War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1951 Doing Some Foolish Things

When the white light faded, Wei Ran found himself back at the entrance of the hotel—it was a bright and warm day.

When was this?
Almost instinctively, he hid behind a pillar, but soon he noticed that in this ruined city, the survivors were either embracing each other or searching for something in the ruins. At the same time, he also saw some convoys with UN markings traveling through the dilapidated streets.

Is the siege over?
Before he could confirm the guess that had just popped into his mind, a small pebble landed with a thud at his feet.

“Mr. T, over here.” A deliberately lowered voice called out.

Following the sound, Wei Ran was taken aback. It was Dragan, but compared to Bai Guang before, he now had a thick, unkempt beard, and his clothes were tattered, making him look much like the Sarajevo refugees that could be seen everywhere.

Coming to his senses, Wei Ran quickly checked his own attire. He wasn't much different from his opponent, but even without unbuttoning his clothes, he could sense that he seemed to be hiding a weapon inside.

"Stop spacing out, come here quickly."

Dragan urged him on, and Wei Ran immediately followed him into the first floor of the hotel.

It wasn't until he entered the dilapidated lobby of the hotel that he noticed a girl hiding behind the bombed-out bar, holding a silenced submachine gun—the girl he had rescued from the armored vehicle.

“I’m glad you’re still alive,” Dragan said with a sigh of relief. “How have you been these past two years?”

"I'm fine, how about you guys? How are you doing?" Wei Ran asked. "What about Klaus?"

Not very good.

Dragan paused for a moment. "We hid in the chicken coop and endured a long and difficult period before we survived."

Klaus Klaus was killed, killed by the people of Deyang.

"They found you?" Wei Ran frowned.

"It was an accidental encounter at a bar."

Dragan shook his head helplessly. "The world is so small. They recognized us, and we recognized them too."

Klaus killed those people, but he was also shot several times.

I took him and the girl and fled to Minsk. But he eventually died.

"What about Thomas? Is he alright?" Wei Ran asked after a moment of silence.

“We haven’t heard from him in a long time,” Dragan sighed, “but we did receive his telegram and came here.”

I hope he's still alive.

Wei Ran sighed, and then learned through subtle questioning that they had hidden in that church until Christmas before going their separate ways and hiding away.

Thomas, along with journalist Nicky and Ronald, also took away the captured artillery observers Blanco and Alf.

Dragan and Klaus took the girl they had rescued from the armored vehicle.

After that, Dragan and Klaus lived under assumed names and, taking advantage of the chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union, successfully obtained new identities.

Unfortunately, just as they reconnected with their families, Klaus died unexpectedly, forcing Dragan to adopt a new identity.

Before the two of them could ask where Wei Ran had been all these years, another bearded man walked into the dilapidated hotel—this time it was Thomas.

Unexpectedly, two short-haired girls were with Thomas: Sofia from back then and Zorana from the shooting team!

However, although Zorana had grown into a young woman, she was wearing a brown leather eye patch over one eye.

“Zorana? Your eyes?” Dragan asked cautiously after recognizing her.

"Over the years, I've sniped 282 bastards who indiscriminately fired on civilians."

Zorana touched her blindfold and said frankly, "This is the price I paid."

"I'm glad to see you're still alive," Wei Ran sighed.

“We too”

Thomas hugged each person in turn and asked in a low voice, "When did you all arrive?"

“We just got here ourselves,” Dragan said. “Thomas, where have you been all these years?”

I fled to Africa.

Thomas said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Alf and Blanco are both dead."

"died?"

“Yalf’s family was killed by Deyang’s people, and after he got the news, he went mad and tried to kill me.”

Thomas sighed, “I had a severe case of malaria at the time, and it was Blanco who saved me. He killed Alf, but he didn’t survive either.”

“Where are Mr. Nicky and Mr. Ronald?” Dragan pressed.

"Nikki and Ronald. Them."

Thomas sighed. "They died in Rwanda in May 1994, as frontline photographers."

"what about you?"

Trying to change the subject, Wei Ran asked Sophia, "Where have you been all these years?"

"My shooting team and I stayed behind and kept fighting."

Sofia said, "Some of the girls and boys stayed, while others went to Italy with Mr. Sanson."

"Mr. Sanson?"

"My uncle is also my partner."

Thomas explained, "I took my mother's surname, and also, my uncle didn't betray us."

"The journalist who led us through the tunnel to escape the refugee camp is dead."

"He was murdered," Zorana sighed.

"murder?"

"A bullet flew from the city to the airport and hit him in the chest."

Sofia said angrily, "His belongings were lost in the hospital, but he was accused of being killed by people in Sarajevo. What is this if not murder?"

