www.DrazanGunjaca.net

CHARACTERS:
PETER, YU Army captain, a Serb
MARIO, YU Army captain, a Croat
JOVICA, YU Army MP sergeant
SAFET, YU Army MP
1st CROATIAN POLICEMAN (later ANTE)
2nd CROATIAN POLICEMAN (later IVAN)
MILOJICA, Peter’s neighbor
PHYSICIAN
MEDICAL NURSE

Living room in a flat on the 4th floor of an apartment block in Pula, rather stylishly but not exactly luxuriously furnished. A settee, two armchairs, a small table and a sizeable chest of drawers with a TV set on it, showing the end of broadcasting; a flowerpot here and there in the corners.

Late September 1991, round midnight.
Peter and Mario are seated at the table, an ashtray replete with cigarette butts, a half-empty bottle of cognac and two shot glasses in front of them. On the side, two pistols, one Russian-made, the other Yugoslav-made. Peter in YU Army uniform, Mario in civilian clothes. Both tipsy. Alarm siren is heard in the distance.

PETER:
If I do decide to kill myself, how to do this ceremonious act? By hanging? Taking tablets? With the gun? Hanging sounds like a painstaking business, besides I’d need some help and there’s no one around except you. But, being a Croat, you can never understand it, so you’ll try and get yourself out of it somehow. As for the tablets, they are sort of feminine. So that leaves the gun as the right solution. Not a simple one though. If I choose the gun, which one? The official one I’m still registered with as serviceman, or my private hire-purchase acquisition with some outstanding payments still due? Is it the right thing to shoot myself with a gun not yet repaid? Then, should I do it in my uniform or in civilian clothes? If in uniform, whether in the one for festive occasions or in the army fatigue? If in the festive, whether with all the medals on it, true not very many of them, you know, those periodical ones, five-year, ten-year, for this and that, or without any? Should I shoot in the head or in the heart? The dilemma is, if you shoot in the head, the temple, I mean, you can’t screw it, with the heart you can never be sure, you can miss it, no matter how carefully you aim at the middle of it. No, with the heart you can never be sure about the outcome, even if you make the best possible preps. Unbelievable how many tiny little things you must think about, although, on the face of it, the very act looks as simple as could be, doesn’t it?

MARIO:
You know what? You Serbs are up shit creek, so that you can’t even kill yourself without making a fuss about it. PETER:
Fuck it, it ain’t that simple. You do it once in a lifetime, and for the last time for that matter, so it shouldn’t be done in a slovenly way. It should be done with some dignity, in line with that saying: The way I lived, the way I die. Finally, what is also at stake is the Serb military tradition. My grandpa fought on the Thessaloniki front for the Serb cause. My father was among the first in World War II, true, on the wrong side, with the chetniks, but then, when realizing that they were losing, he got himself transferred to the partisans, thanks to two good cronies covering him, and reached the rank of captain. If credited for his fights with the chetniks, he may have well become a general. Anyway, he wound up as a liberator so it’s my turn now. But, tell me, what the fuck should I fight for today? For which ideal, for which state?
MARIO:
For none. The states come and go on the shoulders of fools such as you and I, only that you and I are no more. There will be states, with or without you. And the ideals? The first thing you should be clear about is whether or not you truly share them, then understand that they are supposed to enrich, not destroy human lives. In the Balkans, however, there’s no ideal without victims, no matter how noble it appears to be. Now it’s up to you to decide whether you want to be victimized for ideals other than yours, or you try and save your ass. After all, you honorably served the state that gave you this uniform. But it’s not your fault that the state no longer exists. And you also reached the rank of captain, so the tradition is preserved.

PETER:
Well, you see, with the Serbs it’s not as simple as that. For a Serb the state is number one, the family number two, then honor, humanity and all the rest of it. Fuck the life without your state. And without your family. It’s in our genes. In this respect there is hardly any difference between me and my grandpa the Thessaloniki fighter. Now, all of a sudden, I’m left without a state, without a family. Is my life worth living any more? So if I knock myself out, I’ll do it as a true Serb.

