Za dom spremni! as with an inspired look he penetrated a resistant vagina, sometimes bloody, sometimes scabby, but usually neat, as he said socialism has done a lot for intimate hygiene, thanks be to the devil, still he managed to catch crabs, but it’s hard to say if they came from a body, from the straw or from generalized filth, impossible to determine, the louse comes with the soldier and the prisoner, precocious parasites, organisms foretelling the putrescence to come, the real creatures that will truly eat you and that can’t be treated with any ointment: bacteria, fungi, larvae, or dogs foxes and crows if you have the bad luck to fall in an out-of-the-way place where no one comes to bury you, to limit to something slow and minuscule the eraser-effect of carrion feeders, which make up the majority of the living organism, just like soldiers, the traveling bartender has a uniform too, he’s alone behind the shaking bar that’s crossing Italy at full tilt, what’ll I get drunk on, how many mini-bottles will I have to gulp down, whiskey would smack too much of a depressed tattletale, of the barracks, I’ll choose something more bucolic, some gin, closer to herbal infusion and hence to nature, hedges, thickets, the shores of the Lašva, of Vitez, the plum or grape brandies they make there, like Xoriguer of Minorca terrible juniper concoction of British ancestry, I’ll have a gin, dry and warm with a halberdier on the label, in a transparent plastic glass, to the health of Great Britain, to the health of its Queen and of the black horses of Minorca, to Saint John patron of the city of Ciutadella in Minorca, patron of eagles and lost islands, Saint John the Evangelist the Eagle of Patmos first novelist of the end of the world, the bartender is sizing me up, what kind of madman can swallow gin neat with no ice, in a train what’s more and I’d be the last one to argue, it’s disgusting, it burns and leaves a taste of potion in the mouth, a remedy prescribed by Bardamu himself to cure who knows what somber disease of poverty, we’re entering a tunnel, my eardrums are blocked, I feel as if I’m in a cage, I need air, if I could I’d open a window, I’d stick my head out to have my hair tousled by the icy December wind — Stéphanie the brunette her Céline under her arm would lecture me if she were here, she’d say you’re not going to drink now, you’re not going to get inebriated again, she used the term inebriated funny term God knows what book she took it from, I’d choose not to reply, to say nothing, to order my drink or pour myself one calmly without arguing, Stéphanie Muller comes from a family of teachers in Strasbourg, the kind who bleed themselves dry so their children can succeed, they had been so proud of her getting into Sciences-Po, that’s where we met before I saw her again a few years later in one of the dark hallways on the Boulevard Mortier, where I was working under the authority of Lebihan lover of oysters — Stéphanie’s parents knew she was working as an analyst for the Ministry of Defense, but didn’t know where exactly, we all had our secrets, curiously she hated violence so much, weapons and war (odd, given her employer) that I had never really told her about my activities as a Balkan conscript, out of cowardice: for her that whole period of my life was very vague, hazy, a few photos, nothing more, she had never gone to Croatia, she was very surprised to learn that I had spent some months in Venice, in between things, floating like a corpse in the fetid-smelling lagoon, Stéphanie beautiful and brunette wanted to go there, more than once she mounted a fresh attack: why not Venice, she had found a beautiful hotel not too expensive, a vacation would do us good, I had to explain to her that I didn’t want to go back there, that I didn’t want to see Venice La Serenissima again queen of fog and tourism, not yet, it was too soon, she found that strange, why, why, but ended up agreeing to a change of destination, Barcelona was just as Mediterranean and attractive, in Venice I had been very sick and very miserable I was always cold even rolled up in my rug, I hadn’t been able to go back to France, not enough strength, not enough courage and I hid myself right in the middle of the lagoon as I read all night and went out at daybreak one night I gathered together my outfits my uniforms I made a big ball of them that I burned in the shower after soaking it in cooking rum, everything, including the badges: I kept only the dagger, its sheath, and a few plastic crucifixes, knickknacks that they handed out to us by the handful like the keys to paradise that were given to the Iranian volunteers under Khomeini, a reality had to be given to the barbarity that was the beginning of a new life the cloth burned with a thick smoke smelling of crêpes, you don’t escape your homeland, I was flambéing my homeland with rum along with my soldier’s gear and I was leaving my mother in silence she who had given me this knife and these crucifixes without realizing it it was probably her I wanted to preserve with the war trinkets, the flames of my bathroom holocaust destroyed the illusion of having once had a country with the same ease you down a glass of strong alcohol it’s disagreeable at the time you feel its journey down your esophagus and all alone in this bar tearing through the countryside I’ll have another, a gin to the health of my zealous Croatian mother, a gin za dom, the bartender has guessed my intentions, he smiles at me and gets out another mini-bottle, spremni, a gin to the health of the firemen of Venice alerted by the neighbors who took me for a madman, a patriotic gin, my second lukewarm gin, I’d do better to go sit down and go to sleep, not much longer before Florence and not much longer before Rome, if I had gotten out in Bologna I could have gone back to Venice, to the Paradise Lost or the Flying Dutchman to drink spritzes with Ghassan, his crucifix tattooed on his Lebanese biceps, or take a boat to Burano and look at the little fishing houses slant their blues and ochers over the canals, observe the incongruous angle of the bell-tower and spin round in circles the way I’m spinning round in this train that’s suddenly going very slowly, we’re crossing the black night, even with my eyes glued to the window I can’t see a thing, aside from the regular poles of the power lines, aside from a dark shape in the landscape, a mountainous undulation that might be imaginary, might be due to the gin, I have my dose of alcohol I’m slowly calming down, a cigarette and everything will be much better, I’ll get to Rome — as if I had a choice, even dead on my seat this train would lead me to my destination, there is an obstinacy in railroads that’s close to that of life, now I’m getting idiotic and philosophical, the gin probably, I’ll go smoke illegally between two cars, or in the toilet, at least in trains they don’t threaten you with a thousand deaths if you smoke in the toilets, it’s one of the rare advantages for offenders like me, you can smoke sitting down, which has become a luxury these days, they worry about our health, regardless of who we are, innocent, sinners, victims, executioners, chaste, fornicators we all have a right to the consideration of public health, they’re interested in our lungs our liver our genitals with a real solicitude, and it’s nice to feel loved desired protected by the State the way those women used to, who said don’t drink so much, don’t smoke so much, don’t look at pretty girls so much, probably the men, my father, my grandfather had to hide for a drop of the stuff in the same way I’m going to take cover to smoke, my grandfather locksmith son of a locksmith made keys and repaired agricultural implements and tools, and that’s impossible to imagine today when no one has ever seen a forge, except maybe the bartender, he looks rural, almost like a miner, thickset, rugged forehead, short dense curly very dark hair over fifty I imagine he was born in early 1946 after his father had been busy with his Mussolini adventure his arm raised in salute from Rome to Athens passing through Tirana, a farmer from Campania or Calabria rough but with the big heart of those who make the best soldiers and the best fascists, used to the order of the seasons God family and nature, I picture him freezing in Epirus, pushing a howitzer with no ammunition dragged by two scrawny donkeys, fascinated by the glory of the