A Different Lifetime: Stepping Back in Time in the Former Yugoslavia (9 page)

So, we said
goodbye and I made my way out into the cold, foggy night air. The temperature
must have dropped very quickly in the last few hours. I began walking back to
my apartment, retracing the same path I’d taken to get here. The air is now
bitter cold and my every breath is visible as it leaves my mouth; it must now
be quite a few degrees below freezing.

When I next
saw Andora, she told me that she had spoken to her hairdresser friend.

 “I’ll call
you when she is able to do it,” she said.

Well, after a
few days I received a call from Andora to say that she would be coming over on
Tuesday to go with me to the hairdressers’ so that she could translate between her
friend and me. Well, at around twenty to one, the doorbell rang and there was
Andora. I invited her in, but she said she was not able to stay as she was on
her way to work and had to start at one o’ clock. So we made our way to the
hairdressers’ shop, which was just around the corner from the greengrocer’s. We
went inside and sat down.

“I’m going to
tell her what you want done, and then I’ll have to leave,” she said.

So I quickly
explained, and she passed on the information to her friend. I thanked her for helping
me and said goodbye.

“I hope I told
her the right thing,” she laughed as she went out of the door.

I hoped so
too!

Unbeknown to
myself, I had begun to accumulate more friends than I had realised. As the news
of my leaving Novaginja spread, many of my students began to exhibit a level of
friendship and support that I had been unaware of. In particular, all the
members of my senior class had gotten together and decided they would like to
take me out as a farewell gift.

My final days here are
somewhat bleak. The cold weather prevails and most days the temperature is not
getting above freezing. Everyone is telling me that this is unusual:

“It’s not usually so
cold,” they say.

“We don’t usually get so
much fog.”

The temperature inside my
apartment is dropping in sympathy with the outside climate. For the first time
I’m having to turn on the small electric fire in the living room; this manages
enough heat to make the apartment tolerable, but it is not really warm. I’m still
filling one of the empty plastic drinking water bottles with hot tap water to
keep me warm while sitting on the sofa and while sleeping at night; in fact
this make-shift hot water bottle is far more effective that using the electric
fire. So I am mostly using the fire to take the chill out of the room,
particularly when arriving home at night from work, as it now gets much colder
since the workmen returned to cut of the supply of hot water to my radiator.
And as life is bearable, I have decided not to mention the cold to Arkom
because I’m sure it will only result in another deduction from my wages if he
figures out that I am using more electricity, and after all, my plan is to
leave here with as much money as I can.

My getting out into the
community has become less frequent. It’s too cold to go out walking. I assume
that everyone must feel this as the streets are all but deserted. There is one
more week of classes to go and then I will have two more weeks left here: I’ll
be leaving at the end of the month.

Thursday will be my last
meeting with my senior class, and they have decided amongst themselves that if
I am agreeable, they would like to spend the last class period at a local café.
This is a complete surprise to me and I feel quite honoured that they have
chosen to say farewell in this way; so of course, I gratefully accept. We agree
to first meet at the school as usual at four-thirty and then make our way
together to the café. Philmore is not able to come because he is attending a
concert, but Icca, Glenna, Linda and Mary are here; Bella is running late and
phones to say she will go directly to the café.

On our arrival at the café
the waitress shows us to a large table that will accommodate all of us. Bella
soon arrives and we all order something to drink. I have a bottle of the local
beer, Icca has green tea, and the others all have various kinds of coffee. I
have brought along my camera and take some photographs of everyone; we ask one
of the waitresses if she will take one of all of us together.  We’re talking
about Novaginja and the school; but I think they are equally interested in
discovering any information they can about why I am suddenly leaving as they
are in saying goodbye to me.

“Have you had an argument
with Lenna and Arkom,” Bella asks. 

No, just some problems
with getting paid,” I reply.

“Well we’re wondering why
they’re not taking you to Belgrade,” Bella adds, “they have always taken the
teachers to the airport.”

“Well, Arkom has to drive
to Belgrade and he offered to take me with him, but now he will not be able to
be there in time for me to catch my plane.”

Bella continuing with her
conversation about previous teachers began to talk about John, my predecessor.

“Arkom tells me he was
very popular and really liked it here,” I added.

“Huh, he was always trying
to leave,” quipped Bella, “they kept begging him to stay. He went back to work
in China. He said he could earn enough money to save there.”

Well I was really learning
something now; as I had suspected things were not quite as I had been told. And
this would be in keeping with what I’d heard about the teacher previous to
John, Elizabeth, who I was told had left suddenly without warning over the
Easter holidays.

“Well now we know,” Bella
said, “we’ve been wondering why he wants us to pay for our January classes
now!”

“So this is what they
hoped to find out. It’s about money,” I thought to myself. “They have just paid
for December and now Arkom is asking for January on the grounds that he has to
pay me.”

“He pays you hardly
anything,” Bella advised.

“Well I do get the
apartment paid for also.”

“He only pays 50 Dinara a
month for that,” she retorted. 

