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course had been the first to trust him. Around Vesna the poet resembled one of those silent, spindly-legged, deer-eyed little dogswhich sit beneath the table, rarely looking into anyone’s eyes but never being the first to look away. Because the American also admired Vesna, but without designs, much less possessiveness, the two men’s understanding ran deep; moreover, the American believed in the poet’s kindness. As for Amir, he perhaps had liked the American from the beginning, although with Amir one could never tell. Vesna of course would have smiled at anyone but the ones who shelled them from the hills. The other women seemed to take their cue from her. He supposed himself beginning to understand the first and second meanings of the shells but not yet the hundredth; perhaps not even the frontline fighters were capable of that.
    Enko was there. Enko said: Mirjana doesn’t talk about it because her family is mixed.
    That’s not true! the woman cried. Silently Vesna slipped an arm around her shoulders.
    Glaring into their eyes, Enko said: I think it’s a problem not to talk about it.
    That was when the American realized that Enko sought to help him.
    But do we need to talk about it? said Mirjana.
    My personal opinion, said Enko, and the American was astonished to discover that for Enko there was any such thing, is that the only way to prevent war is to shame people.
    Do you really think that you can do that to Serbian people?
    No, I’m talking about Germans, replied Enko with a sarcastic laugh. Germans are different.— Then he strode over to Amir and muttered in his ear.
    Stroking Mirjana’s hair, the redhaired girl Dragica said: Enko is right. Nowadays I’m always asking myself, What is the story? What is the truth? When you go to Catholic school, like I did, you hear only Croatian history, and you won’t hear what bad things Croats did under Hitler. If I live to have children, someday they’ll go to school and they won’t hear what bad things Croats did today. But I’m going to tell them: We too had bad people during the war. And I think the best thing would be to write their names, and say,
they killed.
    Isn’t that why you’re here? Vesna asked the American.
    Yes, he said, and after that more told him their stories.
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    Clenching her lips, her cigarette smoke streaming away, Mirjana took him aside and said: Write.— Then she told him how her children had died.
    He wrote. She was gazing into his face as if he could help her. He was thinking: Nothing is more important than this. I came here for this; perhaps I was born for it. If someone reads her story and then refrains from taking a life . . .
    Bitterly laughing, the poet was relating how in preparation for the siege their Serbian neighbors used to come by night to the Orthodox graveyard overlooking Bucá-Potok, in order to inter crates of shells, machine guns and sniper rifles.— Write that down, he said, and the American wrote.
    What must be concluded about that? the poet demanded. How can anyone claim there was no premeditation?
    Yes, they’ve been very intelligent in their way—
    Vesna, who heard everything, paused in her passing and said: I don’t think they are intelligent. Intelligence for me I think is that you have to be human. Intelligence, so we learn in school, is simply the ability to find a solution for unknown problems. But for me, there must be some kind of genetic memory; we must be born with certain values from previous generations. Otherwise there’s nothing. I’ve met people without any soul. They have decent homes, they have children, they have everything, but they have nothing to share. And those Chetniks up there . . .
    I want you to hand over those fucking binoculars right now, said Enko.
    You can have them at the end, I promise.
    Look. Do you want to interview Bald Man? Is that what you want?
    Sure. I’ll interview him.
    A shell