Tihomir Levajac:
Here We Go on Trial Again

1. Story
2. Story
3. Story
4. Story
5. Story
6. Story
7. Story
8. Story
9. Story
10. Story
11. Story
12. Story
13. Story
14. Story
15. Story
16. Story
17. Story
18. Story
19. Story

Verdict

The Prosecutor, who was in charge of crime against humanity at the Vague Tribeurinal, the so-called International Court of Justice, stood leaning over the table with an ironic expression on his face, his hand resting upon a pile of documents half a metre thick pertaining to the case.

At one moment he suddenly raised his head and eyebrows high, pointing at the documents with his index finger, speaking of them as a file testifying against the defendant.

The Prosecutor’s pose, the raised eyebrow, the index finger pointing at the file, the thickness of the file, all that had left quite an impression upon those present in the courtroom. So strong an impression did it leave that everybody thought there would be no trial, no questioning, no presentation of evidence, that the index finger, the ironic expression on the Prosecutor’s face and the thickness of the file would somehow metamorphose into a verdict of “guilty”.

But what sort of an International Court of Justice would this be if it allowed such a thing to happen?

No Court of Justice whatsoever.

A pose is a pose, a theatrical performance is a theatrical performance, but court procedure is something very strictly defined by legal regulations.

The Prosecutor is supposed to charge the defendant with a crime, and he was in the process of doing just that. Speaking with a strange accent, rather reminiscent of cowboy movies, the Prosecutor charged the Story with having committed a crime against private property. The defendant, the Prosecutor claimed, had been telling a story wherein it had advocated large-scale destruction and appropriation of enemy property that was not justified by any military reasons, but was carried out unlawfully, insolently and systematically by one side in the Bosnian conflict only: the Serbs.

True, the prosecutor hastened to add, the other two sides in the conflict had also committed acts of destruction and looting, but only the Serbian side had done it systematically, according to a plan, with a view to realising the doctrine of Greater Serbia.

But that was not the only crime the defendant had committed.

Not only had it been telling the story but had interfered with it to a great extent so that the story should take on the meaning the defendant wanted it to have.

Having heard this, the defendant protested energetically.

The Prosecutor was wrong, it said. To be quite honest, it was precisely the other way round. When it started telling a story, the events had a way of unfolding of their own accord, without any interference on its part.

How come, the Chairman of the Tribeurinal Board, a dark-skinned fellow from Africa, wondered, not having heard of anything like that on his native continent.

Why, it was quite simple! What tended to happen was this: it would start a story, and then the story would proceed of its own accord, leading its creator into the unknown, so that it couldn’t envisage what might happen in the next scene or, indeed, how the story might end.

It simply let the story unfold, tell itself, as it were, so that someone other than itself, the defendant, that is, was in charge of it.

Very much the way things unfolded at this trial. The defendant knew that the judges currently present were not in charge of this Court, that it was under the control of some other, invisible people, possibly thousands of kilometres away from the courtroom.

The same thing tended to happen to it. It would start a story, events in it would occur of their own accord, and it, the narrator, would have no idea whether the story would end on a happy or tragic note. As soon as the story began, it no longer needed to worry about its coherence.

Worst of all, when it told such a story, it did not know whether the story it was telling was the story it had wanted to tell, so the truth of the matter was precisely the opposite of what the Prosecutor charged it with.

Namely, that it interfered with the events of the story in question in order to impart to it such a meaning or meanings that the story did not originally have.

Naturally, the Prosecutor stuck to his charge and asked the Chairman of the Tribeurinal Board to allow the defendant to address the Court. Let it tell its story and later on, in the course of the presentation of evidence, he would prove, with the help of witnesses, that it was he, not the defendant, who was in the right.

The Chairman assented and allowed the defendant to address the Court without imposing any conditions upon it.

The defendant found itself in an awkward situation then. What was particularly awkward was the fact that it truly did not know when its story actually began. Maybe it began when the Croatian Defence Council took hold of Jajce together with the Muslims, when the blue-green flag fluttered atop the Citadel, the highest tower in the Old Town, which was something of an indication to the Serbs that they were left at the mercy of the worst part of the two brotherly peoples.

