"As Flies to Wanton Boys," the story that follows appeared ten years ago as my first submission to the Nifty Archive. Its 46 pages are still there: www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/divine-neglect under the title "Divine Neglect" for readers who want to consume the whole thing in one sitting. That version has now been slightly edited and revised into shorter takes.
Because several readers in 1999 and since were unhappy about the way "Divine Neglect" ended, the author had planned to post a sequel. Having received only one feedback comment in the weeks since the first chapter appeared, however, he is reconsidering that decision since there seems to be next-to-no interest in the story.
[DISCLAIMER: The following completely fictional story, the sole copyright for which belongs to the author and translator, contains explicit depictions of sex between men and should not, therefore, be read by anyone under the legal age of consent in whatever jurisdiction or by anyone offended by homoerotic and/or pornographic material. It is forbidden to post the text electronically or disseminate it in any manner without permission of the copyright holders. The author welcomes comments which the translator, -- park517@aol.com -- will forward at his discretion.]
DIVINE NEGLECT Chapter Seven
I devised a plan as we trotted to company headquarters -- my battered motorcycle wouldn't start -- and I rehearsed it as our overcrowded bus crawled to Pristina along cratered roads through ghost-haunted, burned villages and as I said good-bye to Voinovic, Stankovic and Makaveyev, all of them headed home with the battalion. My idea was to persuade the Germans that an Albanian-speaker who knew the countryside and some of what had happened in it would be a genuine asset to their mission. They agreed, or rather Colonel Haffengot, the tall, blond, Prussian officer to whom I reported, agreed.
"It's a good idea, lieutenant," he said, "but you're not the first to have it. We have a full complement of English-speaking Albanian refugees on the roster already, and I'm sure you'll understand that the recommendation of a Yugoslav Army officer is not likely to weigh heavily in our decisions on matters of personnel." He gave me a cold, blue-eyed stare of total distrust, and I knew that it would be useless to protest.
"Thank you, sir," I squared my shoulders and tried to look military. "I understand completely. I am responsible for the young man though and I need to arrange a place for him to stay. His entire family was killed and their home burned so he has nowhere to go. If I could have a few days free, I'll try to find someone here in Pristina to take him in or escort him to my parents in Montenegro."
The colonel looked at his wrist-watch and then at me. "I can give you two hours and fifteen minutes, lieutenant," he said. "At 1830 hours this headquarters will move to Djakovica. By helicopter. You are now part of this command. You will move with it. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir." I saluted and, in near despair, hurried out to the street where Rifat was waiting. Mirko was with him. The corporal had decided to activate his 15-day pass in Kosovo and make his way home through Montenegro where an old girl friend lived. He was now my last hope. "Mirko," I ran up to him. "I can't do anything for Rifat here. Could he travel with you? My parents live in Cetinje. I'm sure they'll take him in."
"What about you?" Rifat interjected. "I want to be with you, Mitya."
"And I want to be with you, but in about two hours I'm being taken to Djakovica, and there's no room in the helicopter for Albanians who have friends in the Yugoslav military. I'm sorry." I clutched his arm. "Hell, that's not the word for it. I'm devastated. But, Rifat, my mother and father will like you, and you'll like them. My father taught history. And it's safe there. This assignment won't last for ever. I'll be with you soon."
"Rifat," Mirko weighed in. "I'd be grateful for the company. I'll look out for you if you'll look out for me. This part of Greater Serbia is about to be a somewhat uncomfortable place for Serbs, especially in uniform."
The boy turned back to me, a look of total misery on his face. "I could get to Djakovica," he said. "It isn't that far."
"But where would you stay?" I asked. "I don't even know what I'll be doing there or for how long. Rifat, please, this is so hard. Don't make it harder. I'll come to you as soon as I can, or I'll work something out so that you can come to me. Please."
He bit his lip. His eyes filled, but they didn't overflow. And he nodded. I put my hands on his shoulders. "It'll be all right," I whispered to him. "It won't be long. I promise."
Rifat knew the way to the bus station. He had visited Pristina with his mother on several futile trips to see cancer specialists. And we were able to buy tickets for him and Mirko to Pec where they would connect to a bus to Montenegro. Even though the tickets were for scheduled service, the motherly clerk warned that the roads were in bad shape and the vehicles overcrowded. "If you haven't got a sleeping bag," she said to Mirko, "you'd better buy one. Nothing's working the way it did in the old days."
Mirko thanked her and gave Rifat a wink. "I've got a sleeping bag, kiddo," he said. "Big enough for two at a pinch."
