begin to think I can hear wolves howHngrnacross the snowy fields. I’he English anclrnAmericans begin talking, despondently,rnof Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, butrnthe Poles rise to the occasion. It is only atrntliis moment that I realize what a strangernand wonderful people the Poles are.rnWhile the rest of us are practicing thernfine art of the whine, they are laughing,rntelling fanciful tales, bantering with arnlanguage in which the absurd meets thernsublime, hi a moment, we are all laughingrntogether like idiots and slogging mcrril)-rnback to the seminary, where we drinkrnevery last drop of wine and liquor werncan lav our hands on.rnThe unseasonable storm has paralyzedrnthe resources of posteommunism,rnand the only plow I have seen was clearingrnthe snow in front of the parliamentrnbuilding. Smiling clerks cannot find myrnfaxed messages; ears fail to materialize;rneven the telephones go on the fritz; andrnI find it easy to make generalizationsrnabout Homo yugoslariemis.rnHere in the cathedral, though, is arnreal Croatia, pious and possessed of arnsober dignity not untinged by mysticism,rnand I remember something LouisrnFrankopan told me. The Frankopans arernamong the most ancient Dalmatianrnfamilies and provided the last (I believe)rnnatie Ban. Count Frankopan remarkedrnthat Croatia was important to Europernas a Catholic nation that incorporatedrnsome of the nwsticism of the Easternrnchurch, and at this moment 1 see that itrnis precisely in religion that the Serbs andrnCroats arc most closely bound.rnI have great difficulty following thernbishop’s remarks. lie says a number ofrnnice tilings about O.K. Chesterton, beforerngoing on to a subject closer to hisrnheart, the president of the PaneuropeanrnUnion, Otto von I lapsburg. The latestrnHapsburg, who has renounced thernthrone, is present to read some of thernlessons and prayers, and the bishop paysrna moving tribute to his “koniglich, kaiserlichrnlioheit.” How many Croats sharernthis enthusiasm for the royal and imperialrnhighness, a poor Jeffersonian suspiciousrnof princes has no way of knowing,rnbut here in this cathedral, in a servicernwhose form and language once bound allrnEuropean man together, in the presencernof the last claimant to a throne that representedrnan order both holy and Roman,rn1 marvel, almost in tears, at how muchrnblood was shed, how manv cities ruined,rnhow manv insane projects erected uponrnthe bones of Christian peasants and merchantsrnin this terrible century, which forrnme, here in Zagreb, is closing on thernlong reverberating note of an organ playingrnmusic composed long ago somewherernin Christendom.rnThomas Fleming is editor of Chronicles.rnLetter From Bosniarnby Momcilo SelicrnThe Serbs of Ozren Mountainrn”Let me marr)- / Or buy me a banjo / ForrnI must pluck / At something!” singsrnMilosli Dragichevitch, a Serb fromrnOzren Mountain in Bosnia. Milosh is arn50-year-old whose eyes twinkle darkly asrnhe laughs at jokes about Serbs and Turks,rnmade up by someone diabolical, somewherernin Bosnia. “Two Red Berets,” hernsays, “come upon the border crossingrnwith the ‘Federal Republic of Yugosla’ia’rnand ask whether all three of them mustrnshow their papers. ‘Which three of you?’rnasks the border guard, ‘when I see onlyrntwo?’ ‘But,’ savs one of the Red Berets,rn’what about Hassan here?’ and he takesrnout the severed head of a Muslim fromrnhis traveling bag.”rnThe Ozren Serbs laugh, and VaskersiyernPetkovitch strums his long-necked mandolin,rncalled a shargiya, spinning off arnfast, furious, angry Ozren Serb tunernsmacking of bagpipes and dark, dark bygones.rn”All their tunes,” wrote Sir ArthurrnEvans (the discoverer of M’cenae) ofrnBosnian Serbs in 1875, “are contaminatedrnby the accursed bagpipes, even if thatrninstrument has—over time—been transformedrninto others!”rnAs for the severed “Turk” head mentionedrnin Milosh Dragicheviteh’s joke, itrnis entirely possible: Red Berets, a crackrnSerb unit, have been known to sneakrninto Muslim trenches and carve up theirrnoccupants. Red Berets, young, disciplined,rndeadlv warriors initially trainedrnb the mvsterious Captain Dragan at arnKraina training camp, have scores to settle,rnlong left untended.rnMilosh Dragichevitch, whom I havernknown since college, first told me thernstory of Mitcho Stupar, our friend whornalways smiled like a wistful bov. Blond,rnpale Stupar never talked much, butrnMilosh told me that Stupar had seen hisrnwhole family—seven brothers and sisters,rnhis father and his mother—rnbutchered with knives by the Croat andrnMuslim Ustashi back in 1943. A child ofrnseven then (and a diplomatic official ofrnYugoslavia today), Stupar ran off intornthe forest and slept in a hollow tree forrnseven days and nights. Stupar is now divorced,rnbecause his second wife, like hisrnfirst, could not stand his screams whenrnhe dreamt of his parents and siblings.rnThough I have known Milosh for closernto 30 years, it took the renewed Serbo-rnMuslim-Croat war for him to tell me ofrnhis father, whom the Croat and MuslimrnUstashi, many from the neighboringrntown of Crachanitza, collected in thernspring of 1942 and sent to Jasenovac, thernCroat death eamp. “I dream of my father,”rnsays Milosh, “though I don’t rememberrnhis face. I dream of him morernand more, as I grow older. The memoryrndoes not fade—my father’s face hasrnstarted to twitch, and move, to comernalive from his wedding photograph.”rn”The Ustashi,” he says seriously, “are losingrntheir faces, which I have always, in myrndreams, seen as the faces of the Muslimsrnfrom across the river. They are becomingrnmere walking slabs of flesh, with red, rawrnbutchers’ fingers and white aprons, overrntheir black, spotless SS uniforms.”rnMilosh is a kind and gentle man, an arehitectrnwhom I can’t imagine gettingrnangry; his face, however, for a momentrnappears rock hard and his eyes glint likernblack, polished granite before he remembersrnhimself and smiles. Like mostrnOzrcnians, he smiles like a child caughtrndaydreaming. I lis other nightmares hernkeeps to himself, as he has kept the storyrnof his father’s death from me for threerndecades.rnThe Commandant at Vozutcha, arnSerb village at the very southern tip ofrnOzren Mountain, is an unsmiling man,rnbut then he’s not an Ozrenian. He’srnfrom Banovitchi, a small Muslim townrnnot far off, from which he escaped inrnMarch 1992, a month before the BloodyrnWedding of Sarajevo on April 6.rnApril 6 for the Serbs is the same asrnPearl Harbor Day for the Americans. OnrnApril 6, 1941, my mother was awakenedrnby the Nazi bombing of Belgrade, thernworst after Rotterdam and Warsaw.rnApril 6, 1941, was when it all started:rnMilosh’s silence and Mitcho Stupar’srnnightmares and the Commandant’srngrandfather’s renewed battle with thern38/CHRONICLESrnrnrn