My Integration

Goodnight Balkan

5 Min Read

A cold Zagreb morning seeped into my bones. I don’t know if it’s due to the fog, this metallic bench at the station, or from the sight of the two travel bags in which I packed my entire life, I don’t know if it’s because of the lost faces or the slightly unfamiliar city, I feel a frozen tingling in my fingers. It's as if my bones are breaking as I roll the tobacco.

I feel weak. Maybe it's from the Mostar – Zagreb journey; we meandered through Bosnia all night.

Through the bus window, I watched the outlines of cities passing by, disappearing into the darkness.

I left Mostar while it slept. It somehow feels easier to leave when it’s not awake. So the Radobolja and the old mill wouldn't hear me. So that the Zvezda and Partizan cinemas wouldn't hear me. Even though they've been gone for a long time, I fear they still might hear me.

So the department store ‘Hit' wouldn’t hear me, even though not a stone of it remains. But I fear it might still hear me, even in its lifeless state. I left at night so the autumn linden trees at Rondo, and the scent of hot chestnuts near the School of Economics wouldn't bid me farewell.

I left at night and passed silently through the Sarajevo outlines of my youth. The Miljacka River was still asleep. Through Banja Luka, Balaševic’s lyrics streamed through my frontal lobe:

“Like a cursed sailboat

into the dense blue darkness

dives the station.

Oh, goodnight Banja Luka…”

My country was asleep as I left. It had fallen asleep more than two decades ago.

Someone turned off the light. The power went out that night when the tank burst in Mostar. When shelters became new homes. The power returned, but the light never did.

That blue tube with the university seal has been gathering dust on the shelf for years. I didn't take it with me. Where I'm going, I don't need memories of false hopes. Let mom keep it as a relic, a thing she believed in.

Cities flowed before my eyes tonight. Cities of a country sleeping an eternal sleep.

I don't have any more time. My bones are already bending from crawling on the employment bureau floor.

Construction work awaits me in Munich.

“And years are counted and the force of gravity takes its toll.”

The border with Croatia.

The driver told us to get out, prepare our documents, and line up.

In me, a thought like a jury: Why didn’t I leave in some refugee column when Hit, the Zvezda cinema, and the Partizan cinema were burning?

Hundreds of whys I ran from like the devil from a cross.

I thought when they turn on the power, there would also be light.

Elections that followed the war confirmed my country’s sleep, like anesthesia without a chance of awakening.

“The bus to Munich from platform 505 departs in ten minutes”, an announcer's voice like a verdict.

I get up from the metallic bench, put out my cigarette, take out the Munich ticket from my pocket. The driver is placing bags in the hold, I enter the crowded bus. In it, eyes where fear can be sliced as if it's a living being.

We're departing.

The Sava river looks murky, some cities, increasingly foreign to me, pass by.

The first rays of the sun hit the back of my head. Somewhere from the East. Right from there, Where my country sleeps…

Author: Ljiljana Leona Zovko

From an upcoming collection of short stories, published by Matica Hrvatska Čitluk.

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