Our driver took us in nervous silence to within a dozen miles of the border, dropping us on the road that led from Velika Kikinda to the Hungarian town of Szeged. We walked northwest along the little-used road, and Butec showed that he had learned his lessons rather well. His legs relaxed into the easy gait of the Yugoslav peasant, and his eyes watched the ground ahead of him.

A few miles from the border we abandoned the road and cut east through a vineyard. Mme. Papilov had given us each a paper sack containing rolls and cheese and sausages, and I had tucked a flask of brandy into a hip pocket. We walked out of sight of the road and squatted among the grapevines to eat lunch. The grapes were not entirely ripe, but their tart taste was not unpleasant. We incorporated a few handfuls of them in our lunch.

When the food was gone, we nipped at the brandy and sat enjoying the feel of the hot noonday sun on our hands and faces. Butec the peasant looked years younger than Butec the politician. He sighed, smothered a belch, yawned, then stretched out flat on his back with his hands beneath his head. I thought for a bad moment that he was ready for another six hours of sleep. Then he began to talk.

“This is good for me,” he said. “This fresh air, this good, plain food, this exercise. Is it not a beautiful day?”

“It is.”

“And beautiful countryside?”

“Yes.”

“The countryside where I was born is still more beautiful. You have been to Tzerna Gora?”

Tzerna Gora is Serbo-Croat for Montenegro. I told him that I had passed through the province several times.

“Do you know, perhaps, a town called Savnik?”

“I know of it, but I have never been there.”

“I was born in Savnik. Not in Savnik itself but in a cottage a few miles from Savnik. So one might say that I am a human being, or a European, or a Yugoslav, or a Montenegrin, or simply a man of Savnik. Every man has many such identities, depending upon the breadth of one’s view.”

I said nothing.

“Do you believe, Mr. Tanner, that Montenegro ought to be free and independent?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“For many of the reasons advanced in your book.”

“And for others?”

“Perhaps.” I prefer not to go into detail regarding my political beliefs. Too many persons would see my loyalties as being at odds with each other. While I myself do not find this inconsistency bothersome, explanations tend to be tedious.

“You enjoyed my book, Mr. Tanner?”

“Very much.”

“And approved of its contents?”

“So much so that I would be honored to translate it.”

“It is you who would honor me. But, Mr. Tanner, did it occur to you to wonder why I wrote this book?”

“Out of conviction, I would guess. And to further the cause of separate republics in place of the Yugoslav Federation and-”

He interrupted me with a shake of his head. “Greater reasons than those, Mr. Tanner,” he said. “And lesser ones also. But the most important reason of all, I would say, is that I do not care for war. I have been in war. I have killed men, I have seen men die around me. I do not care for war at all.”

He took a small sip of brandy. “But war has always been with us, and I would suspect it will always continue to be. I know what war has been in the past. I have studied history all my life, Mr. Tanner, and I know the growing patterns of war, with ever larger countries pitting ever larger armies against one another. You know the poem ‘ Dover Beach ’? An English poet, Matthew Arnold. I recall one line. ‘Where ignorant armies clash by night.’ All armies are ignorant, Mr. Tanner, and all warfare takes place in the night of the soul.

“Now we have a world of huge countries, do we not? China, Russia, the United States, the Common Market of Western Europe, the Socialist nations of Eastern Europe. Large nations and combinations of nations. Years ago when two small countries fought a war, a man of peace could go fifty miles away and be in another country entirely and then he would not have to concern himself over the war. Little countries fought little wars, and little armies fought little battles, and the world went on. But imagine a war today between America and Russia, or America and China, or Russia and China. Where would a man go? Where would a man hide? And what would become of the world?”

I plucked a handful of grapes and munched them thoughtfully. It was time to move on, time to head for the border. But he was speaking well, and I wanted to hear him out without spoiling the mood.

“It is easy to imagine Yugoslavia divided into five or six republics. But now imagine China divided into two dozen provinces, and imagine your own country separated into fifty independent states, and the Soviet Union carved up in similar fashion. Then there could be no large wars, Mr. Tanner. Then there could be no men in positions of great power, and when a man of peace saw a war coming, he could move from one village to another and be untouched by the little war.” He sighed heavily, then sat up. “So this is why I wrote my book, you see. Not because I expect the Yugoslav Federation to dissolve itself, but because I am an old man tired of war who is, when all is said and done, a native of Savnik who would like to die decently in Savnik, away from the cares of the world.”

Milan Butec got to his feet. “But that is far too philosophical a speech for a sturdy Slavic peasant, is it not? And it is time that I returned to the role of the peasant. Let us go.”

And we walked, he and I, like happy peasants, through the rows of grapevines toward the Hungarian border.

Chapter 7

The fence on the Yugoslav side of the border stood eight feet tall, the bottom seven feet composed of dense steel mesh, the top foot a menacing weave of barbed wire. Some thirty yards beyond this fence was its Hungarian counterpart, perhaps a foot or so taller. Between them was a gravel-laden stretch of no-man’s-land marked by the tire tracks of patrolling sentries. The fence was not electrified, which was about all that could be said in its favor. The mesh afforded little in the way of a toehold, and as far as I could see in either direction, there were no trees anywhere near the fence. The great expanse of vineyard offered nothing upon which to stand in order to scale the fence.

“You have a plan, Evan?”

We had progressed to first names. We had made inestimable progress generally, until this damned fence had come along. No, I told him, I did not have a plan.

“Could we cut our way through the mesh?”

“I don’t have a wire-cutter with me. Besides, it would take hours. I could boost you over, Milan.”

“But how would you get over?”

I didn’t answer him. I thought about cutting back to the road and trying to bluff our way through the border station. I might have tried it alone, but I didn’t dare with Butec along for company. The stakes were too high, and he was too new at the game.

“A ladder,” I said. “Stakes.”

“Pardon?”

“These vines are staked, aren’t they? Let’s see what the stakes look like.” I went to one of the grapevines, tugged it loose from its supporting stake, then yanked the stake free of the soil. It was about four feet long, two inches wide, and an inch thick. I carried it over to the fence and wedged it into the mesh. Angled slightly, it went in rather nicely.

“We’ll need a dozen of these,” I said. “They’ll get us over.”

He didn’t ask unnecessary questions. We worked quickly, ripping hell out of some poor farmer’s well-tended vines. When we had twelve of them, I wedged each one halfway through the mesh fence, spacing them evenly from top to bottom.

“Steps,” I said.

“But will they hold one’s weight?”

“They will if they’re counterbalanced. I’ll show you.”

I stooped down, and Butec clambered up onto my shoulders. He balanced precariously there while I straightened up. “Now,” I said, “can you step over the barbed wire and onto the top stake? Don’t do it yet, just tell me if you can.”