Insomvita. Oleksandr Dan

in his body. He was extremely proud of the history of Scotland, which he deeply respected and considered his own. That was why, at the age of 35, his French heritage could only be found in a few traits on his slender face. Even the tattoo on his left shoulder bore the words of Scotland’s motto in Latin: “Nemo me impune lacessit”[8].

      Etienne was not a talkative sort, or showed feelings at the drop of a hat. In fact, he was careful to hide all emotion. He even joked with a stony face, while his highest praise was a curt “Not bad”.

      Trevor valued his friendship with Etienne. They had worked side by side for many years. Etienne accompanied Trevor on almost all of his journeys.

      In addition, Etienne has been seeing Kate for over a year; they spent a lot of time together. Trevor thought it odd to see the tall, lean Frenchman with an aquiline nose and long hands tenderly treat the small Kate, who was a foot shorter than him. Trevor had been observing them with a smile, comparing their relationship to a dance of fire and ice. It was clear that Kate’s hot heart was melting the ice that covered Etienne's heart.

      Trevor began working with Dan eighteen month ago. Dan was a short, open-hearted young man, a pacifist and a bit of a ladies man. Only twenty-five, he was accepted to Les Mondes as a promising, young and ambitious reporter immediately upon graduating from Tampere University. Rochefort, chief editor of Les Mondes, took the young reporter under his wing. Rochefort appointed Dan as Trevor’s assistant, and Dan ended up accompanying Trevor and Etienne on several trips to the Middle East. A rumor went around that Dan was a distant relative of Rochefort, or even a love child from a long abandoned liaison. Be that as it may, Rochefort was clearly concerned about the future of this young man and he was helping him to find his own place in journalism.

      After Etienne and Kate made their relationship official and Kate had moved to Paris to live with him, Dan became Trevor’s buddy during his sojourns to the nightlife of Paris and Zurich.

      Dan, too, was secretive about his past. He never spoke about it, but he was happy to be useful to his more experienced colleagues and closely watched Trevor, acquiring the essential skills of a hardened war correspondent. It was Dan, as Trevor’s assistant, who was lately covering the USA v. Woud trial, the scandalous case of the biggest illegal arms dealer in history, tried by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

      Chapter 3

15 December 2011. 15:45 Geneva, Switzerland

      Trevor was sitting on the veranda of a busy restaurant watching an elderly couple talking quietly at the table near the entrance. He was amused by how the man was stealthily feeding a small dog that was sitting under the table.

      Trevor flipped through a fresh newspaper, trying to find the latest news on the Woud trial, but seeing nothing asked the waiter for the bill. That was when the encounter happened that turned his life upside down, inadvertently exposing that part of him which he had not even guessed existed.

      Trevor was surprised to hear someone speak in Serbian. A man and a woman, clearly tourists, were talking to one another. They had two children with them, close to the age of seven. The man’s voice sounded familiar. Trevor was ready to swear that he knew the man well. He shoved the newspaper aside and stared at the retreating silhouettes of the family. The woman was walking ahead, holding the children by their hands. The man was inspecting the cobblestones engraved with the names of cities, incidentally turning towards Trevor. He was a short, stout man, about fifty, balding, with thick glasses, and dressed in a well-worn but clean suit and an oversized navy raincoat.

      Suddenly it dawned on Trevor that he knew the man. He got up and shouted in Serbian: “Jovan? My friend, Jovan, it is you!”

      The man glanced back. His wife also noticed the stranger who was loudly calling after her husband. Both children immediately clutched their mother.

      “Jovan, hey! It’s me, Trevor. Don’t you recognize me, old man?”

      “Teo?!” the man responded, throwing open his arms. “Trevor! Well, I didn’t expect to see you here! It’s been a while! It is a small world, I guess!”

      The friends hugged tightly.

      “I thought I’d never see you again,” said Trevor. “How long has it been? Ten? Twelve years?”

      “Teo, fifteen years at least! You were serving in the Legion back then,” Jovan responded slowly, tears of sincere joy fogging his glasses. “I forgot how you look. Let me see you!”

      Jovan wiped his glasses and after putting them back, he scanned Trevor. Grabbing his shoulders, he joyfully exclaimed: “You are a real badass, and you still look cool. Haven’t changed a bit! Right, Anna? This is Trevor… Teo, a friend I once told you about."

      Jovan’s wife held out her hand and gave Trevor an appraising look.

      Anna was a tall, slim, conventionally attractive woman with no makeup, dressed in a cheap grey coat and long black skirt, which could not hide her aristocratic posture. Trevor took immediate notice of her wonderfully manicured and well-cared-for hands, although he was taken aback by her contrasting appearance.

      “Well, you were also once a tall, handsome guy with green eyes and thick dark hair,” she joked, lightly stroking Jovan’s bald spot. “As far as I know from what my husband told me, you are the same age, and were thick as thieves many years ago.”

      Anna spoke Serbian well, but with a slight Russian accent. She looked, maybe, ten years younger than Jovan and seemed unnaturally guarded; even her joke sounded forced to Trevor.

      “Jovan, you talked about me?” Trevor said, and immediately offered: “Friends, let’s sit on the terrace. My table is free, as if it was waiting for you.

      “Yes, I spoke a lot about us, my friend,” answered Jovan as he sat down at the table. He turned to his wife and continued: “Honey, we have been friends since we were twelve. Oh, the trouble we got into! We even planned to serve in the Legion together. Right, Teo? I didn’t pass the medical then, but we did dream to be together always. By the way, how long are you here for?”

      “A couple of days. I wanted to spend Christmas somewhere in the mountains, close to the snow, because I don’t think we’ll have snow here this year.”

      “Yeah, it’s pretty warm for December. Well, Trevor, tell me what you are up to these days?” Jovan smiled.

      But Anna took Jovan’s hand and said: “Honey, you stay and catch up with your friend and the boys and I will take a walk along the waterfront. I’m sure you will have fun without us.” She stood up.

      As Trevor was helping Anna with her coat, he noticed a small piece of paper stapled to the inside of the collar. It was a receipt with a drycleaner’s number. Jovan had the same receipt stapled to his coat. Trevor thought about it for a moment, but Jovan’s voice distracted him.

      “A fine woman, isn’t she?!”

      “Yeah…” he replied hollowly and glanced at Anna’s retreating form. Both kids dragged their feet after her and soon all three were lost in the crowd on the square.

      “You can’t imagine how lucky I am with her. We’ve been together for ten years.

      “Is she Russian?”

      “No, Serbian, but lived all her life in Catalonia. Ok, enough about me. How are you? Married? What about work?"

      It really had been a long time and they did have a lot to talk about.

      Trevor met Jovan in the early 1980s, at school in Paris, where Jovan’s Serbian family had moved from Yugoslavia, having fled Kosovo after the 1981 clashes. As a kid, Jovan would often tell Trevor about those events, when crowds of refugees traveled from Kosovo to Serbia, leaving behind their houses and villages because of Albanian nationalists. Albanians had burned the village where Jovan’s family lived to the ground, turning hundreds of people into refugees.

      Trevor befriended Jovan the moment he crossed the school’s threshold. At first, Trevor felt sorry for the modest, quiet and always hungry boy, who spoke very poor French. After some time, however, they became the closest of friends. Jovan was a frequent

8

Nemo me impune lacessit (Lat.). – No one attacks me with impunity.