Or maybe it began when a music teacher was saved by a former student of his.

A Croat.

Which happened like this.

It was noon sharp when, dressed in a commando uniform, without a cap, his unruly hair tamed with a chessboard-patterned hair-band, wearing an American sleeveless shirt, he stopped the teacher. He was also wearing a bullet-proof vest, had a couple of hand grenades in the upper pockets of his shirt, an automatic rifle clip in one of the lower pockets and a pistol hanging from the hip like a toy.

The way he was equipped, he looked like an armoured personnel carrier.

When he stood before the teacher and said to him, Hello Teach, the teacher’s legs turned to jelly. And when he asked him what he was waiting for and why he was still there, the teacher was totally dazed.

Let Teach not get him wrong, he had nothing against him personally, but time was running out for the Serbs in Jajce. If he wanted to save his skin and his family, he could help him do so.

Why was he telling him this, what could his intentions be, the teacher asked himself.

They barely knew each other. He could not quite remember what sort of student Renato, that was the youngster’s name, had been, but he did remember that he hadn’t been particularly good at school. He would accept no obligations and had been a law purely unto himself. He had got it into his head that everybody at the school, from the Headmaster and the teachers to the cleaning ladies had something or other against him. That was why the Teachers’ Council had to deal with him more often than with all the other students put together.

The war between Renato and the teachers had gone on for months. He had been an irascible sort of fellow, and the teachers had had to put up with it. He had been wild and mean, and the teachers had suffered. He had lashed out at them and they had suffered. What those teachers had to bear after self-management had been introduced into the school system, no animal, domestic or wild, could have borne.

When they realised they had no way of dealing with him, they remembered that they could get rid of him by having him expelled from school.

No sooner had Renato lost that war, however, than the real one started, which gave him ample opportunity to get rid of whatever he felt was hampering him and give free flow to his natural inclinations.

And now this fellow was offering him help and he was supposed to rely on him in these evil times.

Rely up to a point, that is.

Well, he’d have to, because he couldn’t rely on those who had been obedient at the school. The army of the obedient had left in time. They were somewhere in Europe now, in some more fortunate country.

When Renato saw that the teacher was in two minds about it, he told him to go home and talk it over with his wife. Should they make up their minds, he’d come to their two-storey house.

To pick them up.

He would be there at one o’clock sharp in his Merc and would take them to the dividing line; the rest would be up to them.

Although the teacher did not utter a single word, Renato turned to leave, said, Bye Teach, then added that he’d be there at one o’clock sharp, got into his Mercedes and drove away.

The music teacher stood motionless on the pavement for a while, not knowing what to do. He would go home just in case, tell his wife everything and then let her decide whether they should have anything to do with the likes of Renato.

When she heard his story, she started packing immediately. She grumbled while doing so, and he just stood there watching her, looking like someone who had stumbled into life by sheer accident.

She packed and grumbled, and he stood by the door like a statue, in his own shadow.

His indecisiveness had brought them into this situation, she grumbled, and now they had to rely on a true blue Ustashi soldier to help them get out of the town. They could have left ten times already but they hadn’t done so just because he never knew what he wanted in life. If she hadn’t said yes at their wedding, both on her and his behalf, they’d never have got married. She’d had enough of that! If he didn’t want to go, let him stay with the Ustashi, and she would leave with their son, come what may!

She would no longer stay in prison!

She would no longer live in this prison without bars!

Being in an abstract sort of prison was a hundred times worse than being in an actual prison!

His wife spoke thus while packing and the teacher just stood there, dumb, listening in bewilderment.

At one o’clock sharp they heard the honking of the car horn.

When his wife rushed out onto the balcony and shouted that she was coming down, the teacher rushed after her. They grabbed their bags, locked the flat in a hurry, rushed down the stairs, hopped into the Mercedes with their luggage and set off.

Renato drove without a word, along a road that was unfamiliar to them until they came to a small hill. Then he got out of the car and whistled strangely. Up on the brow of the hill, somebody appeared against the sky and responded with a prearranged signal.