I’m amazed to learn this:
this is around 12 Pounds per month. I explain what rents cost in the west.

“I wonder how she knows
all this,” I am thinking.

With the discussion of
money now satisfied, we begin talking about what everyone would be doing in the
future. And everyone is interested to know how I have spent this past three
months here.

“Well, I’ve been walking a
lot, I’ve seen just about all of the town,” I said, “and I’ve started writing
about Novaginja; I’m planning to write a book.”

Bella quickly began to
tell me some of the community’s history and about some of its legends:
particularly one about a knight who had buried gold alongside the River Tisa.

“Oh, so now you are going
to tell me where to find the treasure, now that I’m leaving,” I joked.

“That would make a good
story for your book,” she responded.

Icca, Glenna, Linda and
Mary, who had remained silent throughout all of this disclosure, now began to
venture into the conversation. Mary handed me some photographs of her daughter
and of her home for me to see, and then handed me one of her business cards
with her address and email address, so that we might keep in touch. Bella also
wrote down her email address so that I could send copies of the photographs. We
all wished each other good luck and they all told me that they would miss me.
Icca told me she would be in the Belgrade over the Christmas holidays and if
possible would meet me on my arrival and help me to find my way to the airport.
They would not allow me to pay for my beer, insisting on dividing the cost
between them. I said goodbye to Glenna first, as she would be staying at the
café with some friends that had just arrived, and we gave each other a hug. The
rest of us made our way outside. Mary gave me a hug as she needed to leave, and
this was followed by a big hug from Icca, just in case we didn’t see each other
in Belgrade. Bella and Linda walked with me to the school as they had arranged
to meet Arkom to pay him their January tuition fees.

On the way, we talked
about the school and how they were doing in class.

“We like it when you tell
us we’re doing well,” Bella added.

“Well you are,” I said.

Before we entered the
school, I wished them luck with their exam which would be coming up in the
following June. I knew that Bella would be just fine, and for Mary, I reminded
her of the one area that she needed a little improvement for: the speaking
exam. This had been a really nice evening and it will always be one of my
special memories of my time here.

Well, it’s almost over now
– just a couple of weeks to go. My belief that Arkom has been teaching the
ladies’ class for the final couple of weeks in order to reduce my salary is now
evidently a fact. When the 22nd December comes along (the last day of working);
Arkom deducts the ladies’ class from my salary plus two months electricity and
water charges. He also haggles over paying me for classes that students have
missed when they have been sick or out of town. The situation requires much
discussion, with the end result that I get more than Arkom wants to pay me, but
less than I am entitled to receive.

I’ve already started to
prepare for my departure. I have my final washing back from the laundry, so I’m
able to start packing my case. The weather has improved some, and I’ve begun to
go out walking again – resuming my morning walks along the river. I don’t know
why, but I’ll miss the river. I suppose it’s because it’s so peaceful. Even in
winter I like to sit on one of the benches and look out at the water flowing
past and the trees lining the distant banks. Christmas decorations have
appeared on the square, strung across the main shopping street, and across the
street which leads to my apartment.

“I wonder what Christmas
is like here.” I will never know. I’ll be here for what they describe as the
Catholic Christmas on the 25th of December, but hardly anyone celebrates this.
The real Christmas will not be until the 4th of January, the Orthodox
Christmas.

The largest of the town’s
banks is located on the corner of the square opposite the greengrocers’, and
Arkom tells me that it is the only one that deals in foreign currency. So I
gather together my 4,000 Dinara and proudly join the queue at the bank to
change my fortune into foreign currency. I’m hoping to change most of it into
Euros and a small amount into Pounds for when I arrive in England.

“Euro is the only foreign
currency we have,” the clerk tells me.

“Alright, I’ll take all
Euros then,” I respond.

“That will be 450 Euro,”
she replies, taking my huge collection of the brightly coloured Dinara.

I left the bank mildly
shocked.

“My fortune, my 4,000
Dinara, surely enough for me to live well on for a whole year or maybe more
here – gone, and for 450 Euro, just around 230 Pounds?” these thoughts ran
through my mind as I walked back to my apartment.

On my last day, I made my
final walk along the river to the school; I wanted to use the phone to confirm
the flight. On my way back I called at the greengrocer’s to say goodbye to
Andora and to give her some English exercises that I’d printed for her and a
nursery rhyme for Hector that she had asked me to find.

“Are you coming over for
tea again tomorrow?” she asked.

But alas tomorrow I would
be gone.

 “Oh, I thought it was
Wednesday,” she said.

“Well the plane leaves on
Wednesday,” I replied, “but I have to get the bus tomorrow in order to be at
the airport early in the morning.”

The final day arrived. I
cooked dinner for the last time and prepared sandwiches for my anticipated long
wait at the airport. Akron came to the apartment about midday; he wanted to
take my passport along with the white residence card to the police station. He
called to ask me to meet him outside with the documents, so I assumed I would
be going along too; but when I exited the front doors of the apartment building
I discovered that he was waiting to take my documents from me. Of course, I was
not happy with this idea: I most certainly was not comfortable with allowing my
passport out of my sight, today of all days.

