My War Memoirs: The Warmth of a Basement Heaven (Chapter 25.)

 The Warmth of a Basement Heaven

Back then, the pinnacle of my existential comfort was a very specific moment: running into the kitchen with blue lips and fingers frozen stiff from a day of sledding on the nearby hill. I’d be met by the scent of my grandmother’s soup—that golden broth with homemade noodles that seemed to cure every childhood sorrow. After inhaling that liquid heat, I’d tuck myself into a crisp, fragrant bed that smelled of frost and fabric softener. That sensation, when the warmth finally begins to seep into frozen bones, was almost a religious experience.

Ten years later, my definition of “paradise” had undergone a radical redesign.

Now, the peak of human comfort was a basement in a safe house in Ivanovac. A basement. A room that, under normal circumstances, would have served as storage for broken coffee grinders and dusty jars of pickled beets, had become my five-star hotel. Our mattresses were stacked on makeshift wooden pallets—pure luxury, since we weren’t sleeping directly on the damp earth. There were about fifteen of us, packed like sardines in a tin can that smelled of sweat, mildew, and cheap tobacco. In the corner, like some prehistoric deity, a wood-burning stove roared. It was glowing red, radiating a heat that fought a desperate battle against the moisture in the walls.

Outside, the dull thud of a nearby shell would occasionally echo, followed by the dry, nervous rattle of automatic gunfire. Ironically, that sound—which would drive any sane person into a panicked flight—was my lullaby. I knew I was “inside.” I knew the walls were thick. I was safe in my brutal, temporary home.

I was sinking into sleep after twenty-four hours in a trench. For someone who, until yesterday, saw the only real danger in a poorly placed bet or being late for work, this “excursion” to the frontline was too much. You’re thrust into the fire without an owner's manual. In reality, the whole mythology of war heroism is a great illusion. There’s no grand plan; there are no Hollywood speeches. You’re just caught in a situation, trying to find your way out without forgetting your own name.

I watched the faces of my fellow soldiers. Seasoned wolves. I was just "tagging along," mimicking their movements like a child learning to walk. When they ducked, I glued myself to the dirt. When they cursed, I handled the silence. I was just a number, a body to fill a gap in the line. And yet, when one of them patted me on the shoulder and muttered that I’d "held up well for a rookie," I felt a surge of pride more dangerous than a sniper’s bullet. I needed that. Not for a medal, but for the knowledge that they weren't afraid to have me standing next to them.

But then, as I finally slid into my military sleeping bag, something strange happened. Instead of blissful peace, a violent shudder hit me. My body began to lose control. I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering like a pair of castanets in the hands of a drunk Spaniard. A cold sweat broke over me, worse than any flu.

"Jura... Jura, I’m shaking… I don't know what’s wrong with me!” I hissed through clenched teeth to my neighbor and squad leader, who was lying on the mattress next to me.

Jura didn’t even open his eyes. He just wrapped himself tighter in his bag, as calm as if he were lying on a beach instead of in a basement under fire.

"Keka, don't sweat it,” he answered in a deep, weathered voice. “That’s just the adrenaline leaving your system. Your brain is only now realizing you could have died ten times in the last hour, so it’s sending the bill to your body. Most of us did that dance in the beginning."

He paused, then added with that typical soldier’s cynicism: "Think of something beautiful. Some nice tits and ass, for example. It fixes the circulation better than the stove.”

He turned his back to me and drifted off. I was left alone with my tremors. I decided to mock them. Shake harder, you bastard, I thought, if that’s all you’ve got. In that bizarre game of defying my own body, I felt the sleeping bag begin to truly warm me. The smell of dampness in my nostrils suddenly transformed into the scent of my grandmother’s pancakes.

I fell into the sleep of the righteous, but it was that strange, fractured sleep of a soldier. Every fifteen minutes, my body would bolt upright. My subconscious was screaming: What if they break through? What if they catch us sleeping?

I reached out of the bag and felt the cold metal of my old SKS rifle. I pulled that ugly piece of iron closer, cradling it. It was a grotesque sight—a grown man in a basement of war hugging a rifle like a toddler hugs a teddy bear or a pacifier. But at that moment, that hunk of steel was the only guarantee that I would wake up tomorrow.

Ivanovac was sleeping, and I was sinking into the dark with it, ready to do it all over again in the morning.