When the teacher, his wife and their son got out of the car, taking their things with them, Renato got back into the car, waved through the window, shouted, Bye Teach, and drove back into the town.

The teacher climbed up the side of the hill with his wife and son, carrying their things, without any problems whatsoever, and having reached the Serbian lines, went down into Mrkonjić Town.

When, three months later, the Serbian army liberated Jajce, all the civilians had to go back to their hometown so that it could start living again.

Three days after the liberation of Jajce, the teacher came back to his hometown in a hired car. He arrived on a dismal November day. Rain drizzled persistently, as if on a day when one buried those whom one loved and respected.

When he reached the Travnik Gate, he parked the car there, got out and rushed, elated, to the waterfall on the Pliva River to see whether it was still there. He was overjoyed when he saw it. He went to the place where he used to like to watch the waterfall from and sat down on his favourite rock.

All of a sudden time stood still and the waterfall murmured. He remembered the verses of some poet who said that the Pliva, in that very place, right there, cheated on Bosnia with the Vrbas. He wanted to think about those verses, about who had written them and on what occasion, but he could not take his thoughts off the water falling continuously into the hidden depths of the Vrbas like a silver cloth.

He closed his eyes and listened to various memories, something that was enduring. At the same time, the waterfall murmured something mysterious, too, something both close and distant.

As if it were telling him something he didn’t know but ought to know.

All of a sudden, however, he snapped out of it as if out of a dream, jumped to his feet and made for the building that he used to live in. When he saw the familiar tricolour fluttering upon the Citadel, he thought that was a good sign but it soon turned out that he was wrong. A shell had hit the roof of his two-storey building, right above his own flat, and broken through the roof and the ceiling.

Everything inside the flat was as they had left it, only there was a hole in the roof through which water poured in.

Saddened, he went to the town Headquarters.

At the Headquarters, his complaints were countered by the victors’ logic. The Croats and the Muslims had been defeated and had fled before the Serbian army in the direction of Travnik, by way of Dobratić.

Let the teacher move into an abandoned flat.

Which one?

Whichever he wanted! Later on, when the civilian authorities took over, it would be legally settled.

The teacher took the advice and went looking for a new flat.

He went through the town full of people.

Soldiers recognised one another in the streets, congratulated one another on the victory, hugged and kissed, while those who had been hiding for quite a long time were finally emerging out of cellars, sheds, holes, canals and catacombs.

They looked like rats, emaciated, pale, wrinkled, older.

A gypsy band was playing loudly nearby, and a man walking in front of the band was taking banknotes that were no longer valid out of a bag and scattering them across the street.

The gypsies were fighting over those worthless notes.

An old man, a very old man, had come out of his house with a bottle of brandy offered in celebration of victory. Who knows how he had managed to save it in wartime, but he wanted to give those who had liberated his town a treat.

While some were celebrating, others went about looking for their things.

While the Croats and Muslims had held the town, all the Serbian flats and houses had been broken into and looted by their neighbours and acquaintances.

When a returnee came across something that used to belong to him, a TV set, a washing machine, a VCR or a painting, a dishwasher or an encyclopaedia, he took it, of course, but also took something that did not belong to him, thus repaying his former neighbour the kindness of having looked after his things in his absence.

That was the way people behaved in wartime.

Some looted, others took over entire houses.

If it so happened that two people wanted the same house and were unable to prove whose claim was valid, then they set it on fire so that it should belong to neither of them.

And if someone entered a house and found out that it was in the shadow of a neighbouring house or that the latter spoiled his view, he blew it up to get rid of it.

That was what the peasants from nearby villages tended to do, having burned down their own houses and moved to the town on account of being homeless, with their families and cattle, cows, sheep and pigs, in tow. They usually took over two houses. One for themselves, the other for the cattle. For themselves, they usually picked a two-storey house, for the cattle, a house whose ground floor was occupied by some business or other. Lest anyone should drive their cattle out of there, they damaged the upper floor, made a hole in the roof, and kept cows, horses or sheep on the ground floor.

They wondered all the time why their cattle skidded on the tiles and fell on their knees. In their new stables, standing on the smooth tiles as if on glass, the cattle shook, for fear of slipping and falling down, as if they were suffering mad cow disease.