"No pinching," I said, pretending to be jealous. "No pawing. Those are orders."
"Yes, lieutenant, sir," Mirko snapped me a mock salute.
Rifat gave a wan smile. He was still desolate. To distract him, I gave him some money to buy food both for an immediate meal and for the road. At a kiosk I bought writing paper and an envelope and found a bench in the bustling gloom of the station where I could compose a hasty letter to my parents. I told them my news, introduced Rifat as a war orphan I had helped and asked them to take care of him until I could get home. "He is very bright and quick and has excellent manners," I wrote, "but he has just lost all of his family, and his moods can cycle unpredictably from adolescent high spirits to the depths of depression. Please be patient with him. I will be with you as quickly as possible."
I signed the letter and started to fold it. Then I added two sentences. "P.S. If Petar has some free time, maybe he could teach Rifat to play tennis. He wants to learn."
Petar, a cousin and a friend, was not only a very good tennis player but a notorious Don Juan. He might well help Rifat find a willing girl. I wanted to be sure that the boy I loved sampled other kinds of love before he tied his fate to me I did not really doubt the outcome, but I did not want him torn some day by regrets for experiences he had never had.
I had finished the letter and put my parents' address and telephone number on the envelope when Rifat and Mirko returned carrying greasy cevapcici [spicy pork kebabs - Trans.], bottles of warm beer and a sack of oranges. "Don't sneer," Mirko warned me. "These things cost an arm and a leg. Someone is getting very rich off this war, and it isn't me."
We ate and drank in silence, Rifat with his eyes cast down, making no response other than a shrug of his shoulders as Mirko teased him about the sins he was committing by swallowing pork and alcohol. "You two are not exactly sparkling company," the corporal said as he finished and got up. "If you'll excuse me, I'll take a walk and give my digestive system a chance to survive."
Grateful for his tact, I gave him a look of thanks. He gave me a wink and disappeared. Rifat turned to me and clutched both my hands in his. "This is awful, Mitya, awful," he groaned. "I can't do it. I can't leave you. We've only had two days together. Don't go. Please, don't go. You're all I have in the world." The color of burnished pewter, his eyes filled again and this time overflowed. He put his head down on my knees and sobbed.
I freed my hands and began to rub his neck and back. "Sweetheart, my beloved boy," I murmured, "every minute away from you is going to be an hour of terrible pain and longing for me. I can't believe that I could become so close to someone in such a short time, but you are now my world and my life.
"But I can't disobey these orders. I hope my father can use his influence to get me released quickly. But we can't count on that. We have to be realistic. And once this is over, we'll never be apart again. I promise. I want to see what you'll look like naked and brown with a big mustache on that beautiful face of yours."
Rifat raised his head and wiped his forearm over his tear-streaked cheeks. "You are my world, too, Mitya, and my life." He tried to smile but only grimaced. "I know this is the only way, but I'm so scared. I told you last night that I love you because you love me. You didn't just save me from being killed. You saved me from being alone. Now, I will have to be alone again, and I don't know how I can live like that. With the nightmares. With the fear and the shame."
He stopped abruptly and clutched me. "I'm afraid, Mitya. I'm a coward." His tears began again.
I pulled away and gave him a quick, stinging slap on the cheek. "Stop it," I said. "Stop right now, Rifat. You're not a coward. You're not a baby. You're the strong, wonderful, beautiful young man I adore. You won't be alone. There's Mirko. And my parents. And I've asked them to introduce you to a cousin of mine, a tennis player. You'll meet new people. You'll have fun. Your ghosts won't go away, but you'll learn to control them. And I'll be in your thoughts all the time, just the way you'll be in mine."
He looked at me with hurt astonishment. "Why did you hit me?"
"Why did you bite me?"
"So you wouldn't go off." He thought for a moment and laughed. "Oh, I love you so much, your brutishness. Can I demonstrate one of my hugs?"
"Please do. That would make me very happy."
We wrapped our arms tight around each other and in silence laid our heads on each other's shoulders. Finally, Rifat spoke. "This model hug comes with a special kiss." He brought his face to mine and rubbed our noses together.
"Thank you, Mitya," he said. "Thank you for loving me enough to hit me when I was being a fool. I'll be all right now. I'll be strong and brave like a good Muslim boy."
I looked at him and tried to believe him and to believe that I could be strong and brave, too. "My sweet Muslim love, can I give you something to keep for me until we're together again?" I reached behind my neck and undid the chain my mother had given me. "Would you wear this, even with the cross?"
