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The village of Višnjići, in eastern Slavonia, was now on my
conscience, even though I couldn’t have found it on a map. I
knew even less about what had happened there, on the
night of 13 November 1991, at a time when Dusha and I were
already living in Ljubljana. But I felt guilty all the same, and
this feeling grew stronger now that I was nearing it.
‘Anything else?’
‘Sorry? Uh, no... no thanks.’
‘Twelve kunas.’
It seemed that my time at the Javori Restaurant had come
to an end.
*
This was the first time I had come to the country of my
birth and also my first contact with Croatian citizens, if
you set aside the encounters on the streets of Ljubljana,
and the customs officer in the nice light blue uniform at
border control.
I thought of Nadia, whom I hadn’t even managed to inform
of my departure. When I set off, she was still in sweet
dreamland, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake her. I would
have been able to concoct a story that would plausibly