To hear some tell it, the centre of Europe at this moment is the Dolce Vita, a grimy, smoke-filled cafe with mirrored walls that sits on the edge of the northern Serb sector of Kosovska Mitrovica. Will this sector of Kosovo be partitioned between Serbs and Albanians? NATO has said it will not support partition, that its 78-day war was not fought to facilitate partition, but to create a multiethnic society.
Do not try and tell that to anyone in Mitrovica, much less Kosovo. Do not try and tell that to any Serb or any Albanian for that matter. This city near Kosovo's border with Serbia proper has become a flashpoint of violence, of shootings and night-time raids, of stone-throwing and of tossed hand-grenades that can be purchased on the street for £5, of Albanian revenge attacks and Serbian assaults on the French Kfor troops who guard two bridges over the River Ibar that separate the northern and southern sectors of the city.
Most of the Albanians live to the south of the river. Some 300 Albanian families used to live, before the war, in three apartment complexes just to the north. Another group of Albanians lives in a cluster of homes called Little Bosnia in the north.
The 17,000 Serbs who live in the north do not want Albanians in their midst. They say they are afraid, and indeed there have been Albanian revenge attacks throughout the province. Serbs have been attacked and have complained that Kfor has not come to their aid.
Hence was born the Bridge watchers - an ominous sounding and even more ominous looking group of burly men who sit all day and all night at the Dolce Vita cafe, smoking Partners cigarettes, and watching for Albanians who try to cross the bridge. When they do, an alert goes out over walkie-talkies and within minutes, hundreds or even thousands of Serbs gather to prevent such border crossing. The crowds are sometimes successful; more often, they are not, and the French troops escort the Albanians to their homes.
Zdravko is a 6-foot, 4-inch man wearing a long, black trenchcoat that seems especially bulky and a black cap. He has a scruffy, grey beard and is ruggedly handsome. He sits with his legs crossed at one of the two-storey cafe's small round tables, nursing a coffee, his walkie-talkie before him. With three others, one wearing an especially bulky brown leather jacket, they look through large dirty windows, which are partially obscured by yellowish drapes. Most of the time they are observing only the French Kfor tanks, the globes of razor wire that line the bridge and many streets, and the gaggle of bored French troops standing guard. On an adjacent rooftop, French sniper-trained soldiers keep an eye on the whole scene.
Zdravko is not exactly chatty or eager to share his world views, but he does allow that he lives in Montenegro, the Yugoslavian province that many consider the next hot spot because of its Western sympathies and opposition to President Slobodan Milsosevic.
He came here a month ago to help protect the Mitrovica Serbs. He is staying with friends. He opposes Montenegro's independent stance. "Montenegrins and Serbs are the same. We share the same language and the same religion. No one will divide us."
I ask Zdravko if he has a job - other than sitting in the Dolce Vita. No, he shakes his head. Did he have a job before the war? Again, no, he shakes his head. It seems apparent that Zdravko has been active in the Serbian protection business for some time.
Nicola also does some shifts at the Dolce Vita. He is a tall, dark-haired man who learned some English while studying hotel management in Belgrade. He has a cousin in New Jersey and hopes to visit the US. "But for now, we must make sure Serbs here are safe," says Nicola.
Both men are part of a group called Oliver's Momci or Oliver's Boys. If there is to be a leader-in-waiting of Kosovo's Serbs, Oliver Ivanovic is ready to step forward. A few blocks up the hill from the Dolce Vita, we visit the office of the Serbian National Council, a group headed by Mr Ivanovic that grew considerably after the war. The group's headquarters are in a three-storey house, formerly a tobacco retailer. It is buzzing. Radios crackle, the walkie-talkies are exchanged, fax machines hum.
Mr Ivanovic (46), a slick, professional-looking man wearing a grey suit and fashionable tie, strides in to the conference room, all smiles and handshakes. Mr Ivanovic describes himself as a sportsman, a former engineer, Karate master, and father of three children.
"We represent all Serbs in the region, about 60,000," he says. Mr Ivanovic is in charge of the Serb bridge-watchers, who, he says, number in the hundreds. He denies that the group wishes to intimidate Albanians or prevent those who live in the north from returning to their homes.
"It is only the troublemakers we are concerned with. We need to be safe. Serbs are too nervous now. We must protect ourselves. UNMIK (the UN Mission in Kosovo, charged in part with policing duties), is completely unprepared for this mission. We are not wild people from Africa. We just feel we are not understood."
Mr Ivanovic says he is opposed to the partitioning of any part of Kosovo. He is also opposed to free elections at the moment, and says Serbs will neither register nor vote in any election called for by the UN. "It is too soon," he says. "Too soon."
Those are not the words that Linda (23) and her mother, Adile Hasani, want to hear. They are one of the Albanian families who live in Little Bosnia, the cluster of houses just over the bridge in the Serb sector.
To get to the Hasanis' house, one must clear French razorwired checkpoints at the corner of every street. Children play with the soldiers, rolling glass marbles along the unpaved dirt streets. We sit on a long, white furry couch in the living room, drinking tea and eating sweet Baklava. Relatives and friends drop in and out.
"I am a technology student but I cannot go to university anymore because the school is in the north," says Linda, who speaks some English. "There is an 8 p.m. curfew. We cannot leave our houses. The soldiers must take us shopping for food. How can we live this way?" she asks.
Her mother, Adile, is a cheerful animated woman. Adile worked at the hospital in Mitrovica for 22 years as a gynaecological aide. "We worked side by side, Albanian and Serb," she says. "But now we are told we cannot work there. There are no Albanians working in the hospital now. No Albanian patients."
Adile tells stories of how masked Serb men broke into their houses even after the NATO agreement was signed, stole their belongings, took their money and jewellery. She tells the story of how 14 people were killed in the house beside them.
"Books and films cannot show you what we went through. Nobody works now. Nobody works at the hospital, nobody works at the mines. We are waiting to live," she says.
I ask Adile about the West's plans to slowly build "confidence" zones, to integrate these communities. Can Serbs and Albanians ever learn to live together? She pauses and struggles to speak, even through an interpreter. She holds her hands palms up. "You see my hands, they sweat when you ask this question. No, I cannot forgive them. I had Serb friends. I trusted them. Now, their faces have changed, I don't even recognise their faces. We are still in a war here."