Free Diary of Interrupted Days by Dragan Todorovic

the madmen on the other side, and there are plenty of them. Third, I am your commander. Wake up now, but stay silent, and keep your headslow. We are about to cross the river. You will get ammunition on the other side and then we will continue on foot for several miles. No talking until I tell you. No lighters or cigarettes. We are entering the war zone and joking around could cost you your life. All clear? Good. We’ll head out in five minutes.”
    The canvas fell, cutting off a piece of night and leaving it inside.
    It was half past four when they got to their camp, which consisted of a group of tents in a glade deep in the forest on the Croatian side of the Danube. Pap ordered several of them to stand guard and sent the rest to sleep. Like the others, Johnny fell asleep in his uniform.
    He did not know how long he’d been out when someone shook his shoulder, but judging by the weight of his eyelids, it was probably no more than a couple of hours. In silence, they were led out of the camp. Johnny could hear the distant crowing of roosters. Two hours later, they came to a small clearing around a shack and Pap gave them the at-ease signal. Most of them sat down under the trees, laid their equipment on the ground, and tried to get some more sleep. Pap and the two sergeants who had joined them went into the shack and stayed there.
    Johnny had an idea where they were. When he was in high school, he had played at a festival where he met a girl with whom he’d had a brief long-distance relationship. She lived in Beli Manastir, a small town that had to be nearby. That meant they were in a pocket close to the Hungarian border. He tried to remember if he had heard somethingabout the fighting in this area. Perhaps it was true what Pap had said, that they were here only for security.
    He found a spot at the edge of the clearing, behind a birch tree, and soon fell asleep again.
    He woke up around noon to the cawing of a crow in the tree above him. As soon as he moved it flew away. He tried to remember where he was, and why, and found a wobbly answer for the first question only. Some of his platoon were awake, sitting around in small groups. There were new people among them, all dressed in black uniforms, all cleanly shaven with military haircuts, and Kalashnikovs. Some special unit. Then he noticed that some of them wore sneakers. Some had bandanas. Paramilitaries?
    Johnny got up, stretched, brushed the leaves off his uniform, and went to the shack. He knocked.
    “Come in!” barked a voice from behind the door.
    Pap was sitting at the table in the corner. One of the sergeants was making coffee on a small burner, and the other was cleaning his gun. A fourth man was sitting with Pap at the table. He wore battle fatigues and had black aviator sunglasses on the top of his head. He looked vaguely familiar.
    “Hello, gentlemen,” Johnny said. One of the sergeants nodded in his direction.
    “I wanted to talk to you, Captain,” Johnny said to Pap.
    “What about?”
    “It’s private.”
    “There is not much privacy in war, I’m afraid,” Pap said.
    “I am—”
    “I know who you are.”
    Johnny remained silent.
    “You are here by mistake. Or, wait, perhaps we were not allowed to bring you here?” Pap waited for Johnny to nod, and when he did not, the captain’s face relaxed slightly. “Would you like a coffee, Johnny? Come, join us.”
    Pap pushed a chair over with his boot, and Johnny took it. He waited to be introduced, but Pap had no such intention. A sergeant brought the coffee to their table and poured it into three metal cups. There was a long silence.
    “I’ve seen a few new people outside,” Johnny said.
    “Locals. We’re here to help them.”
    Silence.
    “What’s the time, artist?” Pap said.
    “I don’t have a watch, Captain.”
    “Forgot it at home when you went to war. I see.”
    “I never went to war.”
    “Don’t get entangled in nuances. The war came to you, as it did to us. It always does. So, if