, I can't exchange a single word with him." "He closed his eyes, he tightened them." "I'm stepping, the snow is grinding like a jaw." "This one is not from artillery squad." "Infantry slut, that's who he is." "His eyes are filled with tears." "He annoys me so much." "My tongue is dancing, I want to smoke." "The German is clear and white." "Go sit on that rock." "You speak Serbian." " I do." "Where are you from?" " From Vrsac." " How nice." "What is your name?" " Harry Creist." "You're genuine Kraut." " I'm German." " That's the same thing, jackass!" "What are you waiting for?" "Shoot." "You're talking shit Kraut, faking." "I can bite off your nose, and both of your ears, so you'll be deaf!" "You see this little led?" "That hits in the head and done." "There, so I calm him down a bit before his final moment." "They killed my comrades without thinking and conversation." "Without warning." "Just following orders." "I'll fire the whole burst, I know that." "I'm pale, but despite that I'll squash him like a fly." "Take it." "Thank you?" "This is my last wish?" "I see you." "What do you mean by that?" " I'm here in Bosnia for 53 days." "This is the 53rd day." "I was on Caucasus." "I'm a apothecaries' assistant." " I didn't ask you that." "Just..." "Just so you know it." " Take off your boots." "It's cold." " It won't be long." "Stand up!" "Take off your uniform." "My family." "There's a photography in there." " Take it." "Don't show it to me." "You're just a uniform for me." "Yes, we are soldiers." "Come!" " I want to do it here!" "Go!" "The war was finished." "We were winners." "I survived, but something was biting me, a sin, little one." "Then I remembered my sons, my wife Ruza, father Nikola and mother Kosara." "It wasn't forbidden, but it was custom among us not to talk about family." "I'm a infantry Major in Maribor." "I'm keeping my mustache sharp." "I lived in some lawyer's house there, his last name was Winkler." "Class interest won, he went out to the west." "Building on the floor, new windows with curtains tied up, like on the skirts." "And one old woman with me in that old house full of clocks." "She was some family cousin." "She rustles in the house, dragging her feet, a night butterfly, with thick wings." "She was left here to save the wealth." "The owner must've collaborated with Germans." " Yes." "Please, your room is over there." "The took his wife with him too." " Yes, he took her too." "He had good taste in old furniture." " Yes, he had." "Attention, at ease!" "Attention!" "Comrade Major, report is canceled." "Leave is delayed until further notice." "It's been said that you'll stay here until the report." "With clean boots, without noise, I was unlocked the door slowly." "When I heard, a girl is singing." "Don't be afraid." "I'm a serviceman, I'll keep your secret safe." "You're owner's wife?" "Yes." "Go to your room." "Turn off the light." "Why are you hiding?" "I'd like to remember your face." "Really?" " Yes." "Quiet, don't talk." "I don't see your face." "You're not showing it." "I can just imagine how it looks like." "How it looks like?" "No, no!" "No, don't turn on the light." "Why are you always hiding?" "Because of something that is forbidden." "It's stupid." "Year is 1945." "It's peace in Europe, borders are made." "I got my leave when I least expected it." "On that same time they told me that my war friend from my village," "Jovan Grabljanovic, Jesus was killed." "Remaining gangs were drifting around, they shoot, and a stray bullet hit him." "Jesus got killed in a stupid way, when the war was over." "And Dositej has become a lieutenant colonel, and he's somewhere on Italian border." "Hey girl!" "I'm going away!" "I'm really going away!" "Girl!" "Show yourself!" "Where are you?" "I know you're here somewhere." "I made a mistake, what can I do?" "I'll leave the key in the flower." "Show yourself!" "I know you're here somewhere!" "You're angry." "So am I." "So am I!" "I got in the first train." "The whole war collapsed in my feet." "It's over." "It will happen no more." "At least not in my living." "And I almost said out loud:" "'My village, with 73 houses in it'." "I'll see my sons, my wife." "My father Nikola and my mother Kosara." "Then shiver consumed me, then doubt." "Are they alive?" "Simple question but scary." "Who fill fix the time?" "Three years, eleven months, and one week." "Damjan was born on Saint Sava, my first son!" "I was buying drink, somebody drank brandy, more of them drank beer." "They tore my hat in front of the tavern." "My village, with 73 houses in it." "Jovan, Jesus and me, conscious proletarians of the revolution." "Now I'm coming back, liberator!" "From my village, on year 1941," "Jovan Grabljanovic, Jesus and me left in the mountainous Bosnia." "Enough for strange and religiously divided Balkan." "Our parents sent us off, my wife and children." "It's custom with us, when you sent off a soldier, you throw a basket, if it doesn't brake, we'll come back alive." "Fathers are turning their backs, we don't turn around, so we cam meet each other alive, that's the custom too." "Jovan Grabljanovic, Jesus, had a father, a mother, and two sisters." "It must be explained to them." "Jovan Jesus is dead, I am alive." "Comrade Major." "Comrade Major." "You're talking to yourself." "This is your station." "My village with 73 houses in it, I'm 9 km away from you." "Major, get going, damn it!" "Go, tramp this road, throw a kick!" "Little one, I didn't believe that it will all last that long. 1501 day." "I'm walking, who will I meet?" "Somebody has to be first." "Major, step over the road, small km are in