War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1923 Despair After the War

When the white light faded once more, Wei Ran found himself back at the edge of the Kozala Canyon, standing once again in front of the abandoned church.

At this moment, he was wearing the International Brigade's ship's cap, still carrying the G43 semi-automatic sniper rifle on his shoulder, and holding the Type 50 entrenching tool with bullet holes in his hand.

"The war is over, and we survived."

Just as Wei Ran was gazing intently at the cornfield next to the cemetery, Milos's voice came from behind him.

Turning around, Wei Ran saw Milos wearing a South China Sea military uniform, the G43 semi-automatic rifle and a German gas mask canister slung over his shoulder, the P38 pistol on his waist, a WWII German thermal backpack in his hand, and an entrenching tool in his other hand.

"Only we survived."

The still-young Milos sighed forlornly and placed the thermos in his hand on the open space between the church ruins and the cemetery with many more tombstones.

Seeing this, Wei Ran and the other party simultaneously took off the semi-automatic rifles that were slung over their shoulders and leaned them against the insulated backpacks.

“Do you remember that German doctor?” Milos said, drawing a P38 pistol from its holster.

"Is this his sidearm?" Wei Ran asked, finally understanding why the breakout from Kozala had begun.

"Um"

Milos said, placing the P38 pistol on the lid of the insulated backpack, and finally removing the gas mask canister. "This is Dragan, my teacher, my friend, my comrade-in-arms, a Romanian, an internationalist fighter. He died, on the road to ending the war."

"Are you going to take him home?" Wei Ran asked.

"Yes, the war is over, he will have to go home eventually."

Milos placed the gas mask canister, which served as an urn, next to the insulated backpack, and walked to the church ruins with his entrenching tool.

With Wei Ran's help, the two of them slowly dug open the entrance to the basement, which was blocked by silt, as if they were digging up memories that had been sealed away for years.

"I always thought I wouldn't live to see the end of the war."

Milos sat at the basement entrance, looking at the two sarcophagi inside, and said, "I always thought I would be buried here in the end."

"Let's go in and take a look."

Wei Ran abruptly ended the topic. He could tell that after the war, the young Milos seemed to have lost his direction in life.

We walked together into the basement, which was filled with a strong musty smell. The things we left behind when we hurriedly fled here were still there, but most of them were moldy or chewed up by rats.

In the long silence, the two men carried the two suitcases that belonged to Dragan out of the basement and placed them in the sunlight. Milos then pulled a German mess kit from another sarcophagus.

"This is a letter Dragan wrote back then."

As Milos spoke, he opened the lunchbox and took out a letter.

Wei Ran remembered clearly that it was when they first met that Dragan borrowed paper, pen, and envelope from him to write the letter.

"Want to take a look?" Wei Ran asked.

“I actually peeked at it, but the letter was written in Romanian, which I can’t understand,” Milos said, handing the envelope to Wei Ran.

After receiving the letter, Wei Ran pulled out the envelope with the address written in Romanian from the blank envelope.

The sap that was originally used as glue has long lost its stickiness, and this folded envelope naturally cannot stop prying eyes.

Wei Ran pulled out the still snow-white letter paper, which inevitably carried a slight musty smell, and gave it only a few glances before giving up.

He could barely recognize these characters, which were very similar to Italian, by a combination of guesswork and deduction.

But that's precisely why he chose to give up, because the letter only recorded names and the addresses corresponding to those names—names that also appeared on the gas mask canisters in the suitcase that also served as urns.

Besides the letter, the envelope also contained a tiny black-and-white photograph, no bigger than the palm of your hand.

Dragan was in the corner of this group photo, dressed in the same International Travel Service uniform as the other dozen or so people. They looked so spirited when the photo was taken.

Ugh.
Wei Ran let out a heavy sigh, carefully wrapped the group photo in the letter paper again, put it back in the envelope, and then returned it to Milos.

I'm planning to go to Romania.

Milos placed the gas mask canister containing Dragan's ashes into the broken suitcase that also contained other gas mask canisters. "Wei, I brought shepherd's stew. Let's have some together. After we eat, I'll get ready to leave."

"Will you come back?" Wei Ran asked.

"I will come back, I will definitely come back."

As he spoke, Milos pulled four enamel plates and four forks from his satchel and placed them on his suitcase.

Then he opened the insulated backpack and used the long-handled spoon inside to fill four plates with shepherd's stew with thick broth.