"Gentlemen, there is something I have been keeping from you all along."

Thomas finally spoke up at this point, saying, "Actually... actually, after we left Bosnia and Herzegovina that spring, I lost contact with Luna, who was stationed at the school."

"Lost contact?"

“Yes,” Thomas sighed, “they.”

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

Dragan took a deep breath and said, "And what about that girl from back then? Did she survive? I mean, the girl who was sent away from the school."

"They survived."

Sofia replied, "She survived, and the baby in her belly survived, but... but she went mad."

"It's better if he's gone mad."

Dragan sighed and said as he walked out, "Let's split up and work in pairs."

"Let's team up," Thomas said to Wei Ran.

"Go, go."

Wei Ran nodded and left the dilapidated hotel with the other person first, walking along the familiar yet unfamiliar street toward the school.

"Where have you been all these years?" Thomas started a conversation in French.

"me."

Wei Ran smiled wearily. "I went to Grozny."

"mercenary?"

"I guess so," Wei Ran nodded.

You're lucky you survived.

Thomas paused for a moment, then said, "We went to Rwanda, and then, luckily, we were caught in the disaster there."

"You're lucky you survived," Wei Ran retorted.

"We are all just hyenas chasing after war."

Thomas sighed, “I mean, whether they’re mercenaries or war correspondents.”

"Yes." Wei Ran felt increasingly exhausted.

This wasn't a topic he wanted to discuss. He hadn't even come here voluntarily, and he especially didn't want to go to that school; he almost foresaw what would happen there.

“Before I lost contact, I actually received a telegram from Luna,” Thomas continued.

"What did she say?"

Wei Ran stopped and, after searching his body, took out the cigarette case from the metal notebook.

This time, the cigarette box was full of Marlboro cigarettes.

He took out a cigarette and handed it to the other person. Wei Ran lit one for himself, and for a moment, the two people who almost knew the answer were also shrouded in swirling smoke, making them lose the desire to speak.

"She said that a number of mortar shells landed near the school, knocking down a building, which then collapsed the building where they were hiding."

Thomas said, trembling, "She said that after the shelling started, they took refuge in the basement under Old Man Mikhail's command. But they were all trapped there."

There was a fire outside, and the thick smoke was impossible to block. It was the stove on the second floor that ignited the children's blankets and the stored firewood.

But after that, many more mortar shells rained down on them.

Thomas took a few deep breaths and sat down against a charred car. "She sent me a lot of telegrams that day, saying a lot, saying they needed help, saying she was scared, saying she had difficulty breathing, saying old man Mikhail had choked to death, and so on."

Seeing Thomas sobbing uncontrollably, Wei Ran irritably flicked away his cigarette butt and pulled him up.

"What else did she say?"

Wei Ran pressed on the other person's shoulder and pushed him towards the school while asking questions.

"She asked me to help keep it a secret from the shooting team kids, saying she was sorry that we wouldn't be able to see her at the Olympics."

Thomas said painfully, "Back then...back then I was in Rwanda with some orphans, hiding from Tusa. I...I couldn't help her."

"Go, go."

Wei Ran patted the other person's shoulder forcefully, "Let's go dig them out."

“I probably won’t pick up a camera again,” Thomas said remorsefully. “A camera can’t stop wars.”

"Guns can't stop war."

Wei Ran sighed, "Unless an atomic bomb is used to blow the earth in two, nothing can stop the war."

Seeing Thomas looking lost, Wei Ran said, "So let's pick up the camera and record something."

"Record what?"

Someone once told me...

As Wei Ran walked toward the school that may no longer exist, he said, "When the photographer picked up the gun, his camera may still have preserved the last vestiges of justice and kindness."

But what's recorded on film are always the most brutal moments of war.

At this point, Wei Ran took out the Nikon SP from the metal notebook and waved it at the other person, "So let's record something. A photographer's camera may not be able to directly stop war, but at least it can let people know how cruel and stupid war really is."

"I"

Thomas rubbed his eyes hard, then finally took off his backpack and took out his Nikon F3/T camera. As he skillfully loaded the film, he said, "This camera was left to me by the Sarajevo girl I fell in love with. Her name is Tanya. She was a correspondent for the newspaper 'Canard enchaîné,' and she was the pride of her father, mother, and grandfather, Mr. Mikhail."

"Let's use the camera she left behind to record something."

As Wei Ran spoke, he pressed the shutter button on Thomas, capturing a photo of him forcing a smile.

As he took the photo, he noticed that not only were Dragan and others moving toward the school, but he also saw the young men and women from the shooting team.