While some entered the town bringing their things with them, vultures from the nearby villages took things out of town transporting them on horse-driven carts and trailers driven by tractors.

Since everything was abandoned and within reach, everyone could take whatever he wanted. There was no-one to prevent him from doing it. It was enough to wish for something and to dispense with scruples.

What the Serbs were doing now, the Croats and Muslims had done before. The Prosecutor maintained that only the Serbs had been doing it systematically, which was not true. As far as looting and pillaging was concerned, all three peoples were equal.

Life made them equal.

Although the three peoples lived there, on that steep terrain, a steep stretch of rock as it were, like three different plants with the same root, like different species of vine, they were at the same level of development as regards looting and pillaging, hatred and destructive impulses.

How could the Prosecutor account for the fact that those three peoples had shared the narrow stretch of land alongside the Pliva and the Vrbas in times of peace but sought help outside their own nation in times of trouble?

How could the honourable judges account for the fact that these three peoples had more or less tolerated one another for fifty-odd years but now, in wartime, slaughtered one another so mercilessly?

Why, for fifty years they had lived in the same climate and economic conditions! They had been born in the same hospital, had attended the same school and the same classes, had had the same set books, had done their shopping in the same supermarkets, had worked under the same working conditions, had grown older in the same way, had died in the same way, but were now grouping themselves according to the same instincts and exterminating one another!

The defendant asked the Court and itself this, wondering on their and its own behalf, not knowing where the teacher was and what was happening to him. So it had to look for him in a town where chaos reigned. It looked for him among smashed cars and vultures taking other people’s belongings out of their flats and houses, among bricks, trailers, beams, logs, trucks, plaster and stone, glass, shards and returnees looking for their things, among soldiers kissing one another, gypsies picking up worthless banknotes from the pavement and notice boards warning of mines.

It finally spotted him under the Banja Luka Gate, going down below the hospital, among men and women carrying bags and suitcases while his hands were empty, among cattle being driven somewhere, waving his empty hands. It followed him from building to building, from entrance to entrance, as he went searching for a new flat for his family.

Where a notice on the door had said that the flat in question was Croatian property, a fresh notice was superimposed proclaiming the flat to be Serbian property. Or there would be a notice informing chance visitors not to break in.

Keep out, Serbs living here!

Do not break in, Serbian flat!

Or: occupied, Serbian!

Or: occupied, Serbian, watch out, mined!

Some doors had nothing written upon them, just four flint-strikers drawn upon them, or a tricolour protruding through a window.

The teacher finally decided on a flat in the New Road district. Everything had been taken from it apart from the bathtub, built into the bathroom wall, and a shelf in the corridor whereon a bag of bamias[1] had been left, tied with a rubber band. He concluded that a Muslim family had lived there, judging by the bamias and by the heavy smell that Muslim houses exuded, whose origin had always remained a mystery to him.

When he decided on that flat, he called his friends and former neighbours to help him move some of the things from his old flat, what little movable property had remained intact and dry, into the new flat in the drizzling rain.

It was already dusk when he had done all that, so he stayed the night in the new flat. There was no electricity, he had no key to lock the flat with, so he spent that first night in the new flat in great fear, since the town had not quite been purged of the former brothers.

To be on the safe side, he placed the kitchen table and an armchair against the door, for what protection he could get.

While he lay on the couch, fully dressed, in the immense darkness, it seemed to him that he was all alone in this world and that he didn’t belong to it.

But being alone is not as pointless as people generally seem to believe because it sets one thinking.

He thought about the new flat and how he would furnish it, how he would get the lock replaced, how he would get the broken window panes replaced, how he would bring the rest of the family there when everything was settled.

In the hideous darkness he thought about a new life in a rebuilt town, how there would be an orchestra again, entertaining the guests at the local hotel as before.

When the barking of automatic fire broke the silence of the pitch-black darkness, he thought of the time when he had been imprisoned in this same town, about the fears that had beset him and about the fellow who had rescued him.

Where was Renato now and where would he be later?

If Renato had managed to get out of town, he might even meet him one day! He may even have the opportunity of repaying his debt to him!

