There are two stories I heard from Milorad Ristić, known to all as Beli, which I like retelling over and over again. Both of them have to do with former Yugoslavia soon after World War II. Beli must have told me the stories in the Sixties, while I was studying at the University of Belgrade. At the time, the communist regime was already in trouble. Dissent in all its forms was rife. In retrospect, the only reason why the two stories have not found their place in my writings in the Seventies or Eighties was that they could put Beli in trouble. He was the director of Vinča at the time, and Vinča was an important nuclear research facility not far from Belgrade. My father designed the reactor building and all the surrounding facilities, including offices, laboratories, and apartments for the staff. That is how his friendship with Beli came to be.

Beli was quite young when the war ended. An engineer of promise, he became part of a team whose task was to design the first Yugoslav tank, which was to be shown at a military parade on May Day, the International Workers’ Day. I am not sure of the year, but it must have been in the late Forties, when Yugoslavia broke its ties to the Soviet Union. Therefore, the engineering team’s task was to come up with a credible weapon system. If any of the tanks produced for the parade failed, there were measures to tow them away as quickly and quietly as possible. Which is why the whole endeavor was a top secret at the time, as well as many years hence. The team studied all the tanks the Yugoslav military had in their possession—German, American, and Russian. According to Beli, the Russian tank was the most fascinating in its simplicity. One of its design features was a requirement that any repair needed could be undertaken by a blacksmith in any village across the Soviet Union. I remember being deeply impressed by this exceedingly simple but immensely wise design feature.

Beli quickly became an engineer of renown in former Yugoslavia. His main concern was energy needed for rapid industrial growth of the country, and his directorship of Vinca reflected his importance. It must have been in the late Fifties when he became concerned with some problems in the country’s energy strategy, and so he visited the then minister of the economy, Svetozar Vukmanović, known to all as Tempo. The nickname had to do with the pace of industrial development, of course. Beli was surprised by Tempo’s huge desk, which was completely bare. There were five or six telephones on a shelf behind the minister’s armchair. As Beli was talking about his concerns about the energy strategy, Tempo was listening without a word. His hands were resting on the desk. When Beli was finished, there was a long pause. Tempo was staring into his eyes. And then he lifted his hands and slammed the desk with all his might. “You’re lying!” he yelled at Beli at the top of his voice. But the young engineer was cool. “I’m not,” he said calmly. At that point Tempo got up, walked around the desk, and shook Beli’s hand. The slamming and yelling were only a test. Communist Yugoslavia was still a peasant country back then. And the minister of the economy had few tools to check the veracity of anything people would tell him.

The two stories tell a lot about Yugoslavia of my youth. They speak volumes about my parents and their closest friends, as well. Looking back, the world I came into is almost incomprehensible today. Communism in all its forms is hard to imagine, let alone explain to the innocent. Communist parties of yesteryear are the greatest mystery of all. The subtle interplay of trust and mistrust within and without their ranks made them both formidable and frightening at the same time. But the best, if not the only, way to bring the postwar years to light is through stories such as these two. Alas, only stories survive each and every calamity in history.