I Hate Martin Amis et al. by Peter Barry

Author:Peter Barry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transit Lounge

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Earlier this evening, I was sitting by the campfire writing my journal, when Stevan joined me. This man is not like other people. A normal person will walk up and sit down next to you, or approach with a smile and a cheerful greeting, but Stevan’s much too sly for that. He likes to circle his prey, waiting for the opportunity to sidle up unseen. My guess is that his suspicious nature makes him worry that exposing himself to view too soon may mean his overtures (the most repressed overtures I’ve ever witnessed) will be repulsed before he has a chance to put them in motion. Instead, he lopes around his prey trying to look as if he has other things on his mind, as if he has absolutely no desire to sit down next to you and chat. And then, when you’re least expecting it, he swoops.

He sat hunched up next to me, almost lying forward on his knees, taking quick, furtive glances in my direction with increasing regularity. He’s a weaselly individual with a quivering, ratlike nose, which he continually wipes with the back of his hand. Finally he spoke. ‘What are you writing?’ He was staring at the open journal on my lap.

‘About my experiences,’ I answered. ‘That’s what I’m thinking of calling it: Experiences.’

‘I hope it is favourable to us?’ He laughed nervously, but continued to study my reactions with sidelong glances.

‘Of course it is. Why should I write anything unfavourable when I’m fighting on your side?’

‘That is true.’ He said it without conviction, perhaps indoctrinated in the idea of no one in the world having anything good to say about the Serbs.

I should be more careful. Although not too many people here speak English – and among those who can, even fewer can read English – I must be careful my journal doesn’t fall into anyone’s hands.

‘You can tell the world about Tudjman and Boban. Not enough people know about them.’

‘I’m not writing this for publication, Stevan. It’s only for me. It’s like a diary. But tell me, what should the world know about those two men?’

‘They have killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs and thrown them out of their own homes. Everyone says how bad we are, but the other side, they are much worse, and no one says anything. Look at what happened at Pakrac and Ogulin. Many Serbs were slaughtered in those places. People should be told about that too.’

He took another of his sneaky looks at me and, grinning broadly to reveal a fine array of blackened, crooked teeth, launched off on a completely different subject, as if the slaughter of his people no longer concerned him. ‘I am going up to the farmhouse.’ And he quickly, almost instantly, put on a tired, satiated air, in exactly the same way that a man will choose a certain necktie in the morning to let the world know how he feels. He wore this look blatantly, proudly, as if he wanted

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