The Reluctant Hunter

By Joel Levinson

In the spring of 1992, as the formerly communist country of Yugoslavia begins to disintegrate into mayhem, Jusuf Pasalic, a college-age secular Muslim, is surprised by a thundering knock at his front door in the hamlet of Kljuc, Bosnia. Moments later, he is riding in a convoy of Serbian trucks transporting hundreds of Muslim men and boys to a concentration camp. After escaping, Jusuf is intent on returning home to save his mother, a devout Muslim, before she too is caught up in a region-wide campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Jusuf, like his deceased father, is a superb marksman, but unlike his father, he loathes hunting. He is now without a weapon when he needs one most. Forced to survive in harrowing circumstances, he struggles to understand why his Serbian friends are suddenly his enemies. After weeks on the run, Jusuf is emaciated, exhausted, and looking for refuge when a young woman and her father take him in to their home. But even as Jusuf continues to try to locate his mother, the young couple fall in love, further complicating his goal of returning home to carry his mother to safety. A lifelong friend of Jusuf’s, now fighting with the enemy, is intent on proving to Jusuf that his mother is still alive, but Serbian soldiers on the front lines have another idea about the fate of this innocent Muslim woman.

In this poignant historical tale, Jusuf is faced with an agonizing choice on how to protect his mother’s honor—a decision that will change his life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475938999

Joel Levinson

The Reluctant Hunter is Joel Levinson’s first novel. It is based in part on brief accounts of the Bosnian War described by his “adopted” Bosnian daughter, Aida, and her secular Muslim refugee friends who came to the United States from their hometown of Bihac through the auspices of The Community of Bosnia. Levinson is an architect-turned-author. He has written articles about design and related issues throughout his career; his designs, produced over a forty-year career, are preserved by the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. www.joellevinsonauthor.com

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Copyright © 2012, 2019 Joel Levinson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Design of hardbound and paperback covers, map, and pronunciation guide by Amanda Lippert Design

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3898-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3900-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3899-9 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 12/12/2019

CONTENTS

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Fourty-One

Chapter Fourty-Two

Acknowledgments

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my son Aaron Levinson who helped me bring Jusuf Pasalic, the protagonist, out of two-dimensional vagueness and into a three-dimensional palpable presence. I also thank my former indefatigable home editor Janet Thomas who never spared the editorial whip when I was just beginning to teach myself how to write fiction. Also helpful was my oldest friend Martin Lozanoff, who was forever inspirational and supportive. I also thank and dedicate this work to my more recent muse Gayle Block who is an eagle-eyed editor extraordinaire. The renown professional editor Tom Jenks read the work just after it went from short story to novel. He encouraged me to write to my strengths, which, somewhat more than twenty years ago years ago, consisted of some skill in describing place and action.

Above all, the book is dedicated to my dear Bosnian friends Azra Hromadzic, Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, and especially to my ‘adopted’ Bosnian daughter, Aida Pasalic—three brilliant and spirited young women who were lucky to have escaped a war that had already turned their country and their lives into a nightmare. Amra, Aida, and Azra sat around my dining room table one evening, in 1996, and briefly mentioned what a man from their town had to do during the conflict, in the interest of love and devotion. Learning of his actions was so heart-shattering and stupefying that I was compelled, the very next morning, to start writing what I thought would just be a short story. I’ve revised the novel countless times, even after it was first published by iUniverse, resulting in this current version of the story. For this novel, I borrowed a few of my Bosnian and Serbian friends’ names and the names of some of their friends and relatives. However, there is absolutely no connection between the names I borrowed and the characters I created in The Reluctant Hunter.

It would not serve the broad ideal of justice if I did not also dedicate this book to a man I never met and whose real name I never knew. He became for me, and presumably will become for you, The Reluctant Hunter. If the young man, whose tragic life ignited my writing in the first place, is still alive, it should be known by all, that the reluctant hunter I brought to life in this novel is a totally fictionalized character. It was my goal to understand what this nameless man went through and to what those in Bosnia on all sides of the conflict had to endure in a war that, like most, should never have begun. Your reading of The Reluctant Hunter will explain how it did begin and the scope of the toll it took.

