keepers of the most

it was a matter of debate as to whether the train was running between Sarajevo and Mostar—or, rather, between Zagreb and Ploče, on the Adriatic coast (the railroads bear the material brunt of those who respond badly to their situations of diversity). then: further rampant speculation about the exact time of said train (no mistake about singular and plural varieties here; wouldn't have tried something that depended on one in each direction per day, in mixed company—but i'm usually fortunate in this regard when alone. either that, or i just run down the moving vehicle). consequently, left Keziah's in the 5am darkness and walked down the hillside and through the empty streets. in one of the abandoned and semi-under construction buildings, i really heard an alarm clock peeping. couldn't stop to investigate and, thus, made it to the eki (which i thought was further towards Novo Sarajevo (where i had been staying at the Quaker house in September) than it was)) by 5:45, which was definitely in time for the 6:20 train.

when it screeched up, on time despite the distance already covered, i asked (always do, even before i started the Campaign of Friendly Chatter) a fellow whether this was the train, etcetera. later, after i'd found a seat and was huddling into my coat and wishing i had eaten a more decent breakfast before dashing out of the house, the same gentleman begged entrance to the compartment. before we were even out of the station, he had set out two beers (dark!) and given me the sandwich he was carrying. i tell you the truth: when it is with beer in the proper spirit, a day is begun correctly in this fashion.

he had been a boxer (no, really used to be one, not for Sazi-before-the-physics-class rhetorical purposes). now he was the most patient interlocutor i've encountered in a long while (although i can say: there's a marked difference between those in Srbija and Bosna when it comes to those upon whom one inflicts broken speech). instead of merely comprehending my garbled statements (which, to their credit, are, with a bit of imagination and pity, usually understandable, if a bit heavy on the nouns), he would repeat the words back, corrected—and then have me try them on for size. it was a work of rare beauty.

he had been visiting a sister in Croatia (he himself with his Croatian passport), but was returning home to Mostar, where he owned a restaurant ("what kind?" "a good one"). he was too old to sleep on trains. he was convinced that my weak eyesight was the direct result of my vegetarian ways (this emerged when i inquired about the contents of the sandwich and he just told me to take off the meat. this i did only to discover, and then proceed to slave through, more butter than i have consumed in the sum total of the past 24 years of my life—and, this, without even the consolation of funny funny jokes on the butter subject). for some reason (of which even i am not, now, sure), i have been carrying my CAJ (grade 2) ID card around with me in the notebook that is now tatteredness incarnate. somehow the ID had fallen from the mess, and my companion saw it on the ground, whereupon he returned it to its rightful and blushed-out owner, but not without some commentary.

it was cold on the train; he bought us both coffee as we started talking about politics, about who hates America or used to, and how things have changed or not changed. i never know how to bring up my studying in Beograd/Srbija when i am not in either of these places, or how to call the language that i'm learning. obviously, a simple, barked "srpski" will suffice when i'm at home, but somehow that falls short of the mark (in my mind). my hesitancy landed us in a discussion, with much amused rue (the only appropriate atmosphere, truly), about all the different terms for the same object that we could compile.

he had been in Ontario for a brief time (before i was born, he noted with glee) and, in his pocket, on this very morning, carried scraps of paper with the names of North American cities (which, i found out later, stood for sport teams instead of themselves; i was in over my head, although i knew them all, down to the "Seattle," pronounced phonetically), which he produced and recited with great fervency.

when we exchanged addresses and telephone numbers, it was for the event that he would ever be in Beograd (from my end) and in case i had "any problems" in Mostar (from his)—unlikely as these both were (or, at least, that their coming to pass would result in a dialing of the scrawled number).

winding along passes of mountains and via tunnels through them, at the far end of one of these latter, not far from Sarajevo, suddenly the train emerged in startling sunlight where there had been only thick fog and, on the ground, frost as thick and white as snow. mixed up with shadows on the mountains, which set into greater relief their stratifications, here, arrayed at long last: the colours of fall (instead of leaves which fall, sickly and mottled, from their trees, obeying with neither spirit nor full attention). the wide green Neretva below, also shadowed, but by the crags above; the twisted spires of rock and the chill water. we passed a station whose lone whitewashed edifice displayed, in place of a (more) proper name, "Grad [city]," and kept going down the tracks.

