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Filipovski announced that Muzirović had left the
barracks, drunk, shouting ‘I’m gonna fuck fishing pimps
and their pimpy fish,’ whatever that meant, but Filipovski
knew what would happen next. Instead of going to the
train station, Borojević was forced to sprint to the
Fisherman’s Shed Restaurant, to intercept a disaster of
wide and resounding social dimensions. This meant that
Dusha Podlogar was left without a rose and a thorn-
scratched hand for the first time and was abandoned that
evening, like a lost little girl, with her two small suitcases
on Platform 2.
Who knows if it was because she had nowhere else to go,
or simply because Dusha Podlogar was the way she was
but, after waiting an hour, Borojević’s ‘Slovenian girl’
marched directly to the barracks. She stormed past the
guards, as decisively as a military parade, and almost
bumped into Lieutenant Borojević and Colonel Barac as
they jointly supported the dead drunk and snoring
Captain Muzirović. When he saw Dusha, Borojević
dropped the captain in astonishment, so that he fell to the
floor, which did little to sober him up. Barac thought
Dusha was a lost tourist, and was about to step forward
and direct her to the nearest hotel, when she spoke.
‘Nedelko, marry me. For God’s sake.’
At this, Captain Muzirović began to shout from the
ground that no one should mention God in the barracks