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I knew that, on the road I was taking, I could reach
Vukovar, and also Višnjići, in a few hours, but I didn’t
really know if I wanted to see either. Given that I had
never been to Slavonia, I wove a picture of Višnjići that felt
correct; imagining I’d already visited. I saw homes
scattered across a wide treeless plain; smoke billowing
out of chimneys; the warmth of active fireplaces; the
darkness broken only by lights that streamed through
windows into the rooms of peaceful residents who never
saw that November night coming. A dog barked,
summoning the Greek chorus of other village dogs, and
then it would grow quiet once more. In the distance,
someone slowly tramped home along a muddy bank
between two fields. Someone else stepped out of a house,
releasing the avian coo of children’s voices from inside,
before it disappeared again, hushed by the closing door
and overtaken by the hum of wind and crickets and the
creak of a nearby forest. It was a November evening like
thousands of November evenings before, in this non-
existent history of the village of Višnjići. But somewhere,
off on that flat horizon, the Third Corps of the Yugoslav
People’s Army, under the command of General Borojević,
slowly approached.
‘Green card, please.’