The teacher consoled himself with these and suchlike thoughts and went on doing so until he eventually fell asleep, although not completely. Between wakefulness and dreaming, the sleepy sound of automatic fire resounded all night.

No sooner had it dawned than he was awoken by someone banging at the door. He jumped out of bed, removed the table and armchair from the door, only to see a soldier of the Serbian Republic Army standing in the doorway; he entered the flat without being invited and without uttering a single word.

He walked about the flat for a while, then found himself a place where he felt comfortable.

The flat he had just entered, he said, belonged to his firm, Elektrobosna. A Muslim engineer who had fled the town had been living in it, and as they had worked together, the flat, naturally enough, belonged to him now.

The teacher tried to reason with the uninvited guest, but to no avail.

Let him, the soldier said sharply, caressing his automatic rifle as if it were some sort of pet, move out of the flat to begin with, and then let him repeat his story to those at the Headquarters. But it was he, the soldier, who had shed blood on the battlefield, not those sitting at the Headquarters!

When the teacher saw who he was dealing with, he asked the Serbian soldier not to move his things out of the flat, because the rain wouldn’t let up, until he had found a new flat for himself.

The soldier magnanimously gave in.

All right, it was settled then, but he had to move out in a day, and during the daytime.

So the teacher had to look for a new flat for himself and his family instead of the one he used to have, the one that a shell had broken into.

Lest he should waste time having to carry his things very far, he made for the nearby district of Hrast, situated below the Catholic cemetery, and picked a flat located on the second floor of a building.

He had to enlist the help of friends and former neighbours again and move his things from his flat of one night only to the new one, which lasted until dusk.

He spent the night in a new flat again, lying fully dressed on a couch again, thinking much the same thoughts while automatic fire barked at the nocturnal silence and voracious darkness, thinking about an orchestra and public performances again, remembering Renato, his benefactor, again, getting very little sleep; in the morning, as soon as a new day had dawned, not having learned anything from yesterday’s dawn, someone banged at the door again.

It was as if yesterday’s morning were dawning all over again.

When he opened the door, still feeling sleepy, naturally enough, there was another soldier of the Serbian Republic Army standing in the doorway. He looked like a carbon copy of the one he’d met the day before.

This soldier walked through the flat as well, then stopped exactly where the other one had stood the day before.

The flat he had entered, the soldier said, belonged to his firm, the Pelva Tourist Company. Their Director of Commerce, a Croat, had been living in it, and had fled the town because he was an Ustashi; as they had been working together, the flat, of course, belonged to him, the soldier.

The teacher didn’t even think of trying to reason with the soldier, lest he should start caressing his automatic rifle or mentioning the Headquarters and the battlefield, but immediately agreed to move out.

He just asked the soldier not to take his things out into the street until he had found a new flat on account of the bad weather.

No problem, the Serbian Republic Army soldier said magnanimously, but he had to move out in a day and during daytime!

And so the teacher had to look, yet again, for a place to stay in a town where chaos reigned.

In order not to risk the same thing happening to him again, he resolved to be very cautious. He decided to look for a flat that was the property not of a firm but of the town: presumably, he wouldn’t be driven out of such a flat.

That was why he made for Bare, the new district situated behind the tunnel. A number of new three- and four-storey buildings had been built there, wherein Town Hall employees had been given flats by the local authorities.

He walked from building to building, from entrance to entrance, from flat to flat, hesitating, postponing his decision.

At long last, he decided on a door whereon a chessboard coat of arms had been tacked.

The fact that the chessboard was still there meant that the flat hadn’t been broken into, he reasoned, and went up to the door.

He knocked on the door. Nothing happened.

Again, knock, knock.

Again, nothing.

Knock, knock, knock.

Silence.

He stood there, still in two minds about it.

Should he try again or should he wait?

Something impelled him to try again.

When he knocked on the door a little louder with the car key, he couldn’t believe his ears: he heard the sound of neighing.

It sounded as if something horse-like was neighing from inside the flat.

Although he had a pretty finely attuned ear, being a music teacher, he couldn’t believe that he was hearing what he was hearing. That he was hearing the sound of neighing the like of which he’d never heard before.

