sleep is impossible

The train pulled out of Zagreb at near midnight.  The French guy we met at the party drove us from Iosip and Antonia’s place to the train station, where we all shared a couple of beers together before racing off to the train.  We had opted for a four person cabin rather than a six person cabin, but in truth, it was the same cabin, just at a slightly higher price.  We were lucky to be the only two in our cabin, since one of the beds was broken, off its rail and one side dropped against the floor.  It was like Tito built the train with his own hands and no one repaired it since he died.  Which could very well have been true.  There was a Dutchman, a Slovenian and a Turk in the cabin next door.  The Dutchman and the Turk were both on their way to Istanbul, traveling on train all the way from Amsterdam on a nearly direct path. 

I tried to go to sleep soon after boarding, while the dim blue light of Pavlos’s iPad lit up the room and the hairy defines of Pavlos’s face.  It seemed days had passed when three o’clock came and the attendant pounded on every door in the wagon, calling out, “Passports!  Get your passports ready!”  The rocking motion of the train came to a halt and soldiers could be heard outside, yelling commands.  Pavlos and I sat up in our beds, wearing just our underwear.   A Croatian guard opened the door, looked at our passports, stamped them and gave them back.  The train began to move again.  Thirty minutes later, the same routine, but now there were Serbian guards outside yelling orders. 

The Dutchman moaned from the next cabin, “Sleep is impossible on this train!” 

The Serbian border guards rifled through everyone’s passport.  He took my American one.  I was expecting him to hassle me about it.  When I was crossing from Slovenia to Croatia, the Slovenian border guard there must have reviewed my passport some eight or nine times, showed it to his friends, and then looked at it even more.  The Serbian soldier glanced at my passport, stamped it and handed it back.  “I was ready for something more,” I told Pavlos.

“Why?” 

“I mean, we did bomb them twice.  I didn’t expect problems from the Slovenians, but the Serbians – if anyone would have a reason not to trust Americans, it’d be them.” 

It was 6 o’clock in the morning when we arrived in Belgrade.  The train station was almost as depressing as the train.  It was visibly old, with broken windows, empty buildings and unpainted, drab, grey concrete.  I felt like I went to a post-Soviet country.  It was a huge difference from Zagreb.  When we were leaving the train, we met the Slovenian guy, who offered to take us for a short walk and show us to a café.  The Slovenian guy worked in the Slovenian embassy in Belgrade and was often going back to Slovenia.  “There are two buildings the Americans blew up during the war,” he pointed to two buildings that appeared on the verge of collapse, glass windows were long ago blown out and half of both of the six storey structures were in heaps of rubble.  “That one was an apartment building and that one was a hospital.  They blew up a hospital!”  

“And the Serbs just left it like that.  Why not bull doze it and make it into a memorial park or something?” I asked.  “Unless they’re using it for propaganda.  I mean, that war was 12 years ago.”  I might say here that, with the Slovenian guy, this was the oddest I felt in Serbia for being an American.  The rest of the time there, when I was with Serbs, I mostly received genuine warmth and friendliness.   

the pedestrian mall, early in the morning

He didn’t know any places to hang out there since generally he didn’t do any partying in Belgrade.  “And crime has really picked up.  It’s just not safe,” he warned us.  He brought us up the hill and down one of the main streets, showing us where the pedestrian mall was.  From the foot of the mall, he left us, with only two more directions, “That way is to the big horse.  It is good place to meet people.  And that way is to the castle.  It’s very nice.  Good luck!” 

We walked down the pedestrian mall while eating some pastries we picked up.  Everywhere was closed.  The grey, cloudy skies blended in with the grey concrete buildings.  Silence had seized the streets, as the only souls moving were street sweepers, constantly raking the cement walkways with their brooms.    I got the feeling that I often felt in Georgia, that the country was once part of something great, but that was 30 years ago, and it had since seen economic collapse, brutal regimes and near constant warfare.  We found our way to the park where the castle was.  The park was unusually busy; mainly it was filled with men in dark coats with walkie-talkies.  As we approached the castle, Pavlos said, “You know, they’re following us.”  

