At other times, his frustration at his own impotence would overwhelm him. His emotions seemed to be beyond words and he could only express himself in a mixture of Serbian curses and raw howling.
Apart from in bed, he only ever hit her after having watched the news.
Camilla had twice taken the agonising decision to end it between them. But each time she thought about what he must have been through, experiences beyond her grasp, and felt she understood that it would take a long time for him to become a normal human being again. When he wasn’t reminded of the dreadful situation in his country and of how he had suffered, he was everything she had ever wanted. The war must surely end some time and then the tensions would disappear from their relationship.
Before meeting Dragan, Camilla had been determined that she would never again live with a violent man, but they loved each other so much. She and Dragan agreed that he should only watch or listen to the news and read the papers while Camilla was at work or, at least, not at home. Two hours before she was due he would switch everything off and put away the papers.
It almost solved the problem.
Dragan had been living in her flat for about four months, when he and Camilla spent an evening in a bar with some of their friends. A large group of Yugoslavs from another refugee camp also turned up. She started talking to one of the newcomers while she waited at the bar for her order. The place was crowded and it took some time to be served.
The man didn’t seem drunk, yet he spoke English with an odd drawl and looked at her with his eyes half-closed. Everything about him was somehow very foreign.
He nodded towards her table. ‘Look who’s sitting over there. There’s one who’ll never be forgiven.’
‘What did you say?’
The man didn’t answer her directly, just continued his line of thought without any hint of irony. ‘That man deserves every torment the world can throw at him.’
‘Who? Why are you saying that?’
‘That one, with the square jaw.’ He stared straight at Dragan.
At once Camilla had a sinking feeling.
‘Back home in Banja Luka, he was the leader of a small group of men. They came into my street and raped three sisters. Then they killed them.’
‘Please, you’re wrong. He didn’t. It was his sisters who …’ Camilla stopped and said nothing more. Her eyes were fixed on the man’s face and things began to click into place — little things, from their everyday chatter; little things, for which she had no words.
The man drew back, upset to realise that she knew the person he was referring to.
‘Who are you?’
Camilla thought quickly; she wanted to learn more. ‘I’m a teacher. I teach the people at the table over there.’
The man looked at her suspiciously. ‘You must never tell them what I said.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Never! You must never tell!’
‘No. I promise.’
The barman brought the man his beer. It was obvious that he wanted to leave there and then, even though he had spent money on the drink. He looked around and tried to explain. ‘He will kill me. Dragan will not hesitate, not for one second. He hasn’t seen me here. But I know him. I know what he’s like.’
Camilla smiled and tried to calm him down. ‘I promise. Really. I won’t tell him anything.’
Dragan got up and looked in their direction. The man made a jerky movement.
Camilla wanted to hear more. ‘But I don’t understand. He told us in a Danish lesson that he was forced to join the militia.’
But the man simply turned and hurried off unsteadily towards the door.
Dragan came over and helped her carry the beers back to their table. Camilla didn’t say anything. But later, when she had a chance to speak quietly with Lena’s husband, Camilla told Simo about what the man had said.
‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can tell me, Camilla. Don’t worry.’
‘I don’t know who he was. Honestly.’
Simo went away.
Moments later Dragan pulled hard at Camilla’s arm to take her over to a quiet corner. ‘Who told you stories?’
‘I don’t know who he was. A man.’
‘Tell me. Now!’
‘Why are you … Look, it’s just something he said. A rumour, a casual …’
Dragan shook her and glared into her eyes. ‘Speak up. Tell me!’
Camilla could tell he was clenching his teeth, the way he did before he hit her. ‘If you beat me up in here, I’ll have you charged with assault.’
That only fuelled his anger and he slammed his fist into the wall next to Camilla. ‘Don’t you threaten me!’
But he didn’t hit her. He knew well enough that just a few words to the police and he could be locked up for years. Or turned into a fugitive once more, spending an eternity in airports around the world.
Dragan returned to his friends. Soon afterwards, Camilla saw some of them spread out through the bar, talking to anyone who might have been standing near Camilla. They pointed to her and the bar stool she had been sitting on.
Five minutes later, four of them got up with a determined air, pulled their coats on, and left the bar without saying goodbye.
Dragan didn’t return home until nearly three-thirty. Camilla had gone to bed, but was still awake. She was crying.
Dragan came to lie next to her on the bed, still wearing his clothes. He held her and spoke gently to her. ‘Please don’t cry. You mustn’t. What you heard is not true. But if he tells lies about me in this country, I risk going to prison. Or expulsion. I’ll be sent back. If the two of us are to stay together, that man must be made to stop telling lies.’
Camilla looked at him. She felt like such a little girl. ‘It’s not true then, Dragan? It was all lies, wasn’t it?’
‘Camilla, please. Of course it was all lies.’ His arm tightened around her and she pressed herself closer to him. She wanted to inhale his smell, and pushed her nose against his chest.
‘Lies. All lies. All lies. It’s all lies,’ she repeated to herself.
Dragan broke her litany. ‘Trust me. When I say something is a lie, it is. But you must also understand that you’ll never know what war is like. It’s horrific. It’s hard to live with that knowledge. No one reacts the way they expect to — you wouldn’t either. And I didn’t. But I got away. I risked my life to get out.’
Then he went on to say again what he had told her many times before: ‘I had to put an end to all that. Now it’s over and done. From now on, I want to live a proper life. I want to live here with you and be good, like you.’
Camilla clung to him desperately, hardly letting him take off his clothes.
It frightened her to discover that sex was even better now, with the uncertainty about what he had or hadn’t done; the uncertainty about what he might do next.
The rapturous feeling of being totally free of the past as well as the future lasted longer this time. She was still glowing with euphoria when, later, she examined her body in front of the big mirror in the bathroom for any new bruises.
In the morning Dragan was sleeping so deeply he seemed impossible to wake. Camilla couldn’t go back to sleep. She was tormented by dreadful images about what had happened to the man at the bar. Whatever happened, it would be her fault. What had they done to him?
After eating breakfast alone, she thought she’d wash Dragan’s clothes to get rid of the beer and tobacco fumes. She wanted somehow to make up for having threatened to report him to the police. It was true that she had no idea what had really gone on in that war. All she could be certain of was that Dragan was also one of its victims.