This is a revised edition of the novel that was originally published in 2012.

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Prologue

In 1992, countless individuals around the world watched a war unfold on TV that was at once horrific to observe and impossible to understand. It occurred in a part of the world that I had not yet visited, and which involved ethnicities and religions that were unfamiliar to me. It was near impossible to understand a conflict that involved a country, the former Yugoslavia, that had just disintegrated into the five countries that Marshall Tito had previously corralled into a new, quasi-communist entity, aligned both with the Soviet Union and with the West. While people around the world felt sympathy for those caught up in the conflict, they also experienced exasperation trying to understand the political, ethnic, and religious forces…and the centuries-old prejudices and superstitions that were at work behind the scenes.

In the Dedication of this book, I briefly mention how I came to start writing a short story whose backdrop was the Bosnian War of 1992-1996. My goal in expanding the short story into a novel was not to write a tale that addressed the mind-boggling array of political realities that were operational at the time; doing that would sacrifice the human story. So, I opted to concentrate on what was experienced on the ground, not in chambers of government and not where the plans for war and its implementation were conceived. I spoke with and emailed individuals on all sides of the conflict to get their perspective. An exchange with a UN peacekeeper shined light on how he dealt with the impossible challenges of what he saw and was near powerless to manage.

CHAPTER ONE

URGENT POUNDING AT the front door startled him. Jusuf squeezed out from behind the refrigerator, paint roller in hand, and dashed into the living room, intent on getting to the front door before another knock woke his mother from her afternoon nap. He pictured her eyelids fluttering, her hand jerking away from her Qur’an as it often did when a strange sound startled her as she dozed.

Jusuf hoped it was Sasha, his high school buddy, beckoning him to join a soon-to-start game of soccer. Jusuf pictured himself dashing across the field and kicking the ball with certain accuracy. But Sasha always knocked with a gentle, musical beat, and after so many years, he knew this was Ismeta’s naptime.

The last thud rattled the door on its old hinges, sounding more like it came from a ramrod than a row of knuckles. As he turned the knob, Jusuf expected to see Sasha’s halo of blond curls and his familiar green sweatshirt. Instead, there stood a behemoth of a man silhouetted against the distant range of snow-covered mountains that surrounded his town of Kljuc. The sight of camouflage fatigues was unnerving—doubly so because of the gold and red patch on the recruit’s sleeve, a sign he was with the Yugoslavian People’s Army. Jusuf stepped back when the soldier shifted his grip on his black Kalashnikov assault rifle.

The soldier hocked a gob of straw-colored spit on the stone stoop then belched. Jusuf caught a whiff of plum brandy and, oddly, the smell of peanuts. The soldier wiped a slick of saliva from his thick lower lip before wiping the back of his hand on the seat of his pants. Are you Jusuf Pasalic?

Jusuf considered using a false name but feared the consequences. Yes, I’m Pasalic. He tried to force a calm voice on top of his racing heart. Is there a problem…some trouble in the neighborhood?

The soldier sucked peanut mud from his teeth before he barked, You have any weapons in the house?

Jusuf was distracted by the man’s huge, pumpkin head with its spiky crown of copper hair. The color reminded Jusuf of the warm, butter and paprika, zaprska sauce his mother had poured over last night’s stew. What? I’m sorry. What did you say?

Didn’t you hear me, Turk? Guns! You have any guns in the house? Are all you fucking Muslims deaf? Jusuf made sure his own eyes didn’t inadvertently rise toward the attic where his father’s dust-covered hunting rifles stood in a rack next to the dormer.

No, we don’t. Lying about the guns was easy. Revisiting his dark thoughts about those weapons was something else.

As the soldier barged across the threshold, Jusuf half-expected him to stomp upstairs and head directly for the homemade gun rack.

Are you trying to tell me you have no guns in the house at all?

Well, we used to have a few guns.

Used to? What do you mean, used to? When?