MARIO:
As a true idiot, that’s a big difference. Or, at least it seems so. And yet, when I come to think about it…

PETER:
An idiot! Fine, maybe I am one, but please, can you explain something to me? I came here about twenty years ago, I came to stay in this place, I’m still sitting where I was sitting yesterday, I’m putting on clothes the same I was putting on yesterday, I’m doing what I was doing yesterday, but today I’ve become an invader. So now you tell me, as my best man and my friend, a half of our lives we’ve spent together, now you explain to me how I’ve become an invader overnight without even having moved my little finger. I haven’t attacked anybody, I haven’t shot anybody, nor do I have any intention of doing anything like it, but still, dammit, I’m an invader. How come?MARIO:
Hey, man, only this morning you were quite normal. Relatively. As far as a Serb can be normal. Then about an hour ago you call me to come, because you have to talk to somebody, and I find you stoned, well, tipsy, to be more precise, with two guns on the table and you start fucking me with questions that for hundreds of years now the sufferers here have been trying to answer, to no avail. Why have you turned into an invader? Probably because it’s altogether normal in the Balkans to be an invader for a time and a liberator for another time, without having to change your profession, or your thoughts, or your residence. Only the uniform.

PETER:
So the problem is the uniform? Then you, too, are an invader, you, too, wear the same uniform.
MARIO:
Nope, I’ve shed mine.
PETER:
How?
MARIO:
No more military barracks. Finished. The career terminated. Got away from them.
PETER:
Got away? But today we left work together.
MARIO:
I ain’t coming back there, a course of non-action I warmly recommend to you, too. Buddy, our Army is no more. Gone to hell together with the state. Now it’s time to save our heroic asses.
PETER:
So if I quit the barracks, neither I will be an invader any more?
MARIO:
And also shed your uniform, just in case. It’s not wise nowadays to walk about dressed like this.
PETER:
Fuck an invader who stops being one by simply not turning up for work. And fuck the work where today you’re a regular serviceman of this country and tomorrow an aggressor against this same country. And fuck the country with such an army.
MARIO:
That’s exactly what I’m telling you. «Gone with the wind». All what they taught us, what we taught others, all our years, all gone with the wind. But leave that aggressor stuff, buddy, tell me about your Anna, your kids. Where have they gone? It’s the fifth time I’m asking you that, but you just keep harping on the Serbs, invaders, death...
PETER:
With good reason, too, because they’ve made me lose my wife and kids. Ah, Anna, Anna (sighs)! She’s abandoned me, yes, man. Together with the kids. A package deal. It’s becoming a sort of fashion trend in the free part of Croatia, as your people call it. Getting rid of the Serb elements in a crash-course procedure, even if the elements are husbands and fathers.
MARIO:
You are exaggerating. You know Anna loves you and the kids are crazy about you. Don’t give me that crap. It’s surely something short-lived, temporary.
PETER:
Temporary? How short, how long? Until the Serbs are again allowed to pretend being normal husbands and fathers in this country? Why the hell didn’t they tell us fifteen or so years ago that you mustn’t marry a Croat girl if you are a Serb and an army officer, today we wouldn’t have any problems. How can we split the kids? By dubbing one a Serb, the other a Croat, so each can pick up his or her own? Who will get the boy, and who will get the girl? Now both sides need males, but, on the other hand, females can give birth to new heroes, so how can you make a wise choice? Besides, the boy may take after his crazy father and fall for a maiden with wrong blood corpuscles, and there you are, all hell breaks loose. That’s why my wife, always on her guard as most women are, picked up both kids and made a bolt for it, back to her parents in Dalmatia. They’ve already declared me missing in action, so as not to be pestered with unpleasant questions. The times are not good for having a Serb as a son-in-law, are they? Burying him is the easiest way out. You know what’s the one thing bothering me? Does the saying “Nothing but good about the dead” also apply to me as a Serb? Or is only a dead Serb a good Serb? Have they taken my life in an absurd traffic accident or against the wall of a military barrack when caught fleeing from the invaders to my family? And then the family, having received the news about the tragic end of their husband and father, ran for life to join their folks. That would be the likeliest scenario, wouldn’t it?
