The journey to Munich, somehow strangely squeezed between dream and wakefulness.
Some old guest workers were talking in the seats behind me, irritatingly throwing German words into the conversation: “azo”, “aba”.
The vocabulary of emigrants from the eighties really annoyed me.
Will I sound just as irritating as they do in about 30 years?
From the get-go, I can tell both are deeply messed up.
Will that beast called nostalgia in a few years creep into your bones and be as inevitable as gravity?
Like a magnet, something pulls you to where you were born.
And there's nothing there anymore. Except for yourself.
And that monster inside of you eats live flesh and beautifies images of the country you came from.
I'm cold as a corpse. Dead like my country.
Once you leave, you no longer belong anywhere. Neither where you left from nor where you've arrived.
The bus to Munich and my new life slowly glide on the highway.
My life slips through my fingers faster than this bus.
Image after image crash rapidly in my head… From childhood, through the war, to this moment in which I sit and stare into my own life as if into death.
We arrive.
I take my bags out of the luggage compartment. The city is bustling on a chilly afternoon.
The languages at the station surprise me. I hear my language at every step.
What is my language, I wonder?
Down south, we differentiated and lined up according to several versions of the same language.
There, we were so different with the same language.
Here, we are all the same.
You know… it's nice to hear both ‘bre' and ‘bolan'. And ikavica, ekavica, and ijekavica.
Like a symphony of some beautiful belonging. Our own.
Why aren't we our own back in my country, I think at that moment.
I pull the address they gave me from my wallet and head to my new home.
I'll be back, I mumble to myself.
Just until I repay the overdrafts, the loan, and send some to my folks for starters. I won't be a picture of those two guest workers from the bus, torn between children who are Germans and that country that will gravitationally pull me with nostalgia.
I unlock the door.
It's not so bad. A house with ten rooms for us workers.
I put my bag on the floor. I won't unpack it completely.
To know it's temporary.
I'm cold as a spritzer, I assure myself.
Tomorrow work awaits me.
Night passes through dream and wakefulness. I wake up and don't know where I am.
It's six o'clock. I'm off to work.
In the hallway, I meet someone from Travnik.
He slaps my shoulder: “Hey Zemo, you made it. Let's go, why are you so frozen like a p***y?”
We arrive at the construction site.
Some man comes close, right up to me. He warmly greets me, my German isn't bad.
He asks how I've settled in, if I need anything. We say goodbye and he leaves. I'm wondering how I know him when I was told he's the owner of the whole building complex.
Damn, the owner laughs with a construction worker and warmly greets, I thought. In our place, if they have a small shop, they turn up their noses and don't interact with commoners.
The first day goes well.
I return to that room. I don't know what to do with myself.
Why is this country so happy?
And it's not as beautiful as my country, a thought cuts through my brain.
I even feel good here.
The phone rings. The screen reads: “Mom”.
– “Son…”… And a sob.
– “Don't, mom, it's great here, we're close, I'll come back soon…”
– “Son…”, she can't talk.
– “Come on mom, this too shall pass.”
– “Did you eat, is it hard for you?”
– “It's not mom, it's great.”
– “Take care, eat well. Look, everyone sends their regards.”
I hang up.
I sit on the bed.
I look at the floor.
From my eyes, suddenly, a river flows on that parquet.
Salty water washing away the pain.
I don't wipe my face.
Let that damn country of stone sleepers drain out of me.
I light a cigarette…
Good night, my Balkan.
Sleep peacefully…
Author Ljiljana Leona Zovko”