He had never before heard divine neighing, and now he was witnessing it.

This was no ordinary neighing, it was somehow unreal, although, to be quite honest, he had always liked the unreal immensely, and had always inclined towards something abstract as a musician.

And the sublime, for only the sublime had attracted him.

So he knocked again, more forcefully, still more intrigued, and got an even louder sound of neighing in reply.

It seemed to him that he was hearing a real horse neighing, although he thought that he was not hearing what he was hearing but that he was hearing some sort of substitute for what he was hearing.

Just precisely what that was, he knew not.

Although he was dazed, he tried to think it through soberly.

A block of flats, the third floor, a socially-owned flat, and the sound of neighing coming from it! Even though there was a war going on, that was just too much. Something didn’t add up there, reality was beyond the grasp of both a keen mind and a finely attuned ear!

It was as if he had come to a door with an inner, hidden meaning, a door with a metaphorical sort of meaning, its metaphor leading in all directions!

But why should he rack his brains?

He would go out of the building, he thought as he went down the stairs, climb up the hill until he reached the level of the higher floors and thus solve the mystery!

When he finally reached the desired spot, he stood there and looked upwards.

As was to be expected, on the third floor, on the terrace of the flat upon whose door he had just knocked, there stood a horse.

A real horse.

In view of the fact that all the Croats and Muslims had fled the town before the Serbian army took over, it had to be a Serbian horse.

Within the framework of the architectural whole commonly referred to as the terrace stood the horse, an image as old as time, eating out of the nose bag that its owner had placed on it, swinging its tail nonchalantly. It ate its food, not paying any attention to its surroundings.

Its owner had brought it there and left its to look after the flat. It was supposed to neigh should anyone try to force his way through the door, not to enjoy the view from the third-floor terrace and to watch out lest anyone, be it even a music teacher with a finely attuned ear, should be watching, gawking or gaping at it for some peculiar reasons of his own.

The moment the defendant uttered those last words, everybody knew that it was the end of the story and that the presentation of evidence could begin.

The Prosecutor was the first one to ask for permission to address the Court. Having been granted it, he asked the honourable judges to think logically.

How come, he asked, if it was indeed true that the defendant had not interfered with the narrative, that this horse should appear at the end of the story? And on the terrace, no less! The purpose of its sudden appearance was all too clear! He knew full well what the point was! It was not possible for a horse to pop up out of nowhere at the end of the story if the defendant had not planned it in advance!

No way!

There was a witness who could prove that he was in the right, and he proposed that the witness should be brought into the courtroom. It was no ordinary witness, it was a crown witness who would put paid to the defendant’s claims.

Everybody was stunned when a real horse was brought into the courtroom.

After the audience had calmed down, the usual procedure ensued.

The Chairman of the Tribeurinal Board demanded of the witness to swear that it would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to which the witness promptly replied by neighing twice.

At first, the defendant thought that the horse in the courtroom was not the one that had appeared on the terrace in its story, but when it heard its neighing, it thought that it just might be the same one. That it might be a Serbian horse, not one brought before the court as a substitute.

A Croatian or a Muslim horse, that is.

The Prosecutor then asked the witness whether it had really been on the third-floor terrace of that flat in the Bare district or had just found itself in the story that the defendant had told purely by accident.

The horse then neighed four times.

Sad to say, it had to disappoint the Prosecutor.

It had said at the inquest that it had been on that terrace, whereas actually it hadn’t. It had been bribed by the Government in Sarajevo, in collusion with the Sarajevo police, to give false testimony before the Court, but having sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it had felt pangs of conscience.

Who could tell what awaited it in the hereafter!

Even though it was a horse, it had a soul to worry about!

Everyone was surprised at the animal’s reasoning. There might exist a sense of justice in people although, unfortunately, it had not so far been proved before the International Court of Justice.

Only the Defence Counsel was not surprised. As was usual in the animal kingdom, he could not restrain himself and started doing all sorts of silly things, dancing and jumping, yodelling a bit, in the manner of a country bumpkin dancing the kolo in the course of a country outdoor party on Mount Manjača.