of all the days, 360 of them (he maintained) were sunny in the "Mediterranean climate of Hercegovina." if it was an exaggeration, my hand pressed upon the window could tell that something had changed. indeed, when we stepped off the train, i could have stretched into the warmth and light of the platform. instead, after declining an invitation for one more cup of coffee and parting on genial terms, i headed alone into the city, crossing one of the bridges which took me almost immediately to what had been a front line—and bore all the gutted markings thereof.

the nine months of besiegement took its toll everywhere in Mostar, where the JNA met the HVO (Croats), and the Bosnian Muslims elbowed their way into the usual confusing morass of destruction. the west side of the city was (and is) largely Catholic and Croat, while, to the east, across the river, it's minarets every 200 meters. apparently, before the 1990s, there was also a significant Serb population. when it looked like the dream of a Srbija (sometimes called Jugoslavia, but not to be confused with the other one of the same name, spoken with another tone altogether) that encompassed half of Europe was about to go, yet again, unrealised (there's something about these irrational marauding impulses and their failure that makes me think that everyone should just play more games of Risk before they decide to set out into the world), they seem to have fled for regions that could still be objectively termed Srbija, before bombing the hell out of places that they thought still fell within the imprecise Sharpied lines on the bruised map, but whose main inhabitants (and those to the west, north, and south) had other ideas.

all of this results in: appreciable Catholic stuff (for the first time since i've been here!), most of it in the form of achingly new and rebuilt churches, and lots of Ottoman influence, likewise under reconstruction. the wonderful Stari Most [old bridge], which was destroyed during the idiocy, was finished in 2004. it seems that when Andrić spoke of bridges, he had looked upon this one, in particular. it is at once connected with the river (in that it forms a passage thereover), but also answerable to itself and the veritable city formed directly on either side, with the same stones (at least, now, figuratively) that lead across its steep arc. in the summer, young men are collectively seized with a flight of fancy that sends them leaping from its pinnacle into the water below; i saw one man clad in only a swimming suit but he had, it seemed, already accepted his 6-month error and was not doing anything of the jumping sort. all around, people were playing backgammon, dogs were terrorising small girls, and shops were selling both the usual "ooooh, shiny Oriental" crap and real books about the 1990s and the years immediately before and since. most importantly—on, not one, but two separate occasions—i heard the strains of Leonard Cohen ("Dance Me to the End of Love" (whose instrumental parts sounded almost Ethnic), and "If It Be Your Will")) emanating from rooms built into the side of the bridge-city. then a woman came up to me and gave me a booklet produced by what seemed to be a local offshoot of Focus on [Your Own Damn] Family, which cast a pall that, nonetheless, never really got off the ground from hilarious (in the sense of not having to really go far before running smack into it all—and, obversely (or, in one of those maddening logical relationships with), not being able to run far enough, after all)).

as usual, walked the city for the better part of 8.5 hours, which meant a fair amount of the doubling back that constitutes luxury in my (forthcoming, 2007) series of travel books, as yet untitled beyond the thematic "shoestrings??? what?? who needs even those? [mutter, mutter] weaklings...." element, which will undoubtedly feature prominently.

from Mostar i take with me a view of a telephone pole, on which were pasted (in the usual roadside fashion here), in a vertical line, three obituaries: one with Orthodox, one with Catholic cross, and one with star inscribed in crescent; the true names of those who had died, in parentheses, sounding more like they had been concocted in the regions from which each obituariate "ought to" have descended, these: Bosnians, all.

the moon was just rising over the mountains when i hurried to the Mostar eki for the return train. i was almost asleep in the intensely heated compartment when i was joined by a guy who had trouble sitting still in such a way that cast certain doubts on his later assertions about having been associated with the whole Oklahoma city bombing crew. somehow, though, i take at face value his claim to have learned English during the 7 years spent in a US prison for shooting two black men. he was of the conviction that every government (he listed them) was, shall we say (using other words), rife with corruption.

pulled into Sarajevo and trekked back up to Keziah's (where, although i have not mentioned it, i have been living alone since she left with the Pontanima choir for Geneva early on Friday morning), where i clawed together an uncooked dinner and verily fell into bed.