Then, he took out a bag of bread slices from his satchel and placed it on the tattered box, and unscrewed the kettle to pour Wei Ran a cup of hot coffee.

Sitting on the ground under the open sky, using their suitcases as tables, Wei Ran and Milos had little appetite.

What are your plans for the future?

This time, Wei Ran took the initiative to bring up the topic that he had initially considered unlucky.

Upon hearing this, Milos shook his head, absentmindedly shoveling a mouthful of food into his mouth and said, "I don't have any plans. I never thought I'd be alive this long."

Swallowing the food in his mouth, Milos wiped the soup from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve as always. "My family is gone, and there's no more fighting. I don't know anything, so I'll probably become a shepherd in the future."

"Have you ever considered becoming a hunter?" Wei Ran asked, pointing to the rifle lying next to him.

"That gun was meant to shoot Natalia."

Milos subconsciously touched the long-healed scar on his cheek. "I'd be content just to be a shepherd."

Wait for me a moment.

As Wei Ran spoke, he got up and went into the basement, took out a gas mask pack and pulled out a mosquito coil tube from it.

After emptying all the mosquito coils and moisture-proof lime packets from the mosquito coil tube, Wei Ran revealed a satisfied smile.

Fortunately, the mosquito coil tube still contained the two gold coins that had been placed inside when it was first acquired.

Pouring out the two heavy pieces of gold, Wei Ran put away the mosquito coil tube and other items again, then walked out of the basement with one piece of gold in each hand and handed it to Milos, whose eyes were wide open.

"Take it"

Wei Ran stuffed it directly into the other person's bag, "Milosh, the war is over."

If you really want to be a shepherd, sell one of your plots and get a new pasture and a flock of sheep.

You've reached the point where you should start a family. Sell the other one, then find a woman you love and have a few kids.

"you"

"This was Dragan's wish when he was still alive."

Wei Ran made up a story, "These two pieces of gold were also seized by him. Since you survived, go and live the life he wanted to live."

"Is this his wish?" Milos looked at Wei Ran with suspicion.

"That's right"

Wei Ran nodded seriously, "This is the life he wants to live, and it's also the life I want to live. I'll leave this matter to you."

Milos, live your life well; it's not much easier than the previous battles.

“And you?” Milos asked.

"me"

Ignoring the dense white light that filled the surroundings, Wei Ran smiled and said, "I am an internationalist fighter. My battle is not over yet. My country is still at war. I should go and end another war."

"Come back alive"

Milos stood up, saluted, and said, "After your war is over, let's have a drink together."

"Then it's settled."

Wei Ran raised his hand in return, letting the white light engulf everything in front of him.

Is there another chance to have a drink?

As Wei Ran waited, the white light gradually disappeared, and a smile appeared on his face. At that moment, he was standing in front of a rather beautiful stone house.

Inside the chest-high courtyard wall, many white roses were planted. Not far away, Milos, wearing overalls, was busy wiping down a bright red Zundap sidecar motorcycle.

Beside him, a girl who looked to be about his age was busy baking bread by an open-air oven, humming an unknown song.

Without knocking, Wei Ran took out his camera, raised it, and snapped a picture of them.

Perhaps it was the sniper's keen sense that made Milos instinctively turn his head to look at them the moment the camera was pointed at him, and he immediately recognized Wei Ran. A bright smile appeared on his scarred face.

"Wei! Is that you?!"

Milos dropped the rag in his hand, straightened up, and let out a joyful cheer.

"it's me"

Wei Ran slung the camera around his neck and said, "Looks like I didn't get the address wrong."

"come on in!"

Milos rushed over, opened the gate to the yard, and together with the girl whose hands were covered in flour, led him into the exceptionally cozy living room of the small house.

"Great, you're still alive!"

Before Wei Ran could even sit down, Milos said excitedly, "I thought I'd never see you again. Has the war in your country ended?"

Wei Ran glanced discreetly at the 1949 calendar on the wall, then smiled and nodded. "It's over, it just ended, so I came to see you and see how you're doing."

I'm doing very well.

Milos introduced the gentle-looking girl sitting next to him to Wei Ran, "She is my wife, her name is Florica, and our child will be born soon."

"Hello"

Florica extended her hand and shook hands with Wei Ran in a generous manner, while introducing herself, "I am also Dragan's sister."

"Are you his sister?" Wei Ran released her hand and looked at her in surprise.