He took it from me and put it around his neck. His eyes grew liquid again. "I'm not going to cry," he said. "I'm not." He took a deep breath. "Mitya, I have nothing of my own to give you, but I did save something to remind me of how we met."
He dug into a shopping bag that held, I thought, only the few clothes I'd bought for him the day before. From it, though, he handed me a grimy piece of studded leather. It was the dog collar I'd taken off his neck before washing him under the pump. I shuddered slightly at the memory it brought back.
"You don't have to wear it," he tried to smile. "But if you carry it in your pocket, maybe you won't forget me right away."
It was my turn to fight back tears. "I won't forget you soon," I stood up, "or ever. I will be thinking of you every minute of every day and I will probably be so inefficient that the Germans will send me away. If I don't go to them, though, right now, they will have me shot for desertion. Goodbye, Rifat. Be strong. Be brave. Be the boy I love."
I bent to embrace him, but he stopped me. He stood, took my right hand and put it to his lips, then to his breast and finally, bowing slightly, to his forehead. He looked up at me. "Goodbye, your honor," he said. "That is the way a good Muslim boy says farewell to someone he respects and loves. I will be waiting for you."
I turned and hurried out of the station, almost running into Mirko in the doorway. "Take care of yourself, corporal," I said, "and of Rifat. Damn, I nearly forgot." I handed him the letter I'd written my parents and then I had a last thought. "Mirko, are you carrying a weapon?"
"No. When I went on leave, I turned in my gun. Why?"
"Because you never know." I handed him the pistol I wore tucked in my belt. "Keep it out of sight. But keep it until you get to my parents' home."
"Sure. Will do. Don't worry. And don't let the Krauts fuck you over." We shook hands, embraced and parted. I made it to the Germans' temporary headquarters with only five minutes to spare and, as punishment for my unmilitary tardiness, was the only passenger on the helicopter to Djakovica who was not given earphones to drown out the ferocious noise of the engine.
The next three days passed in total confusion that ended, at least for me, when the German forces decided they could easily do without my services. Finding that I spoke better English than German, they transferred me to the Canadian contingent investigating war crimes in the region. Policemen instead of soldiers, the businesslike Canadians actually seemed glad to have my help in persuading both Serbs and Albanians to recount and even to reconcile their wildly differing versions of events. One uniformed young detective, Herb Inkvist, became genuinely cordial as we worked together and allowed me on my second evening with the unit to use its satellite communications gear to call home.
My mother answered, cheerful, relieved to hear from me, anxious about my health, full of family news and local gossip. Finally, I managed to interrupt her to ask after Rifat.
"Who?" she asked.
"The Albanian boy I sent to you. Didn't he bring you my letter?"
"Your father got a letter, but he said a young woman brought it. Nobody else came. He didn't mention a boy. Your father's not here now, but he said that if you telephoned, you should talk to the young woman. Just a minute. I have her name and number here someplace." There was a pause, long enough for a knot of fear to cramp my stomach. Something had happened. Something had happened to Rifat.
My mother picked up the receiver again. "I found it, son. Her name is Katja. She told your father that she knew you at school. Do you miss school, Mitya? Are you going to have to take the whole year over?"
"Please, Mama, the phone number," I begged. "We'll talk about school when I get home. I'm not allowed to use this telephone for more than a few minutes. Please."
Grudgingly, she gave me the number and, full of foreboding, I dialed it. For what seemed an eternity, it rang and rang. Just as I was about to give up, a woman answered, breathless, flustered.
"May I speak to Katja, please? This is Dmitrij Njegos. I'm calling long distance."
"Dmitrij? It's me. Katja." She gave her last name. It rang no bells. "You don't remember me, do you? It was in the sixth class, a long time ago. I had a long braid, and you and your friend, Ivo, used to tease me that only pirates and Chinamen wore pigtails."
I did remember. Sort of, but not clearly. I apologized for forgetting. She apologized for being out of breath. She had just come in when she heard the telephone ringing and dashed upstairs to answer it. Then she delivered the blow.
"I'm so sorry, Dmitrij. About your friend, I mean. He was such a nice boy. Did your father tell you?"
Was!? I began to scream, silently, inside. "No, Katja," I said, maintaining as calm a tone as I could. "I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't talked to my father. Thank you for delivering my letter, but how did you happen to have it?"
