Ivan Dolinar is born in Tito's Yugoslavia on April Fool's Day, 1948 -- the auspicious beginning of a life that will be derailed by backfiring good intentions in a world of propaganda and paranoia. At age nineteen, an innocent prank cuts the young Croatian's budding medical career short and lands him in a notorious labor camp. Released on the eve of civil war, Ivan is drafted into the wrong army, becoming a pawn in an absurd conflict in which the rules and loyalties shift abruptly and without warning. But even in a world gone mad, one course of action remains eminently sane: survival. Told with bitingly dark humor and a deep tenderness, April Fool's Day is both a devastating political satire and a razor-sharp parody of war.

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April Fool's Day
A Novel

Chapter One

Ivan falls in love with power as
soon as he learns how to crawl

Ivan Dolinar was born on thefirst of April in 1948. Since his parents did not want him to gothrough life as a Fool's Day joke, they registered his birthday asthe second of April, in the Nizograd Birth Registry in Croatia.His surly father gave the baby the first name that popped intohis head -- the most common name in the region and, for thatmatter, Europe. Nobody else in the family tree, however, borethat name, from what Milan could tell, and that was a furtheradvantage to choosing it, since he didn't feel particularly gratefulto the tree.

That Milan Dolinar was surly was not personal but historical.On his wedding day, the sixth of April, 1941, Belgrade wasbombarded. The king, having signed the pact with Germany,had already fled the country (taking along all the gold thatcould fit on his plane and dropping some to enable the plane toattain sufficient altitude to fly over the Bosnian mountainstoward Greece -- to this day people look for the gold in Bosnia),and a variety of armies, domestic and imported, began to crawlthrough the country.

Ivan's father was drafted into one of them. He distinguishedhimself by courage on the battlefield and would have received thehighest honors had he not changed armies several times andjoined the winning side too late. He was not the sort of medalwinnerwho hides in a bunker during battles, who is the loudestonce the battle is over, and who carries with him enough brandyto give to his superiors. Ivan's father rushed to the front lines andthrew hand grenades at the enemies from up close; he shot from his machine gun, shivering with joy when his bullets ripped a soldier'sguts, blood spurting into mud in the heart's rhythm.

One white wintry day, a green mufflerless truck droppedMilan Dolinar off at home, maimed. Milan carried his severedarm and leg in a potato sack, because he had heard that sciencecould put his limbs back on. After several weeks the ice thawed,and the hand and the leg rotted, despite Milan's keeping them inthe coldest corner of his basement. Yet he kept even the bones,thinking that science would one day be able to restore his limbs.He read all the medical books he could lay his hands -- or, rather,hand—on, and he claimed he knew more about illnesses than allthe doctors in the county combined. When he sat near the towncenter kiosk, under chestnut trees, and smoked his pipe (whichwas good for his sinuses in the wet climate), many peoplestopped by and asked him how to treat their rheumatoid arthritisand varicose veins. Sometimes lighting his pipe was the fee for theadvice. He was prophetic indeed about the beneficial influence ofred wine on the blood vessels and memory faculties, so everyafternoon his nose turned red, and he related his war reminiscencesto random young listeners in horrifyingly vivid detail. Andwhen Ivan was born, his nose positively beamed. Several monthsafter Ivan's birth, Milan Dolinar died in delirium tremens.

From early on, Ivan wanted to distinguish himself, asthough he knew that he suffered a handicap. He fell in lovewith power as soon as he learned how to crawl. He screamed formilk even when he didn't want any, just so he could commandhis mother's attention. He was breast-fed for almost a year; hewouldn't have cow's milk as long as he could sink his face intohis mother's smooth bosom.

Then his mother, Branka Dolinar, gave birth to Bruno, theson Ivan's father had conceived before his death -- red wine wasgood even for that. Ivan was pushed away from his mother'ssoft breasts, although she did have two. No matter how muchhe screamed, he got only cow's milk. As for pacifiers, after thewar there weren't any, and he had to make do with his littlefingers.

Several years later Ivan took revenge for being displaced fromhis mother's bosom: he continually tortured his youngerbrother -- pulling his ears and nose, and bopping him on thehead. There was nothing more melodious to him than the boy'scrying. Ivan was not vicious -- he merely treated his brother as atemporary musical instrument, an organ, on which he was learningto control the keys, and after all, isn't music all about thebeauties of control and order? The rest of the day he would spendhugging Bruno, making him paper airplanes, and giving himchocolates he stole from the local store. But as Bruno was aboutto grasp a bar of chocolate, Ivan would withdraw it and tease him tograsp it again -- in the meanwhile, he would back his way up towardthe dark attic, and Bruno would follow, reaching up toward thealluring bar. And once his brother passed the threshold of theattic, Ivan would lock him in to scream in the dark. Ivan enjoyedthe high pitch he thus elicited from his brother's windpipe—butsoon thereafter he would open the door and apologize, promisingthey would go fishing together.

They often went to the little river, which passed throughthe town, and sat on the clay bank below weeping willows. Ivanfound the fish they caught too slimy to touch, while Brunoenjoyed getting the fish off the hook and spearing it on abranch and grilling it over the fire Ivan made. Under the tree'scanopy, they were like little Indians; they ate, and they smokeddry willow leaves. Bruno caught toads with his bare hands andlaughed at how they looked like bald, fat old men.

When Mother went shopping, she ordered Ivan to babysit,and often he did it quite literally, sitting on his crying babybrother. Mother beat Ivan for beating Bruno, and the resentfulIvan would beat the boy again and then offer him pencils, withwhich Bruno drew frogs and fish ...

Excerpted from April Fool's Day: A Novel by Josip Novakovich
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