12.03.

And here’s another date that I will never forget. I think I’ve witnessed too much history.
I was working as a part time translator for a government agency and it was a relatively slow day. I don’t really remember what happened when from all the excitement but we finished some meeting in the morning and I headed home. I visited my mom at work. I realized something strange was happening as I walked through the empty corridors. Everyone was glued to the radios in their offices. News was beginning to break but nothing was certain. In complete disbelief we kept saying: He’ll be ok.
I ran back to work, hoping to learn more. I looked at oblivious people in the street trying to recognize my own stunned expression on other faces. At work, the picture was grim. As I passed the crying secretaries and the men in suits shaking their heads, I started to realize that what we were fearing could actually be true. Not long after it was confirmed. Djindjic was dead.
I cannot remember at which point came a memo from the Ministry, which I was to translate for the foreign consultants. It was full of words like persevere and continuity. I cried as I was typing. But for a time I started to believe it could be done. That summer I was interviewed by a foreign journalist and I said that I believed that this horrible murder opened the eyes of even more people and that as tragic as it was it could not sidetrack the country on its way to becoming a normal place to live.
I was very wrong.