front." "I saw a cart on the road, two sacks of wheat, my neighbour, Ljuba Kvrga, is sitting on it." "Ljuba, what is it?" "You're mute?" "For two years now?" "How's my family?" "They ripped off your tongue?" "Who?" "So it's not?" "My household, how are they?" "Can you hear me?" "Ljuba, what happened?" "Airplanes." "German planes, damn they." "American flying fortress?" "Injustices are constant in war." "Jovan Jesus got killed." "And I'm on the road with you." "What can you do, Germans." "If only you're literate." "Ljuba, everything is passing in life." "It's important to get used to it." "Go to the mill and grind it, it's freedom." "Closed until further notice" "Boss," "open the tavern." "It's closed." "You can come to my house if you want." "Open it." "I can't." "Yes, you can, you scum." "Why me?" "It's not my fault for anything." "Why did you close the tavern?" "Villagers said so that I don't offend you." "Our villagers?" "Yes, they advised me." "My brains is not like theirs." "You see?" "They all have retreated." "Ljuba Kvrga is no mute." " Ljuba Kvrga is mute?" "How come?" "Villagers didn't expect my return." "Great evil happened to us." " What happened to my family?" "I don't know, I was in Belgrade." "You fool!" "In the village every ox's death is known!" "My only daughter died, tuberculosis killed her." "You're human, you'll understand." "So nothing, the girl died." "I buried there." "I came back in the village, your family was wiped out." "Who?" " Germans, we couldn't say a word." "You're a man, you know what is occupation." "I didn't ask for brandy." " I figured, it's better." "Don't figure anything about me." "When you passed, you were black." "You're completely white now." "They came." "I knew it." "Who?" " Old men have come." "They're sitting on a chump in front of the tavern." "We came to greet you." "War is always dirty, it displaces everything." " Not to mention occasions." "Many armies, Nedic," "Draza, Ljotic, Smederevac..." "Who wasn't killed?" "Germans choose a street, and kill everyone in it!" "Kalabic was the most dangerous." " What about Kica?" "It's Zicman, son of the wheat trader Milenkovic." "He was worse." "They were all dangerous, one was worse than another." "And you try to save your neck." "Flying brigades!" "That was it!" "Mobilization lists, and flying orders." "They were just putting up announcement on the door of Milojko Gutovac." "No one is asking you can you do it." " You're suffering in silence." "It became better to know less, nowhere out of the yard." "Occupation was small." " Nothing." "What can we say?" "You know better than we do." "This was your war." "It's not like in our days." "This is different war, internal." "Without borders." "It's most dangerous then." " Revolution." "Call it what ever you want, country got crumbled, too many occupants, and hundreds of countries was founded." "In the time of our war, you had a trench and a background." "And you partisans, you were everywhere and nowhere." "Our time is like that." "We started out from nothing." "We know, well done." "But the whole villages were burning." "Only my house was burning." "Others did not." "Begin." " There's nothing to begin, you saw everything." "Winter was fierce in 1942." "Ibar was frozen, but some rapids remained." "In the war people must defend itself." "Take it easy, let's not interrupt each other." "Everyone has a brain, and everyone has watched from his corner." "Major wants to find out everything." "He has no other option." "And maybe we don't have it too." " I said it's a shame that all rapids didn't freeze." "Who knows where would Ibar take him." "A German was stuck on the rapid under Vuja's mill." "River kicked him out." "Later they said he's not ordinary, he's an officer." "To get out in those ways we knew, didn't work." "On the right side of Ibar is our mill and our village." "And Germans were strict." "There's no easy going with them." "Only in Serbia, not in Europe, the rule was for one killed German, one hundred of ours." "The whole one hundred people." "Line them up in the road, and see how many is that." "For wounded German, fifty of our people were to be killed." "That number had to be settled, no matter what." "To calculate tribute in blood, a terrible job." "We should all go to hell!" "I'm not guilty!" "I was fighting a war, living a life!" "What's this?" "Who is forcing who?" "No one is forcing, we should tell everything we know." "He came." " And that he didn't come?" "It'd be even?" "Defending or screaming, we didn't have anything with killed German." "It was required 10 people from our village." "Ten souls and that was it!" " You had something else." "That's not true." "Your father was among us, in the community." "He had to, you were silent." " I'm telling the whole truth." "Then your father said:" "'Be quiet." "And I know, I didn't bring the occupation, my son didn't kill the German, just like Jovan Grabljanovic didn't." "Both of them are far away in Bosnia," "I don't have any news about them, and who knows are they alive.'" "Who killed the German?" "You don't know?" "No one knows." " I don't know." "We didn't leave our yards for a week!" "People, did it happen like that?" "Tell the truth!" " It was like that!" "Someone showed the house to the Germans." "Names aren't written in military map." " Don't be mad, it's in the past, the law is known." " They should all be monumentalized." "And no one can be forgotten." "To name this street by Jovan Jesus." "It's just a few of us, we have a fighter." "Long live!" " Long live!" "Slow down!" "Not everything can be done at once." "We want to follow you, to your