The Politics of Exile (Interventions) by Elizabeth Dauphinee

Author:Elizabeth Dauphinee [Dauphinee, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135135195
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-02-10T18:30:00+00:00

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Stojan sat on the edge of his dead brother's bed in a haze of incomprehension. He was trying to make some sense of how it had come to pass that Luka, who had sought refuge in Belgrade, had been killed and he, who had been sent up to a front line almost immediately, had stayed alive. He tried to think about a possible answer to this question, but there was none. His brain just seemed to stutter over the ground of every attempt to make sense of anything, and he could see no possible explanation.

The fear in his belly that afternoon when his father came out with the letter requesting Stojan's presence at the front line above Višegrad had grown until it blotted out almost everything else he might have wanted to think about or feel. In the personnel carrier that carried him the hour-and-a-half run to Višegrad, Stojan stared at the eleven other men in the truck and felt a novel fear staining what had up until then been disbelief. He could feel it overtaking him. His hands were sweating and he wiped them in what he hoped was a nonchalant motion across his camouflaged thighs. He sighed deeply, and looked out the canvas flap of the personnel carrier at the little squares of Bosnia that were rolling by—a republic that was now a country.

There were many long tunnels on the road to Višegrad; endless, seamless tubes of empty black, airless space blown deep through the Bosnian bedrock. They were so long and so full of that blackness that even the headlights on the personnel carriers were incapable of adequately illuminating the surrounding tunnel. They produced little puddles of light directly on the asphalt in front of them, but the tunnel walls were not discernible, and the light seemed to end abruptly against the unnerving density of that dark. Stojan grew more and more claustrophobic as the blackness of each tunnel enveloped them, and before they had passed through the third tunnel, he felt a wash of cold sweat break out across the flesh of his chest.

“What's with all the fucking tunnels?” he finally blurted out to no one in particular.

Some of the men laughed. “What? Are you worried about having an accident?” one asked.

“No,” Stojan answered. “It's just fucked up.”

“What you really have to worry about is whether or not some fucking Turkish sniper might be waiting for us at the other end of one of these tunnels,” said another.

“Shut the fuck up!” someone said sharply.

Stojan gritted his teeth against the tunnels and wrapped his hands tightly around his rifle.

When they arrived behind the lines, the man sitting beside Stojan said to him, “Get ready, cousin.”

Stojan looked at him quizzically.

The seatmate, who looked to be just a little older than Stojan, studied his face and nodded. “You'll get used to it soon. If you stay alive, that is.” He smiled, but there was nothing amused in either his voice or his face.

Stojan was processed in a barn that

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