Returning from work as a translator for the United Nations in the Macedonian refugee camps, she had been on the bus from Pec to Montenegro, sitting with a friend across the aisle from Rifat. They had struck up a conversation. He asked her what he should do to find out if his aunt and uncle were in Macedonia. She found out that the rest of his family had been killed, but that a Yugoslav officer, a Montenegrin, had saved his life. When the bus crawled through the beautiful gorge past the great monastery at Decani, Katja told him about King Stephen buried there for nearly 700 years, a ruler blinded by his father, who had killed his brother and been strangled by his son, but who was considered a saint by the Serbs and worshipped by Muslims as a healer of sick children.
"We talked about religion, about belief," Katja told me, "and Dmitrij, he was so thoughtful, so grown-up for such a young boy. He said he thought there had to have been a force that created the universe and that is responsible for our existence. He told me that someone he loved very much had told him always to act as if that deity might be paying attention. And that's the way he did act, Dmitrij. It's why he was shot."
"What do you mean?" I screeched. "Shot? By whom? How? Oh God, Katja, what happened?"
About 15 kilometers east of the Montenegrin border, she said, the bus had been stopped, as it had been repeatedly that afternoon, in a snarl of cars and trucks all trying to negotiate a narrow path between shell craters on the battered road. Partially uniformed men in masks, carrying machine guns, had pushed their way onto the bus and forced two Yugoslav Army soldiers seated toward the front to get off. The leader had come toward the rear and, though Rifat's sleeping seatmate was wearing a blue athletic jacket, had spotted the uniform under it, shook him awake and ordered him out of the bus.
"Rifat tried to protect him, Dmitrij. I was with another woman who spoke Albanian, and she heard the boy say that the soldier had saved his life, that he was a good man. The man with the gun was big and brutal, and he just pushed the boy out of the way. He grabbed a gold chain that Rifat was wearing, looked at the cross on it and spat in Rifat's face. He called him a Serb-lover and a traitor. And he knocked him down and pushed the soldier down the aisle to the door."
She stopped. "Is that all, Katja? Tell me what happened," I pleaded in despair.
"The boy got up and he reached into a shopping bag in the rack over his seat and brought some kind of pistol out of it. He took a letter out of his pocket and asked me to deliver it if he didn't come back. Then he raced down the aisle to the front door, shouting."
"Shouting what?"
"It was very strange. He was yelling at the man in the mask. He said, 'You mustn't hurt them. You mustn't. What if a god is watching you?'
"As he jumped off the bus, the man who had hit him turned around. I guess he saw the pistol. He fired his gun, and Rifat fell. And our driver panicked and closed the door and pulled the bus away. My friend had the window seat. She said she was sure the boy was dead. That he had died instantly."
I could hear that Katja was in tears. She paused. I couldn't speak. After a few moments, she went on. "I'm so sorry, Dmitrij. He was a fine young man. He should have lived, but this is a crazy time. So many fine people have died. So many. I am planning to emigrate."
I was still too shocked and despairing to say anything. "Dmitrij?" Katja asked. "Are you still there? Did you understand?"
"Yes, I'm here," I was able to answer. "Katja, please, please, don't leave before I get back. You're the only person I know who knew him." Now I was in tears. "I need to talk to you about him. Will you stay?"
"Of course," she said. "Emigrating isn't something you can do overnight. Call me, Dmitrij, when you get home. I'll be waiting. Good-bye."
"Thank you, thank you," I sobbed. "Thank you, Katja. Good-bye. Good-bye."
I hung up and put my head on the desk. I had killed Rifat. I had given him the chain, the gun, the crazy idea that a god might see him and that he should behave nobly. No god watches us. There is no god.
I bawled like a baby. I was still wailing minutes later when I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders. Herb had come looking for me. He made me stand up and walk upstairs to his room and there he poured Canadian whiskey into me while I poured my story out to him. He got me so drunk I couldn't stand on my feet, and he undressed me and put me in his bed and held me, still sobbing, till I feel asleep.
Herb is the one who has made me write down what happened. He said it would be good therapy and the best way to keep Rifat's memory alive. I know Herb wants to have sex with me, but he is truly decent and he doesn't push it. Someday, maybe we will. He's nice looking and very caring. I'm sure he would be a good lover.
But more importantly, his father is dean of a medical school in Montreal, and Herb thinks he could get me admitted to finish my studies. I want to go. I want to go anywhere away from here. And if I can go to Canada, maybe I can find Ivo. Maybe I can find a reason to live again.
D.N. Djakovica June 20, 1999
[To repeat: because several readers in 1999 and since were unhappy about the way "Divine Neglect" ended, the author had planned to post a sequel. It appears, though, that there is next-to-no interest in the story. When no one claps for Tinkerbell, you know what happens. - Park517@aol.com]