Four plastic chairs were set around the maroon laminated table. The door of the small café hung loose on its hinges. A grimy curtain graced the one window that still had glass in it. The other had been smashed by a stray bullet on a day long ago by a couple of drunken militiamen with a petty score to settle. They had been fighting over a woman. Their anger had been greater than their marksmanship. Vuk was drinking slivovitz. It was a bad habit. There had been a time when he hadn’t needed alcohol to get through the days, but now it did him good sometimes. He never got drunk, but it had a wonderfully soothing, numbing effect. It blanked out the images that were prone to come into his mind without warning. He had survived longer than most, and statistics said his number should be flashing up on the board any time now. He had a feeling too that the past was about to catch up on them. Those acts that, in the euphoria of victory had, in some bizarre way, seemed perfectly natural, were now turning into horrific memories that presented themselves when least expected.