socialism." "We'll elect you for a president, you and no one else!" "For main and only authority." "Rule on us, we'll manage." "Who killed the dog and dumped him in the well." "Germans don't do that!" "Dog was expecting my return, you didn't." "The dog must've squeeled, howled in the yard." " That's right." "I'm asking again, who killed the dog and dumped him in the well?" "You got rid of the dog." "Stay, friend!" "Stay here, don't be like that, we couldn't do more." "Friend, don't put a curse on your village." "He can't say goodbye." " His jaw is closed, rabid dog." " Maybe he's crazy." "Friend, don't put a curse on us." "Don't curse us." "Ljuba, you're not mute." "Get in, I'll take you to Ibar." "When I saw you, I became mute." "I knew you'll ask." "I didn't know that to say." "There it is." "Get in." "Where will you go now?" " This is going to last." "It will last a long time. yes, the village thinks that too." "You'll be in Belgrade." "I don't know." "I don't know anything." "Get settled and start over." "You don't want that?" " I don't want to start over." "I understand." "Then you do as you like." "We were both smoking." "Cows were dangling the cart, black acacia trees on the road." "The smell of plowed stubble was in the air." "I'm leaving." "It's not cow's fault." " It's no one's fault." "It's known." " It can't be founded out now." "It came out like that." "They elected old sheep for a president." "The people are not fools." "People..." "Only black dirt can grind up like that." "Rest of the village is like you, everyone are acting crazy." "Mute and silent, no one knows anything." "I'll tell you everything, it's better for you if I go first." "Where should I start from?" "You went away forever, and..." "What can I say to you?" "I want to confess while we're still people." "On that winter I was going with the cows to the mill, to grind the wheat." "Not a single blow, air was still, winter was cracking." "I went on the road by Ibar, you can't see the river." "I can tell it's Ibar only by willow groves." "I saw a man on the horse in the distant." "I looked closer, he was a German." "I thought to myself, 'What is a German doing here?" "' Suddenly, he stood in front of me." "He wanted to find a shortcut, I guess." "The horse got scared of cows, they were restless, the horse is neighing and prancing, not here nor there." "The German fell of the horse, the cows charged," "I didn't notice, a cart caught him." "I somehow stopped the cows," "I approached, when I saw he's not ordinary soldier, he's an officer." "I wanted to pick him up, and he's resisting, I don't know his thoughts." "I'm begging him." "He's bleeding from his nose, he's shaved nicely around mouth." "Blue eyes are watching me, like I'm a suspect." "He's yelling." "Loud words, he must be cursing, what else?" "I was all distorted, I ripped my shirt so I can cover his wounds," "I'm wiping his face, I'm kissing him in the forehead like a saint." "And words are coming out from him, he must be cursing, and slowly taking out his gun." "I'm hitting my head, and I'm praying." "He's whirling his gun in front of me, and he shot, maybe by accident." "Shot was fired, I was stiffed, the heat of the bullet went by my ear." "Then something changed." "I needed just a second to twist his hand.I started twisting, bone is breaking in his shoulder." "Hitler can't help him now, gun fell down in the snow." "Horror in the blue eyes." "I closed my hands around his neck," "I tighten it, soul is coming out of his mouth." "I was strangling dogs, I'll strangle you too." "German, cute, young, he reclined, he's not yelling anymore." "It's cold, the barrel is smoking, there's no one on sight." "I killed an officer." "He was done before his time, what can I say." "I put him on my back, I carried him to the Ibar, to throw him in the river." "River will be frozen over night." "And until spring, chubs from Ibar will eat him." "I went to the mill, I grinned the wheat and I went home." "I hid the gun, and until now, not a word to anyone." "I'll endure the solitude." " Then endure it." "And the children?" "Where are they?" "It was in vain, I searched for your children everywhere." "You find a clue, a story that leads you further, but in reality, nowhere." "They say 'barracks by the hospital', you go there, there's no barracks." "American bombs blew it all up." "Then you hear there was kids here, some of them died, some of them didn't, they took them." "To Banat, Jasa Tomic, not there, To Vrsac, not there, Bela Crkva, Beckerek," "So up and down, here and there, they're rolling you like a pumpkin on fair, on all four sides." "We find children, but there's no your sons." "They were transported to Germany, a wagon of children burned by Vienna, stories, stories." "Serbia in occupation." "Blind work, there's no use." "It's never known, your shooting was bringing darkness too." "I know." " You'd kill a German if you'd meet him?" "We were shooting the fascism." "Will you come back to the village?" " I told you." "I'm asking you again." " I won't." "Goodbye then, I'll find you in Belgrade." "The main person to blame, me!" "Ljuba Kvrga." "Then Germans came, and took your family away." "I heard they brought them on this same place." "And nothing more was heard." "You know what is like, it was war, people got killed, someone had to die." "And I never found out anything about my family." "Where are they?" "Are they alive?" "Everything was rumored." "And I was hoping." "Maybe someone stayed alive." "Little one, I'm looking at you." "Sometimes I think you don't exist." "Who am I talking to?" "THE END" "Translated by Inglourious @KG"