In just over two years, these former rookies have become qualified warriors.

However, the price they paid to go from novice to qualified soldier was perhaps too high.

When the group arrived at the school, maintaining a distance that would not arouse suspicion, the alley was gone, replaced by collapsed brick buildings and ruins scattered everywhere.

Without any communication, these people, including some young women and men who arrived later, all silently joined the work of digging out the wreckage.

Amidst the busy work of these people, bricks and concrete blocks were relayed and moved to a distance, gradually piling up into a small mountain.

The original excavation site finally revealed a narrow opening filled with a strong stench of corpses—it was the ceiling of the first floor that had been smashed through.

Without hesitation, Thomas and Wei Ran jumped down one after the other. Sofia, Zorana, Damir, and Golan, who were still alive in the shooting team, followed closely behind. Then came Dragan and the girl who had been following him.

Following the stench of the corpse, they easily found the people trapped there.

These people were already highly decomposed, but even so, they could still roughly make out the small bodies of the children huddled together, and even see some skeletons smaller than them.

In addition to these, they also saw the few remaining supplies around them, as well as the SVD sniper rifle that belonged to Dragan and the PKM machine gun that belonged to Kraus.

The sniper rifle was cradle in the arms of a skeleton. She had short hair, a radio was beside her, and a towel was covering her mouth.

The PKM machine gun was being held by another corpse, who was also carrying a PPSh submachine gun.

Beside him, on a wooden chair, lay Wei Ran's LV suitcase, containing coffee brewing pots and cups that he had left behind—things that "made you feel like you were still alive."

Moving their gaze further, they saw another highly decomposed body, holding a child in her arms, with a wooden box beside her.

In the brief illumination provided by the constantly flashing flashes, Thomas meticulously photographed everything in the basement with the camera Tanya had left behind.

It was amidst these flashes of light that Wei Ran walked to the side of the box with his flashlight, gently lifted the wooden lid, and revealed an account book.

Gently lift the ledger, and you'll find a detailed record of everything that happens in this school.

On what day and where did you find a girl or boy? What is their name? How old are they? Who are their parents? Have they been victims of incest? Are they pregnant? Are they disabled?

What you traded or found on what day and where, what you consumed that day, what you have left, and what you urgently need.

As you turn the pages, you see neatly arranged Polaroid photos pasted onto the paper in this ledger.

Below the photo, a gap was left so that the child's name in the photo could be written.

In this ledger, he found the record for December 18, 1993: some kind guerrillas brought the children urgently needed supplies and medicines, as well as a kind female doctor who was like an angel and something called hope.

In gratitude, Mr. Mikhail presented them with the guerrilla star he had cherished all his life.

He later told us that he never imagined he would have the opportunity to award the partisan medal to the Germans, but those people were entitled to it.

As Wei Ran continued flipping through the pages, he paused in surprise when he saw the last page of records.

"On April 8, 1994, there were four teachers and one school doctor here, along with 39 children."

We are all buried in the basement. Thick smoke has begun to spread. We probably have no chance of escaping, let alone living to see Sarajevo achieve peace.

In the final moments of our lives, we decided to leave behind these words.

Among our 39 children and five adults, there are Serbs, Croats, and Muslims.

Some of them are children who have been harmed by the Kali and Muslim communities.

Some of them were humiliated for being labeled as "Serbs".

Some of them have been repeatedly harmed by people who use the names of so-called "Khmer" or "Muslim".

Regardless of whether we belong to the Serbs, Croats, or Muslims, our lives are about to end.

I hope that those who later discover this place will forever remember this meaningless war, and I also hope that by the time you find it, Sarajevo will have achieved peace.

"The day before the shelling here"

Thomas said, "Tussa in Rwanda is just getting started."

"War after war, Tusha after Tusha."

Dragan said wearily with a sneer, "This really is the golden age of mercenaries."

"The Golden Age of American Mercenaries"

While correcting the other person, Wei Ran flipped through everything again, and then there were more Polaroid photos.

In those images where thick smoke was still visible, children who were either heavily pregnant or carrying a newborn baby were all trying their best to smile brightly at the camera.

He also saw several group photos that were so crowded that they were blurry.

These group photos seem to include everyone in the basement, but they are all shrouded in thick smoke, making everything in the photos blurry and out of focus.

“We will bury them,” Thomas said.

"Send it to that hotel."

Dragan said, "I've already sent all the commissions you paid to my brother through my friends."

He will come as soon as possible to buy the hotel, and he will also buy the church where we used to hide. He will then help us bury them.

"I'll go get some body bags."