We sold them about five years ago when my father died. Needed the money. My dad didn’t make much. He was just a…

"I don’t need your goddamn life history. And who’s the we?"

My mom and me. Jusuf instantly regretted mentioning her. He hoped she wouldn’t awaken and come downstairs, particularly if she was still wearing her headscarf.

She home?

No. She’s out shopping. This lie was also easy because Ismeta loved to shop, even though she rarely had money to buy anything other than food and occasionally a gift for herself, like a new pair of Italian leather gloves.

You know anyone in the neighborhood with guns? It sounded, given the soldier’s obvious impatience, as if he had asked these same questions many times earlier in the day.

No, I don’t. A few people around here used to hunt with my father, but that was years ago.

The soldier glared. Jusuf blinked and scratched the finger-wide strip of brown beard that ran from his lower lip to the end of his strong chin. The soldier looked down into Jusuf’s small, dark-brown eyes before turning and squinting past him into the bright, half-painted kitchen. His head cocked to the side like a dimwitted, but curious bird.

Who’s back there? You said your mother was out!

No one. It’s my music. I was painting the…

The soldier shoved Jusuf’s thin frame against a chair and barreled into the kitchen, leaving a trail of white boot prints tracked from a puddle of paint that had dribbled from Jusuf’s roller. There were three pots on the cast iron, wood-burning stove and a half-eaten sandwich on a plate next to an open can of beer buzzing with two circling flies. Jusuf followed the soldier into the kitchen and stood near the sunny window. As the soldier looked around, Jusuf, by habit, put his index finger in the flowerpot closest to him to test the soil for dryness. He mindlessly pinched back a leggy, near-leafless offshoot. The soldier swiped a pack of cigarettes off the counter that had been left the night before by one of Jusuf’s friends. He shoved the pack in the patch pocket of his jacket.

Damn, Jusuf muttered—mostly to himself.

What did you say you little shit? As the soldier spun around, his freshly pressed fatigues snapped like tent canvas in a gust of wind.

The paint. On the floor. You’re…I…I mean, we’re making a mess of the place.

"Drop that roller and follow me, you goddamn jebem ti mater." The soldier walked out the front door, assuming Jusuf was just behind him.

The soldier barked, Now, goddamnit! You think I’m on holiday? Get your fucking ass in the street or I’ll put a bullet up your nose.

Jusuf tried to carefully set down the sopping paint roller on the college brochures that were fanned out on the coffee table, but the roller slipped out of his hand, sending paint splattering across the couch and over the large crocheted doily draped across its back. Damn! He snatched his leather vest from the back of a worn corduroy-covered chair and reached for his keys on the hook next to the faded photograph of Marshal Tito.

Hey, Turk, you won’t need that stuff where you’re going! Now let’s get out of here. I got another field to plow before the sun goes down.

Walking out ahead of Jusuf, the soldier spit another gob of peanut saliva on the pavement then turned to observe his captive. As Jusuf stepped outside, a three-legged dog hobbled into the garden of his neighbor Suljo Begovic. Jusuf hoped he’d see Suljo smoking one of his beloved cigars on his front porch. His father’s beer-drinking partner from years ago and now Jusuf’s good friend, Suljo was a lawyer who was not readily intimidated. Jusuf was certain Suljo would have spoken up for him, but neither Suljo nor either of his two sons was in sight. At the bottom of the steps, Jusuf glanced up to see if his mother had awakened and might be peering through the curtains of her bedroom window. He was relieved not to see her but was now concerned that no one was witnessing his arrest, or whatever it was that was happening to him.

The soldier spun on his heels. Just a minute, Shorty. Jusuf was surprised the soldier knew his nickname but grew alarmed that the soldier had changed his mind and was now going to search the house. Maybe the gun rack had been visible through the dormer window. Or, had he noticed Jusuf stealing a glance at Ismeta’s window?

You probably thought the party was free. But it’s going to cost you. You’re gonna need three hundred deutschemarks.

What are you talking about? What party?

