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It was calmer on the third floor. One door was labelled
Vukmirović & Kebo, while opposite lived Dr Mehmed
Dizdar. I was pretty sure I could eliminate these, too. I
was pretty sure that Nedelko had lived or, I hoped,
continued to live, alone in Brčko, and I was even more
certain that he would not know how to play the role of
a doctor, even if he had been taught role-playing at a
military academy for years. So I continued up the stairs
towards the screaming, hustling, bustling Ćubrilo family,
while Vasa Đorđić’s door opposite sounded more
promising. I approached but couldn’t hear anything aside
from the jungle of the Ćubrilo family, with someone
calling out for Zorica, and Zorica shouting that she was
coming right away. On the top floor, the Babić family had
pots of fresh flowers around their threshold, while a
bunch of newspapers had piled up on the doormat of the
Zdravković family. I checked the dates, and they were
recent – dailies from last week.
I wondered if a runaway general might still live in one of
these apartments? I narrowed it down to three: the
Mitrović and Zdravković apartments, which seemed
occupied, and the Đorđić apartment, which appeared
possibly vacant. The thought that I might be a few steps
away from my dead, but now raised, father made my head
spin, and I realized
just how nervous and ill prepared I
was to meet him. A cold liquid surged through me, and I
had the urge to run out of the shabby building and lock
myself inside the car. I decided that Nedelko didn’t live