MARIO:
Buddy, you’ve gone nuts completely. Calm down, we’ll fix it somehow. Even if they’ve declared you dead, it’s only on a temporary basis.
PETER:
How can I be dead on a temporary basis? How will they reanimate me later on?
MARIO:
You’ll resurrect somehow.
PETER:
How, come? Do I look like Jesus to you?
MARIO:
In this army uniform you look more like those who stood guard by the cross. But let’s leave Jesus and the uniform, we’ll think up something. Something about you having been mistaken for another person, which happens quite often nowadays. The main thing is that Anna hasn’t gone far away – only as near as her parental home in Dalmatia. She’ll be back and everything will be all right again.
PETER:
Hey, man! Dalmatia today is further away than America yesterday. At least for the likes of me. She won’t be back, surely not soon enough. When they come back, if they ever come back, I won’t be around one way or the other. We both know that and I haven’t called you tonight to comfort me, I just wanted to have a friend at my side who will understand me. You remember, whenever we had a hard time we always ran to each other, so why not now at the end of the road? You know, at my core I am a coward.
MARIO:
Now you’re a coward? How come?
PETER:
‘Cause I have no guts to shoot myself all alone in a fourth floor desert. Not that I didn’t want to, I did – but I just can’t. Who else but you can I call? Come on, man, pour some more booze and we can have a toast or two more. I’m going to kill myself tonight.
MARIO:
You will. Tumble down dead from booze, together with me, lucky me.
PETER:
If there is a thing like reincarnation, I’ll ask the Almighty to make me in my next life a parrot somewhere in the Amazon rainforests, anything but again a specimen of homo sapiens balcanicus. What do you think, is suicide an act of courage or an act of desperation?
MARIO:
Courage will always be accompanied by despair. But once courage is gone, only despair is left.
PETER:
Can you Croats ever give a straightforward answer to a straightforward question?
MARIO:
Depends who asks the question.
PETER:
Well then, let me rephrase it. If I kill myself, will I be a brave or a desperate man in your eyes?
MARIO:
Mad, a combination of both.
PETER:
Can’t a normal man kill himself?
MARIO:
No. Unless he’s a Serb.
PETER:
Meaning that we Serbs are not normal?
MARIO:
You said that, not me.
PETER:
Are you pulling my leg, man?
MARIO:
No more, no less than you’re pulling mine.
PETER:
Fair. A bad question, a bad answer.
MARIO:
What about those rumpled papers down there in the corner?
PETER:
Which? Ah, there. I tried to write a farewell letter, but it wouldn’t work, so I gave up. In fact, realized it wouldn’t make any sense. They’d all judge you and remember you by what you’ve written, not by what you actually were and how you lived. I’d have to write a novel, not a letter, to pour out all that’s bugging me. That’s why I’d rather depart without a letter, so everybody can remember me as he likes. Why try and influence people? If I haven’t managed so far to make people have certain notions about me, this piece of paper won’t change anything. Just as Anna’s letter hasn’t changed anything between us, except that it has changed us.
MARIO:
Maybe you couldn’t write it, because you couldn’t face such a decision. ‘Cause once you write it…
PETER:
…there’s no return. Military logic. Once you make a decision, you have to carry it out, no matter what the decision is. Just imagine how miserable it’d be writing a farewell letter and then giving up, revoking the decision to depart and staying in this wretched world. Horrible!
MARIO:
You are a bit off track.
PETER:
Possibly. But let me ask you another question, this time seemingly insane.
MARIO:
You mean, others are sane.
PETER:
You really have that big Dalmatian mouth sticking out at anybody coming your way. Never mind, that’s why I like you, I guess. The question is: why do people go to war in the first place?
MARIO:
Some attack, others defend themselves. Which of them is the question aimed at?
PETER:
Those who attack, of course.
MARIO:
So the answer is: because it’s much easier and faster to seize something from others than work hard to come by it. That’s how it goes since the dawn of man, only methods are changing.
PETER:
But in this case, who’s seizing from whom?
MARIO:
Whoever gets a chance to.