When the soldier guffawed, Jusuf again smelled the slivovitz, its pungent, plum aroma rising from the soldier’s gullet on the surge of another belch. They got Madonna and Michael Jackson in town. But it’s gonna cost you.

Madonna! She can’t be playing out here in the sticks, in Kljuc. Sarajevo, maybe, but…

Is that a wallet in your pants? I know it’s not your cock ’cause you Turks never had much to speak of down there.

Jusuf wanted to punch the guy in his eye and might have if the soldier’s finger was not hooked around the trigger. Yeah, it’s my wallet, but I don’t have three hundred deutschemarks. When he sensed that the soldier was growing impatient, Jusuf figured he better tone down his air of defiance.

How much you got there, smartass?

About a hundred and fifty.

You Muslim shits always lie. Let’s see the fucking wallet.

Jusuf didn’t move.

Now, goddamnit! The soldier pointed his rifle at Jusuf’s groin as Jusuf reluctantly tugged the wallet out of his jeans. Before he could open it to reveal the few deutschemarks stashed inside, the soldier snatched it and tossed it in the air, apparently to gauge its heft. Seeing there were several bills stuffed inside, he dropped the wallet into his pocket, alongside the cigarette pack.

Hey, I need that stuff! Jusuf instantly regretted the remark. The soldier raised his gun barrel and brought it to within an inch of Jusuf’s cheek. A trace of heat from the late afternoon sun still radiated from the black steel. The soldier slowly rubbed Jusuf’s cheek with the barrel before pressing the muzzle against Jusuf’s lips. Jusuf’s heart thumped an errant beat, and for a moment, he feared he would faint.

What did you say you needed? the soldier said reaching into his pocket for a handful of nuts and, with a disingenuous grin, offered some to Jusuf. Jusuf remained expressionless then slowly shook his head, No.

Let’s go, you fucking wiseass. I’ve had enough of your goddamn bullshit.

With his T-shirt clinging to his perspiring chest, Jusuf crossed the pavement but lost his footing on a fist-sized rock hidden in the shadow of the curb. Normally he could catch himself with graceful ease, but unnerved as he was, he fell into the road. The soldier walked over and pointed the barrel at his fly, a smirk on his face.

Well, this makes it even easier. Another gob of brown spit sailed through the air and hit Jusuf’s knee. Get up, you fucking clown, and start moving. Jusuf stood and pointed his finger in a few directions, not sure which way to walk. The soldier’s boxy cleft chin pointed toward the center of town.

Jusuf stole a final glance through the darkness of his living room and into the bright glow of the kitchen. His tape deck, barely audible, was playing the last track of his favorite rock group out of Bihac, Mehmed and Boneface. As he began walking, he picked stone chips and glass splinters out of his trembling palms.

The neighborhood was oddly quiet for that time of day. No sounds of red roof tiles being hammered back in place or concrete block walls being stuccoed, no children playing in yards, no cars rumbling on the road, just a few old Zastavas sitting on their rotting tires. And, most curiously, no friends chatting on stoops or porches. Why was it so deserted at this busy afternoon hour? And why would so many shutters be closed on a sunny spring afternoon? Was there a party in town, after all, as the soldier had claimed? He saw no cars but heard a commotion of what sounded like truck engines being revved in the direction of town. When a pistol shot fractured the silence, a mass of ravens exploded out of nearby trees, their wings beating like leather gloves clapped in frenzied applause. Jusuf looked behind him at the soldier fidgeting with the lock on his rifle. He thought, but immediately rejected the idea that this might be a good moment to break away.

They encountered a police barricade at a narrow cross street that Jusuf had not seen the previous day. On the far side of the barricade, one of his buddies, Elmir Umerovic, was being shoved out of his house and down his front steps. The guy pushing him wore a black ski mask and ordinary street clothes. The friends eyed each other, arched their eyebrows, and hunched their shoulders in puzzlement and disbelief. Elmir had on only a red sweatshirt and his underpants. His black hair was mussed, and one side of his face was rosy and wrinkled from a nap.