"That's right"

Florica nodded. "We always thought he had died in Spain until Milos found his home and we learned that he had been fighting all along."

"So you guys."

I sent all his friends home.

Milos said, "I was the last one to take Dragan home. At that time, only Florica was at his house."

"I was originally planning to commit suicide."

Florica touched her slightly protruding belly and said calmly, "The house had already been destroyed, my parents were dead, and I had finished my work with the guerrillas."

"Would you like to see the photos Dragan left behind?"

Milos changed the subject, clearly not wanting his wife Florica to recall that past event.

Similarly, even if the girl didn't say it, Wei Ran knew that it was the despair after the war ended.

The despair of being the only one left alive in a family was a despair that Milos had also experienced after the war ended.

Lost in thought, Florica nodded in acceptance of Milos's invitation. She also got up and picked up a photo album from a nearby table, placing it on the table and flipping through the photos one by one.

In this photo album, he found many moments that he had personally captured with his own shutter, but at this moment, they were all attributed to Dragan's work.

Or perhaps, it was a war that Dragan could only see from his perspective, and Wei Ran simply pressed the shutter for him.

“Last year, I met a German,” Milos said as Wei Ran flipped through the photo album.

"Germans? Here?" Wei Ran looked up and asked.

In Belgrade

Milos explained, “Last year I took Florica to Belgrade, to the place where Dragan died, and that’s when I met that German.”

Seeing Wei Ran look up at him, Milos sighed. "He said his name is Hans Schäfer, he..."

“Schafer? The Schäfer of Gerhard Schäfer?” Wei Ran asked, frowning.

“That’s right, the Schäfer from Gerhard Schäfer.”

Milos said bitterly, "He's looking for his father, who survived the battle at the concentration camp. He asked many people before he learned that his father had died in Belgrade."

"he"

"After we recaptured Belgrade..."

Milos said, "After I cremated Dragan, I also cremated the doctor."

"Did you take him home?" Wei Ran asked.

"I simply delivered it to Hans Schäfer."

Milos helped flip through a few pages of the photo album, pointing to a picture of him with a tall, thin man who still sported a Prussian hazelnut haircut, and said, "That's Hans. His mother was identified as Jewish and died in Poland, but he survived."

He had no family left, just like Florica and I.

"he"

"I do not know"

Milos shook his head. "I was going to return his father's sidearm to him, but he said that his mother was killed by a weapon like that."

Then he left, taking his father's ashes with him. I don't know where he went.

“Thankfully, the war is finally over,” Florica said, putting her arm around Milos’s.

"Yes, thankfully, the war is finally over." Wei Ran sighed, not with relief, but with exhaustion.

"I'm living the life you and Dragan dreamed of."

Milos flipped to another page of the album, pointing to a photo of him and Florica, and said, “I didn’t become a shepherd, but I became a policeman, which is not bad either. It’s not much different from herding sheep.”

"Will you go back?" Wei Ran asked, looking up. "Back to that mill, and that abandoned church."

There's nothing left there.

Milos sighed, “I went back last year with Florica. My family’s mill had been demolished, and the abandoned church had been torn down.”

After a long silence, Milos said, "It seems that no one else survived except me. Only me. There's no point in going back."

Let's talk about something happy.

Florica said, "Our baby is due soon, and if it's a boy, we plan to name him Dragan."

"What if it's a girl?" Wei Ran asked with a smile.

“Doina,” Milos said, “is my mother’s name.”

"It's a very nice-sounding name."

Wei Ran took a deep breath. "Milosh, Florica, the war is finally over. Let me take a nice group photo of you two, and then treat me to a shepherd's stew."

"We should take a picture together."

As Milos spoke, he got up and walked to the window, rummaging through the cabinet and pulling out the Robert camera that had been confiscated from the chained dog years ago.

Use mine.

As Wei Ran spoke, he placed his Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera on the table by the window. After the couple sat down, he pressed the selfie stick and then sat down next to Milos.

"Crack!"

With an unusually crisp shutter sound, white light swept in once again, covering the exhausted Wei Ran and obscuring that forgotten history.

If I remember correctly, this is the 47th story. I'll see if I can make a side story when I have some time recently.

Let's cast a vote: either Kachenka's side story or the Queen's side story, whichever you prefer.
These are the two most interesting perspectives I can think of. As for Dima, forget about it; his side stories aren't allowed to be broadcast on TV.