Belgrade Castle

I couldn’t tell.  Everyone was wearing the same dark jackets and had the same dark hair.  “I think they’re actually different people.  And maybe there was nothing else to do for the park security.”  We turned the corner and found a line of tanks, their barrels raised to blast a stone wall.  Maybe they were just there to protect the tanks that were part of the Yugoslavia military museum that was snuggled between two rampart walls.  

the military museum

After exploring the park, we went back to the downtown area.  As the light started warming the streets, the colors began to fill out in the walls of the buildings, light greens, pinks and yellows started to glow through the grey void.  People started filling the sidewalks, walking to work and school.  It was like a spring garden, blossoming and coming to life again, with the season of one day.  

Studentski Trg bus stop

church in downtown Belgrade

“You guys speak English?!” a guy said as he crossed the street towards us.  He was bearded and wore all sorts of mismatched clothing.  He had a big sweater with a kangaroo pocket, where he showed us his beer bottle collection.  “You want something to drink?” 

I didn’t understand.  Was he selling beer on the street?  “No thanks,” I said.  Then turned to keep on going, but Pavlos seemed to want to engage the guy in conversation.   The guy who looked like a Serbian bum was actually a Serbian from Chicago who had come back to visit friends, ran out of money and now was boozing it on the streets of Belgrade.  I guess that meant he was a Serbian bum and didn’t simply look like one.  The bum showed us a coffee shop and then went to take care of some business.  “I’ll be back in an hour!” he told us.  “Don’t go anywhere!”

We sat in the café.  There was a woman in there who may have been working there.  “Can we get some coffee?” I asked in Russian.  She replied, “It is not time.”  She pointed to the clock.  I translated for Pavlos. 

“It’s not time for what?”

“That’s what I don’t get.  Maybe she doesn’t work here?”

“But she was cleaning things earlier.  Maybe she just cleans things and the person who serves coffee isn’t there yet?” 

“Maybe.  Hmm, no internet here,” Pavlos said, looking up from his iPad. 

“We could go on up to somewhere on the mall.  I saw a place with free wifi.” 

“And ditch that guy?” Pavlos asked. 

“I guess we’ll have to.  A travesty,” I said.  “Probably he could teach us how to get stuck in Belgrade.”  We moved up to an Italian café that was just around the corner, waiting for time to pass until we could go meet our next host, Reet, a lady from Estonia who had moved to Belgrade working for the European Union.  She lived out in one of the outer corners of town.  At last it was time to meet her, approaching eleven o’clock.  We got on the bus, first in the wrong direction and then figured out to go to the other end of the bus line.  When we got off the bus, we had no idea where to go, and we were an hour late to meet her. 

The bus driver and a couple bystanders saw our confusion and they came to our aid.  “What is the address you’re looking for?” the asked us in broken English. 

“Number 3,” Pavlos said.  The email wasn’t coming up in the iPad so we couldn’t recheck the directions. 

“On which street?”

“Um… this one?”

“Number 3 is down there,” they pointed.  We walked down there and came to the Number 3 hours.  There was a high gate.  We pressed the door bell several times and I used my Georgian doorbell, that is, I shouted “Reeeet!” several times really loudly.  Neighbors looked over at us.  Finally the door opened and out came an ancient lady, short, white hair and wrinkle framed face.

“Are you Reet?  Do you know Reet?” I asked her in Serbian. 

“What?  What?  Go away!” she said, waving us away. 

We closed the door. 

“So, where do we go?  You don’t know anything more?” I asked Pavlos. 

“Just that it’s not on this street.”  We couldn't use our phones since both of us were out of minutes, though we didn't understand why, since we told the Croatian T-mobile company to give us plenty more.  We walked around more, pressing more Number 3 door bells until finally we found Reet, coming out of her door and calling down to us from her upstairs apartment.