First time in the Balkans. Whatever that means. Don’t know what exactly I was expecting to find but what I am finding exceeds it. A mishmash of remnants from every era of the past spread across streets where concrete peels off the facades of buildings, next to newbuilds and people dressed from H&M and Zara.
A Zara branch at a central location, the window display was hidden behind an array of religious icons. The seller seemed relaxed, no looks over his shoulders like the migrants selling fake designer bags at Athens metro stations. Religion playing capitalism on its turf, and coming out victorious.
I can’t remember the name of the street. Or of any street. It’s been a long time since I last experienced this level of linguistic isolation. Last time was in Poland. Yet, bizarrely, the Serbians feel familiar when they speak this unfamiliar language. It’s the words I don’t understand, not the people, at least the ones that are closer to my age. In the faces of the older ones, I read or project something darker. The idea, the knowledge that not long ago people here went through a war. And that there is another one happening right now closer to this place than to where I came from. Yet out there, on the streets, the same capitalist joy, the colourful clothes, the same one my children are wearing and the children of friends in France and in the UK. Do the elders talk to the children about the war? My grandfathers didn’t talk to me about the war. Only my grandmother once, after I prompted her, and I soon realized the dates didn’t add up. Her war was a blend between WWII and the Civil War. I pointed this out, she didn’t seem to bother.
There are no stray dogs and no stray people in Belgrade. There are buildings peeling off, bricks exposed, museums with foul-smelling toilets, but there are no stray dogs and no stray people.
People in shops, cafes, restaurants don’t seem to care much if you’re a tourist. A refreshing change compared to the wild tourist funfair my country has become. When I tell people I don’t speak Serbian, some smile benignly, with curiosity, a recognizable smile from my childhood years, when foreigners in our neighbourhoods were a scarcity. The younger ones reply in good English. And when they speak Serbian and I pay attention, I can hear a lot of English words. They too have bought their clothes at H & M and Zara. The waiters take my order, then go and chat to their friends, it’s convivial, it’s warm, it’s very close to home.
Saying that you come from Greece doesn’t earn you brownie points here. People don’t look at you like you’re a direct descendant of Plato or talk to you about their favourite classics. They remember their holiday, name an island or a place in northern Greece, usually with a sigh. They go there every year, have been many times, would like to go back. Such a beautiful country.
One of the books I’ve brought with me is Fleming’s on Ali Pasha, where he traces the evolution of orientalism and the trajectory that lifted Greece out of the Orient and threw it into Europe’s lap. Is Greece part of the Balkans or isn’t it? I’ve been hearing this question all my life. Can I answer it better now that I finally made it to a bonafide Balkan country?
The little cultural production in Serb-Croatian language I have managed to get my hands on, my eyes in, is mediated. The plays in French, the novels in Greek or English. If it weren’t for Orientalism, I wouldn’t have been able to read in these foreign languages, travel as widely, live in different countries, be treated as Plato’s niece. I met a translator in Krokodil, she told me she can’t translate a Greek text into Serbian if it comes to her through English. There is something common in our respective cultures that doesn’t translate into Western languages. Once the contact is direct, she said, the structures are ready. I believed her, or rather trusted her. I’m an Ottoman subject too.
Apparently there is also a Serbian version of the mythological song with the bridge demanding a human sacrifice (though I think they said in the Serbian version it’s not a bridge).
Witnessed a minor car accident on the street. A white, shiny, clean but now very new car scratched ever so slightly the rear of a black, shiny newish passenger car. The light was red, everyone got out. I was expecting a fight but the older guy in the white car, once he saw the damage was negligible, took out his wallet and gave the two younger guys riding in the black car some money. They took it and went back into their respective cars, all jovial. It’s better not to have dealings with the insurance companies, the banks, the tax authorities, the police, the state in all its forms and shapes, if you can help it. They will complicate things and make you pay more. I know all this. I’m the niece of Plato and, did I mention it, an Ottoman subject.
Last day in Belgrade. Booked a cab over the phone, after two fake cabbies tried to rip me off when I arrived, right in front of the taxi booth at the airport. I am an Ottoman subject too, so luckily I saw through it, yet was quite shocked by the breeziness of it. Last night in Belgrade and I will celebrate like I always do when I’m leaving a place I called home for more than a couple of days: by emptying the fridge. Went down to the supermarket to grab something I needed for my meal of leftovers, and when I came back I accidentally climbed one flight of stairs too many. As I was about to put my temporary key in my temporary door, I realized this wasn’t my temporary door. For a few seconds, all the possibilities went through my head, including the one that during my five minutes of absence somebody had come into the building, changed the lock, fitted a new door, stolen my things including my computer, my passport and the phone I hadn’t taken with me, and that I was therefore trapped in this country where I don’t speak the language, away from my family, my work, my permanent door. Then I climbed down the stairs, calmly, and found my temporary door. One of the things that has shocked me the most since I became a parent is how willing children are to believe any kind of horror. One day, we were driving on the highway and they were typically and very annoyingly screaming in the back seat, so we pulled over to tell them that this trip would not continue until they calmed down. As the car came to a stop, my daughter asked me if we were going to leave her there. Too young for Hansel and Grettel to have reached her from any other source (we hadn’t read it to her), she was writing the fear of abandonment, her own carsick version of it. Welcoming the unthinkable as one possibility among others. Circling back to the war, so present in my mind due to my projections about this country and the massacre in Gaza, in retrospect I am finding it hard to blame my daughter, or me, or anyone for doing exactly that. If atrocities do happen that’s because they are not unthinkable, that’s because we are hard-wired not to trust, not even our parents, let alone the state and the laws of warfare. This mosaic of a city, razed to the ground and reconstructed over and over again, stands as a perfect testament to that.