Email from Elena:
Have you been hanging out with anyone in Banja Luka besides Milica? You mentioned Marko.
When Elena sends an email, it usually means she wants a story. A real one, or if there’s no real one, then made up one. This time, I had a real one, and I think she either suspected or overheard something from Milica.
I replied to the email:
Yes. You’re probably talking about VGA.
I’ve hung out with them. We went to a few bars. They always had interesting outings. But luckily, I was working, and I spent some time in Greece, so it wasn’t that interesting to me.
I don’t know where to start telling you from. Maybe I should start with the most interesting character—Cindy. There’s this girl, young girl, maybe seventeen now. She just moved here. I don’t know where she’s from. Her behavior is a bit unusual. She has a lot of men in her life. Almost all the ones I know there.
Now, where do “we” fit into this story? It turns out that Goran is in some weird open relationship with this young lady. He would never say she’s his girlfriend, and he’s not the type to want an emotional connection with her or anything like that. Still, he spent a lot of time with Cindy, definitely more than anyone else. At the same time, he was kind of her manager. Guys would approach him to set up meetings with her or take her to a party.
(I’ve deleted a few paragraphs about Cindy’s adventures because I later decided it was “not for Elena’s ears.”)
I… can’t really describe those scenes to you. I don’t even know how to put it. In short, they were all with her. Like… in the same evening, and there was her crying. Unexpected events. I never would’ve guessed it could all play out that way, that they would find it interesting. Then two police officers almost ran into them with her, at the end of one night, when one of her lowest episodes was going on, when she was crying. It was near a market. The police officers were heading towards Incel1, and they thought someone sent them.
Next to the market, there’s a flea market and parking lot. I remember that in second grade, Alexander and I collected a lot of empty boxes we found next to the market, which wasn’t open that day. We tossed the boxes all over the half-empty parking lot, jumped on our bikes, and started riding over them. Whenever I got close to a box, I would lift the front wheel and crush it. Soon, the parking lot was spotted with crushed cardboard boxes. Every time we destroyed a box, it gave us satisfaction, but some stayed intact. Mom saw us from the window and sent us inside. It was May 4th2. That was an aggravating circumstance for our crime.
During and after the war, the market stood empty, and sometimes when I see it like that, I feel a little guilty for the damage I caused earlier.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this about the market. Now that I think about it, it has nothing to do with the story.
Anyway… first night out with Veljko, Goran, and Alexander this summer. We went to a new bar in Nova Varoš, a real dive where alcoholics hang out. We went there “because the owner’s nice, he occasionally sends a round, sits with us, drinks, and shares his stories.” The owner, DraganÄŤe, moved here a few years ago and opened the bar. We were sitting there when they told me the whole story about Cindy. All I could think of was an internal comment in my head, like in Championship Manager when game comments change:
“You’re twenty-two years old and you’re scared of a random encounter with the police.”
Soon, the owner, Draganče, joined us. Draganče was a successful entrepreneur who ran a family business. His wife and sister-in-law worked at the bar. Even though it was a shabby place, business was booming. The steady income came from regular customers who drank there from the morning. We sat there a few more times, even during the day. When you see a disoriented, worn-out person dragging themselves down the street, you know they’ll stop there. Once, we briefly sat at Draganče’s and heard an interesting story from a guest complaining to his friend at the table. He said:
“My wife told me not to stay sober today because her mom is visiting. She said I can drink freely tomorrow. You see, it’s already noon, and this is my second beer… it is hardly going to happen…”
DraganÄŤe first told us his war story. When the war started, he was twenty-three. He was mobilized, but not against his will. You could see he was fascinated by the range of possibilities that came with his new role as a soldier, a man in uniform with weapons. He took on military duties with much enthusiasm, trying to get the best weapon. However, he admitted that after the first battles, he realized the war was much more serious than he thought. We listened to where DraganÄŤe had been from ’92 to ’95. When the war ended, there was no need to shoot at people or throw bombs. DraganÄŤe took home a rifle with a lot of ammunition—illuminating, explosive, regular… and about ten bombs, just in case. He used all that ammunition to relax.
In the first post-war years, there were many NATO forces in Bosnia responsible for implementing the Dayton Agreement that stopped the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These forces were officially named IFOR, and later rebranded as SFOR. They really didn’t like the shooting in the air, which was still common locally at the time.
One time, Draganče fired an illuminating grenade and lit up the whole village. The sight was spectacular. But such a prominent event attracted the attention of IFOR and brought NATO soldiers to Draganče’s village. That’s when house searches started in suspicious areas. Draganče had saved the illuminating grenade for the end, having fired everything else; all he had left was a rifle with two magazines and two bombs.
DraganÄŤe hid the rifle in a barn full of corn and hid the bombs under the mattress of the crib where his two-month-old daughter slept. They would never look there.
I listened in disbelief. So far I thought I heard everything, but obviously that was not the case.
Elena sent a short response.
VGA is deprecated. You need something more advanced, but not SVGA, that is Sidni and VGA.
1 Local factory.
2 The date of death of the president Tito in former Yugoslavia.