As Sofia spoke, she turned and beckoned Damir to leave the basement together. Shortly afterward, they brought back several boxes of body bags printed with the letter UN.

"What are your plans next?"

Thomas asked questions as he collected the bodies, even writing the corresponding names on the body bags by comparing the remaining clothes of these highly decomposed corpses with Polaroid photos.

"I don't know," Dragan replied blankly. "Probably still a mercenary, I guess."

“I’m planning to start a security company,” Thomas said. “Are you interested?”

"Set up a security company?"

Dragan scoffed, "Haven't you had enough of war yet?"

Thomas added a prefix to his business: “The security company that hunts down Deyang.”

Seeing that everyone was looking at him, Thomas said truthfully, "After the accident here, I investigated the mortar position that fired shells here."

You know this place.

"I know"

Thomas sighed. "When the accident happened here, it was right at the time that Luna and I had agreed to communicate."

I later secretly investigated the unit that shelled this area; it was a shelling operation paid for by Deyang.

"Quiet?"

“At that time, Deyang had just killed Yalf’s family, and they must still be looking for those things.”

Thomas, busy collecting the bodies, said, "So next is revenge, revenge against Deyang."

"Releasing these things is enough," Wei Ran reminded him.

"Far from enough"

Thomas shook his head. "I don't just want to hunt down the hyenas of Deyang; I want to save more refugees and orphans in the war zone. I know it's stupid, but..."

"I've done enough stupid things."

Dragan picked up two body bags containing human remains and handed them to the person above him, saying, "So I don't mind doing some more stupid things, but do you have the start-up capital?"

"certainly"

Thomas suddenly broke into a bright smile. "I interviewed a lot of people in Rwanda, including some high-ranking officials from the Muddleheaded tribe."

"Is this how you conduct interviews?" Dragan made a throat-slitting gesture.

"Generally speaking, I charge for my interviews."

Thomas tried to keep the atmosphere from becoming too heavy, but even his smile betrayed his exhaustion.

"How is Klaus's child?" Wei Ran asked abruptly.

My brother is taking care of them.

Dragan said, "I know what you're implying, but I've thought it through, and I'm joining."

“I want to join too,” Sophia said earnestly.

"If you don't mind, we're here too."

Zorana said calmly, "We no longer want to go back to the competition to participate in the Olympics. Our lives have been ruined by this inexplicable war."

"And I"

The girl who had been following Dragan said, "I want to participate too. I'm Dragan's observer now. Oh, I forgot to mention, my code name is Ms. W."

"Then please include me in your order."

Wei Ran had just begun to say those words when a blinding white light rushed towards him again.

When the white light faded again, Wei Ran found himself back beside the small church.

However, by this time, the church had been rebuilt, and graves had been dug in the cemetery next to the church.

Looking down at his black suit, the guerrilla star pinned to his chest, and the white rose in his hand, Wei Ran smiled as he walked into the cemetery.

"Today, we will bury our comrades who died in Sarajevo."

Inside the cemetery, Thomas, dressed as a Christian pastor but wearing a small blue hat and holding an Orthodox cross, said in a serious tone, "Whether he believes in God or not, and whether the bullshit God he believes in comes from Christianity, blue hat, or damn Orthodox Christianity."

They will all sleep here forever in the name of their family, forever watching over us as we do those righteous but foolish things.

"The tombstones for me and Klaus are really beautiful, even though only he is lying in them."

After the ceremony, Dragan pointed to his own cross tombstone and said with a beaming smile.

The tombstone was covered not only with many American-style soldier tags, but also with various colored hair clips.

"That sounds really strange."

Thomas said, throwing the Bible and cross he was holding, along with his mismatched clothes, into a grave. "Alright, from now on, my name is Leon."

“My name is Gerhard, that’s my grandfather’s name,” Dragan said.

“Victor, take a picture for us,” Thomas, no, Lyon said to Wei Ran.

Where was it filmed?

As Wei Ran spoke, he placed the white rose in his hand in front of Old Man Mikhail's tombstone. He noticed that on another tombstone right next to this one, the name written was Tanya Sanson.

The girl he never met was buried here as Thomas's wife.

"Let's do it here."

Dragan, no, Gerhard suggested, “Let’s take the picture here. We haven’t had a chance to take a group photo since the war ended.”

"Let's take the picture here then."

Wei Ran nodded, letting the young men and women around him, either leading or holding babies who shouldn't have been born, line up in several rows amidst the various colored tombstones.

After some adjustments, Wei Ran placed the camera on a tombstone, pressed the Selfie button, and sat cross-legged next to Mikhail's tombstone. In the rising white light, he took a group photo with the young people around him who had survived the war but decided to join it.