The ski mask was unnerving. This was not just another bit of intimidation by a Serbian thug wanting extra cash or looking to rough up a Muslim. Jusuf was now certain there was no party in town and definitely no rock concert. A block further on, two more shots rang out, followed by a scream. The faint reek of gunpowder wafted in the air. Jusuf turned to see if Elmir was close behind him. The road was empty.

"Keep walking, you damn majmune jedan. That was just a few firecrackers to get you Turks in the mood to party."

As they got closer to the town center, Jusuf looked into the windows of the few houses whose shutters had not been closed. He saw only women. Some faces he recognized; the mothers, sisters, and grandmothers of his friends. He wondered what they must be thinking, seeing him led away at gunpoint. The women wearing maramas tied at the neck had expressions of alarm. One woman wept and turned way. Jusuf wondered whether his own mother was by now awake and standing at her window looking out on a similar scene. He grew alarmed, fearing the soldier would later return for her. From the balcony of a nearby minaret, three loudspeakers strapped to the pitted stone balustrade just above the treetops started to drone the pre-recorded late afternoon call to prayer. The sound was sliced off mid-phrase with a screech, followed by a piercing squawk not unlike the speaker-feedback that had caused Jusuf to wince during rock concerts in Sarajevo.

On the faces of the few women without headscarves, particularly the older Serbian women, there was a blank expression or, in the case of a few, a dagger-like stare. The mother of one of Jusuf’s closest Serbian friends, who had always greeted him pleasantly, now watched him with a look that seemed to be a fusion of long-awaited satisfaction and contempt. It brought to mind his mother’s comment as they sat at breakfast less than a week ago. What about Dubrovnik? she had asked. That’s not a barbecue going on down there. People are dying—the town’s in flames.

It’s probably just a skirmish, Mom. I’ll bet it’s over in a week or two, like the other flareups. You’re such a worrier.

If you’d read a paper once in a while and watch something on TV other than ball games and music, you might think differently. I saw an article two days ago about what’s going on in Modrica and Bosanski Brod. That’s not the other side of the Adriatic, Jusuf. It’s right here in Bosnia.

Jusuf had chuckled at what he saw as her alarmist interpretation of recent events. You laugh, she said, but we should really think about going somewhere, disappearing for a while if anything really odd starts to happen around here. We could visit Adnan and Arijana in Munich or spend some time with Sasha’s uncle in the country.

Given his youthful sense of invincibility, Jusuf had dismissed her worries with a gentle pat on her arthritic hand. He flashed one of his disarming smiles, his teeth white as a paper napkin.

Come on, Mom, you’re always so serious, so certain the sky’s about to crash down.

"Jusuf, if you ever saw a real war raging, like your dad and I saw, you might think differently. You’ve seen a couple of those barricades on the roads leading into town—what are they calling it—the log revolution, or something? And what about the soldiers patrolling the roads and standing on street corners. Ismeta paused to remove a piece of food stuck between her back teeth. How about those officers huddled in front of their trucks? They keep jabbing the air while they argue. When I come upon them saying things about Turks and unity, I see them glance up side streets toward who knows what."

Mom, we see and hear what we expect to see and hear.

Then what about those flags going up on the rooftops? First one on the police station. Then another on the town hall, and now the hotel. That doesn’t concern you?

Oh, Mom, you’re reading too much into things.

Jusuf, I’m worried.

The further he got from his house, the more he fretted about his mother’s safety. He hoped he could somehow get word to Sasha, his closest and oldest Serbian friend, to look after her, find her a place to stay, perhaps in another town with some of Sasha’s relatives, until things quieted down. Jusuf could depend on Sasha because Sasha had more than once said that he felt closer to Ismeta than to his own mother. Ismeta always greeted Sasha with a warm hug and a kiss, took an interest in his music, and was curious about his plans for the future. From an early age, Jusuf sensed that his mom regarded both boys almost equally as her two sons.

