World War III was what was happeningrnriglit now, but onlv the Palians andrnMarkan and the Jahorina soldiers knewrnit: not e’en mv friends in Belgrade werernaware of it, let alone anvone in Austria,rniMigland, or the States. Confident thatrndestiny eould be either outwitted orrnfinessed awav, thev all tended to theirrnbusiness, like ants in an anthill in thernpath of a grader. God was breathingrnhard down our neeks in that dark, mossy,rndug-up forest, and there was lead on ourrnminds, in our hearts, in our magazines,rnand in the barrels of our rifles. Lead forrnour enemies and lead for our souls, leadrnto write some more history with—rna narrative of That Whieh Does NotrnChange.rn”History,” said Zharko Vidoyiteh, anrnaging Bosnian Serb friend of mine,rn”is the shape that God pereeives usrnin, while ehange is what men (mostlyrnfools) talk about, forgetting all aboutrnthe moleeular and subatomie to-andfrornin our ovyn bodies!” Vidovitch, ofrneourse, had smiled when he said that, asrnhe always smiled, a survivor of the CroatrnJasenovac death eamp in 1941. He hadrneseaped from an SS work camp in Norwayrnand made his way to Sweden, wherernhe—a ‘oung, prewar communist—rnstudied theology, but his beatific, gentlernsmile onlv underlined his knowledgernthat Yugoslavia, Bosnia, I .eadstone werernall outposts of the Devil, triumphant onrnhis way toward his (and our) ruin. Vidovitch,rnI suppose, could not reallyrnbeliee in the futility—or the finality—rnof anything: after imprisonment in arncommunist jail (for having returned tornTito’s Yugoslavia from the West), hernhad become an Orthodox Christianrntheologian, contemplative of the pitfallsrnwe have dug for ourselves, our own worstrnenemies.rnMarkan, the butcher, had buried hisrnfather after the Muslims had murderedrnhim at the beginning of the war (whenrnChristianne Ainanpour of CNN wasrnpouring out her award-winning sobrnstories about the Serb bombardmentrnand “strangling” of Sarajevo), but unlikernVido’itch, he was of military age andrncould fight back with more than merernwords. For Markan’s wisdom lav in thernway he bounded down the hillside, likerna large, quiet cat, silent in his rubberrnopanci. With his Serbian peasant’s foragerncap and the silver, doubleheadedrnSerb eagle on it, his peasant footgearrn(opanci—somewhat like moccasins) on-rn1 cmpha.sized his kinship with the soil.rnMarkan sported no knives, bandoliers,rnor grenades, only a well-worn automaticrnrifle; he was a walking, breathing statementrnthat the “Turks” could but die, forrnall the need he—or the woods, or evenrnI,eadstone itself—had of them.rnMarkan could have remained in Sarajevornand shared the fate of some of itsrnremaining Serbs: spat upon, bullied,rnhounded, or murdered by their formerrnfriends, neighbors, and compatriots (nornone was more “Yugoslav” before this warrnthan Bosnian Muslims), Sarajevo Serbsrnserved only as Izetbegovic’s token Christians,rnin a state sponsored by world Islamrnand underwritten by Western renegades,rnsimilar to the “Prankish” gunmakcrsrnwho cast the cannon with which SultanrnMehmed the Concjucror had takenrnConstantinople.rnMarkan, however, knew no history, hernonly lived it, faithful to his forebears. Forrnhim, his father, and his father’s father,rnall the way back to the 15th century,rndespite all efforts by men who wouldrndisguise depravity as freedom of choice,rnthere never was any way out of the obligationsrnof his manhood and his identity:rnothers eould turn infidel out of fear or inrnsearch of profit, but the Markovitchirncould but remain the same, a part ofrnthat personal history that Zharko Vidovitchrntalked about, when he smiled,rnremembering all his losses.rnVidovitch’s father was killed in WorldrnWar II by Croat and Muslim Vstase—rnthe fathers and grandfathers of today’srnCroat and Muslim combatants—and hisrnonly son and three other nationally consciousrnSerb youths were killed in a suspiciousrnautomobile “accident” shortlyrnbefore this war, yet Vidovitch knew thatrnnothing had ever been different: his father,rna large, corpulent hero of the SalonikarnFront during World War I, wasrnbutchered like a hog because he was arnSerb and an official of the “Yugoslav”rngovernment, and that also was history,rnso far allowable only to the nations ofrnthe West in their might, glory, and vanity,rnbut never to us, their Balkan ancestors.rnFor the Irish, among others, had comernfrom “Greek Seythia,” the Celts in generalrnhad gone elsewhere from Bosnia afterrnsacking Delphi, and the Goths hadrnfirst crossed the Danube before lashingrnout over the Dnieper, or the Rhine. Thernmen of Jahorina, Serbs of the RomaniarnMountain, citizens of the Pale, the firstrnLygians of Gibbon (that is, of Tacitus,rnPtolemy, and others), had long agornabandoned their screaming night attacks,rnbut during the day, dressed inrncamouflage uniforms and armed withrnfire-sticks, they kept the spark alive, thernliving measure of the European man’srnpower and valor, whieh both built andrndestroyed Rome, Berlin, and Byzantium,rnafter having founded and sacked Troyrnand Mycenae.rnRomania, of course, was a latter-dayrnname, only two thousand years old. ThernMountain was huge, like Durmitor (ThernSleeping Tower) in Montenegro, homernof gods and heroes whose name hadrnbecome Serb, as had mine. Lygii, orrnLuzhani (the men of Lugh, or lug, thernforest people, the Lusatians) were stillrnmaintaining their shape in the eyes ofrnGod, the same way their huge, sinewy,rnpowerful limbs retained their savagern(though bridled) fury, their blood andrnall its biological and other servomechanismsrnpatching their hideous wounds,rnopened up by shrapnel, bullets, shells,rnrockets, NATO bombs, and—worst ofrnall—by lies, heaped thick upon them,rnlike a snowstorm before a Muslim attack.rnThe Romanians fired their riflerngrenades from their shoulders, disdainingrnto dig the butts of their weapons intornthe ground or lash the straps aroundrntheir upper arms to lessen the recoil. Forrnall the screams of “Allah akbarl” aroundrnthem, they kept silent, answering onlyrnwith lead, like a singing palisade. ThernPale was being threatened, and they, thernfrontiersmen, eould but hold it—therncountry beyond the pale was good onlyrnfor Latins, Turks, or Krauts, and theyrngave not a hoot for such a dominion, respectingrnthe Almighty’s wish. Serb landrnwas the reclaimed country of Lugh, therngod of arts and promise, while Krautland,rnor Croatland, could groan under itsrnpeople, like an overburdened raft, uponrna mire.rnThe Muslims, I felt, were a disease,rnand claiming they were the same as us—rnor the same as Americans, for that matterrn—was an outrage, much the samernas talking of the Koran as an equivalentrnof our Bible. If the Koran—a ClassicsrnIllustrated version of our creed—was thernpeer of the Old and the New Testament,rnthen Romania Serbs were the same asrnBushmen, or Hottentots, and their blue,rngreen, or brown eyes held the samernpromise of doom and despair as the besotted,rnfrantic eyes of Western burghers,rnwhose only hope lay in their possessions.rnOf course, after the first four years ofrnAPRIL 1995/39rnrnrn