“You might have a problem
leaving the country if you don’t get the card stamped with your date of
leaving,” he exclaimed.

“Are you sure there is
time,” I replied.

“Yes, I’ll be back in one
hour,” he said. “I’m first going home to get my bike.” 

So there it was, what
choice did I have? I climbed the stairs to the apartment. I went inside, I was
packed and ready to leave; it was now just a question of waiting until it was
time for what was now the only bus to depart – an afternoon departure going
direct to Belgrade that Andora had discovered for me, not the early bus with a
change in Novi Sad that Arkom had tried to get me on. Fortunately, I had no
need to worry, Akron returned within the hour bearing my passport and
officially stamped residence card. He quickly checked over the apartment and
said that he would return again at 2:45 to collect the keys and help me to
carry my luggage to the bus station.

I sat on the sofa and
turned on the TV, I don’t remember now what it was that I watched; all I
remember was that it was an old black and white American film from the 1940s.
Films like this played every afternoon on the state television station. Somehow
they blended nicely into the scheme of things: the era of the movies perfectly
matched the present day epoch of the community. But before I had watched much
of the movie it was time to leave. Akron had returned as promised and had
elicited the help of one of my neighbours to transport us to the bus station in
a rather small red car of Eastern European origin.

“I wonder why Arkom is not
driving his own car.” The thought went through my head, but there seemed little
point in asking why.

Unfortunately, the amount
of luggage space available inside the neighbour’s car was not sufficient to
hold all of my luggage. The car was a hatch-back, and my neighbour, with some
difficulty, managed to place my case in the back but was unable to close the
door. My bag and my laptop somehow fitted inside the car with us, along with
the objects that had been removed from the luggage space to make room for the
case.

“I am certainly less
important now than I was at my arrival into the community,” I thought, but I
have long suspected this.

After just a few minutes
waiting at the bus station, the bus arrived. To my shock, I now discover that
my bags require tickets too!

“It is usual here to pay
for your bags,” adds Arkon. “It’s quite common at holiday times to see people
with two or three bags taped together so that they only need one ticket,” he
quips.

I stow my suitcase in the
luggage hold beneath the bus and purchase a ticket for it, and climb aboard the
seemingly crowded bus carrying my bag and laptop. By habit I have boarded
through the front door of the bus and have to squeeze my way down the aisle
with my two bags; however, the rear end of the bus is quite empty, and sitting
alongside the rear door I now realise that I could have boarded through this entrance.

As the doors of the bus
close I see Arkom waving.

“Please tell everyone that
Arkom is a good guy!” he yells.

Well, then I suppose that
is what I will tell you. In hindsight, yes Arkom is my friend. He had gone out 
of  his way to help me on  several occasions. True there is another side to
him, but I do believe that all of the haggling, the confrontations over money
and students, were not of Arkom’s making.

The bus is soon underway;
we are not taking the direct route to the Belgrade, but instead taking winding
back roads through countless villages. I soon discover that hardly anyone is
going to the capital, but rather to the various villages – they are probably on
their way home from work.

Travelling the back roads
poses one problem, and that is that there is no wireless telephone connection
in this rural area. But after about an hour and ten minutes we come to a town,
Zrenjanin: this may well be my only opportunity to contact Icca, so I send her
a text message to enquire whether she will be waiting at the bus station when I
arrive in the Belgrade. She has promised to be there, but I am not counting on
seeing her; however it would be great if by chance she was able to make it. We
sat here at the town bus station for twenty minutes; the temperature was
falling fast, the previously hot, stuffy bus was now becoming quite cold due to
the fact that it had remained here so long with both of its doors open. By the
time the bus pulled out of the station, I had still not received a reply from
Icca. It was now dark and the bus proceeded out of the town and once again
picked up the winding back roads.

After some time, we stop
in a village to pick up passengers. One of the passengers is an elderly man
carrying a small bag, who I’m guessing must on his way home after work. But
strangely this man boards the bus through the rear door and proceeds to cower
in the door well. When the conductor collects money from the other new
passengers, he looks down at the man for a few moments and then decides to
ignore him. Perhaps this is some charitable act, I thought. Assumedly, the man
has no money, and he is going to allow him to ride home. However, after a while
the old man becomes braver; he climbs up from the stair well and sits down on
one of the seats next to another passenger and starts a conversation. At first,
nothing happens. But after a while, the conductor seems to be annoyed; he walks
back down the aisle and begins to speak to the man in an authoritative tone.
When this conversation ends, the conductor stops the bus and apparently asks
the man to get off; from the tone of the conductor’s voice, I am confident that
the man was called some unsavoury name as the bus began to pull away.

As we continue through the
darkened countryside, now with few remaining passengers on board and with no
sign of stopping to pick up any more, my phone begins to ring: it’s a text
message from Icca to say that she’ll be waiting at the bus station in Belgrade.