If a prize existed for the oddest diary of the year, Dragisa Blanusa would be the surefire winner. He was the governor of the Belgrade jail in which Slobodan Milosevic was held for 89 days before being extradited to the Hague. Last year Blanusa published his diary in Serbia, and Granta has just translated extracts of it. Some highlights:
April 1: At four-thirty a.m., the Interior Ministry warned me that Milosevic was on his way. Within minutes, a Chrysler jeep and two BMWs with darkened windows swept through the gates and screeched to a halt in the jail yard. Slobodan Milosevic stepped out of one of the BMWs. He was talking into his mobile phone, pleading with his wife to calm down. “Mira…Mira…” he said. Milosevic was taken to our reception department, where a guard confiscated his belt, shoelaces and tie. “Don’t worry,” Milosevic smirked. “I’m not going to hang myself.”
April 8: Milosevic’s daughter, Marija, came to visit with Mira. Milosevic was delighted to see his daughter. “Where have you been?” he bellowed. “My little terrorist!”
April 16: I wondered whether it might be better for him to see his wife and daughter less often. Whenever they visited, they took his blood pressure and talked all the time about doctors and drug treatments. This irritated Milosevic immensely. Yet his blood pressure would jump with worry if Mira was even five minutes late. On one occasion, he told the prison doctor: “Doctor, I don’t know what to do. Marija screams, Mira cries, and I have to put up with it all.”
May 3: Goran Cavlina delivered The Hague indictment. “I won’t even touch that pile of shit,” Milosevic declared. The judge was not deterred. He put the envelope between the bars of Milosevic’s cell. Milosevic asked the guards to take it away. “We’re very sorry, but we can’t do that,” they said. So the indictment sits between the bars, with Milosevic grumbling that it’s been left there without his consent.
May 5: Milosevic reads a great deal both in English and in Serbian. He reads thrillers mainly, as well as mysteries and spy novels. Among the books he has read are: Wilbur Smith, “The Seventh Scroll,” Robert Ludlum, “The Corsican Story,” Ivo Andric, “The Bridge on the Drina,” Petar Petrovic Njegos, “The Mountain Wreath,” Joseph Murphy, “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind,” John Steinbeck, “The Grapes of Wrath,” C. S. Forester, “Captain Hornblower” and “Lieutenant Hornblower” and “Admiral Hornblower.”
May 22: I told the ex-president that the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights wants to come and visit him. “I’m not an animal to be displayed for everyone to stare at,” Milosevic snorted. “Let them stick it up their mother’s cunt. They are world-class shits. Scum.”
May 27: Mira and Marija came again. Whenever Slobo and Mira meet they indulge in long romantic kisses. They look like a young couple in love and they don’t seem to care who’s watching them. Mira will kiss his hands and he’ll kiss hers. I once saw her kiss his knee. Mira calls Slobodan “My little one,” and he says it back to her. She’ll call him “My puppy,” and he’ll call her “My little kitten.” Sometimes the kisses go on for so long that the guards have to pull them apart. Marija gets very upset at this and her father tells her: “Marija dear, they are simply doing their job.”