As they turned a corner, Jusuf noticed over his shoulder that the soldier was looking a bit woozy from the slivovitz as he tossed another handful of peanuts into his mouth. A crisp flake of red husk must have fallen into his windpipe because he began to choke. He wheeled right, then left, coughing and gagging, his face white, then purple. When he wobbled into the middle of the street, spitting a few nut-chips and gasping for air, Jusuf darted into a narrow alley. He raced as if the old brick pavers were as hot as the embers in his kitchen stove.

When they were kids, he and Sasha often took this alley route to Sasha’s house on their way back from town. One night, halfway through the maze of interconnecting passages, they passed a window with the shade not fully drawn and saw a woman in her thirties parading half naked around her bedroom as she languidly applied lotion to her arms and breasts. Today, however, Jusuf just flew by the window without even a side-glance. He sprinted down the snaking alley, sneakers squealing as he navigated each bend. After jumping a fence, he finally slipped behind a shed that was just a stone’s throw from Sasha’s house. Breathing hard, he peeked out from between two houses and readied himself for a dash to Sasha’s front porch, but the soldier rounded a corner, obviously surprised by his own good luck. Their eyes met.

Pasalic, you fuck! Don’t move. He fired a warning shot, which splintered a piece of window trim over Jusuf’s left shoulder, causing Jusuf to spin on his heels and race back down the narrow alley, heart pounding. He hoped he could circle around and at the right moment steal silently down through Sasha’s sloping metal basement door. He leapt over a pile of trash on which someone had thrown the cardboard-flat carcass of a cat. A mass of flies rose off the matted fur. He was about to drop to his knees and crawl under a delivery truck that had stopped seconds earlier at the far end of the alley. The soldier, now also in the alley, bellowed, You’re dead, motherfucker.

Jusuf froze. He turned slowly and raised his hands, struggling to gulp a breath of air as he watched the soldier approach him. The soldier squeezed down the alley, jacket sleeves rasping noisily along the crudely mortared concrete block walls, his spiky, orange crown back-lighted by the low spring sun. When he reached the pile of trash, he stopped.

You know what happens to stupid fucks like you? He pointed to the barrel of his Kalashnikov. Jusuf closed his eyes, expecting a bullet to tear through his chest before he could inhale his next breath.

The soldier yelled, Catch! Jusuf’s eyes snapped open, his hands instinctively flying forward to catch or deflect the missile hurtling through space, but the cat’s hardened carcass smacked the side of his face, its inertia forcing a stream of maggots to wriggle out of the half-eaten body. As a contingent of circling flies buzzed the stinking slime on his cheek, the soldier exploded in raucous guffaws that bellowed through the narrow chasm. I should blow your brains out right here, you little shit, but that’d be a gift I’m in no mood to give. The slow roast is what you deserve. Turn around and walk toward that lady hanging clothes and keep your mouth shut. Then turn left.

At the end of the alley, Jusuf glanced right toward Sasha’s house, hoping his friend might be outside. He was sure Sasha would have intervened on his behalf. Three months older than Jusuf, and considerably taller, Sasha had stepped in on many occasions in the past, pretending to be Jusuf’s older brother when a pack of rowdy Serbs came into town looking to beat up a few Turks.

Jusuf and the recruit approached the cluster of three-story commercial buildings and apartment houses along Route 5 that comprised the center of Kljuc. It sounded like a large crowd had gathered. Someone barked orders through a megaphone. As the soldier’s muzzle poked against the right side of his lower back, Jusuf understood to turn the corner at Hasan’s coffee shop. A large crowd of Muslims stood in the main square. They hung about in huddles, some shivering, their faces long and wan. The throng grew larger as men and boys were herded in at gunpoint through several cross streets. To Jusuf’s right, three silver-haired Serbian men sitting on a bench appeared to be bemused by the unfolding spectacle. These were men Jusuf had seen in town many times before, men he had waved to and who had waved back, men who had been friends with those whose plight they now found entertaining.

So. They got you, too, Shorty.

Do you know what’s going on? Jusuf asked.

You’ll see, one man said, opening a can of beer. "This party’s been planned for many months. It’s in your honor. Hey, what’s that slime on