When they started discussing whether an intervention by NATO or a ‘real socialist revolution’ would best stop Serb aggression, I raised the flag for my own solution. The People’s Conscript Force. ‘A four-million-strong unarmed army which would march in and swamp ex-Yugoslavia with our common humanity.’
I couldn’t really see a fault in it, rhetorically speaking. In practice? Well, I felt that so long as I stuck to it verbally, then there really wasn’t much anyone could do to make me consider the practicalities.
‘Revolution is impossible until it becomes inevitable,’ Christian was saying. He said that a lot. It’s a useful quote for almost any situation, since it can perhaps be best summarised as ‘Things don’t happen until they do’.
Simon helped me with the last onion bags, and when Shannon said the word, we climbed up into the van, looking solemnly at one another. The university kayak club were upgrading their ‘minibus’ in the autumn and Onomatopoeic Bob, who knew another hippy involved in the maintenance of the vehicle, had arranged for us to borrow it before it got part exchanged. Inside, three could ride up front with room for five more in the back on two rows of double seats and one person ‘riding bitch’, as Shannon called it, wedged onto a rice-and-rucksack throne among the provisions stacked at the back.
Cally sat next to Penny, and I managed to slide in behind on the back row, looking into the great thick mass of Cally’s hair – fibrous and dense like coarse brown candyfloss. The engine shuddered up and I had a last panic as Christian climbed aboard and blocked me in: was I leaving to die in the Balkans?
I looked up front to Shannon behind the wheel, pulling her big shaggy cardigan close around herself even on this summer’s day, and wondered if this was what people were like, who did things. Napoleon, Columbus, Hitler: actors who made their acting real. Was the cellar in Munich full of men sloshing their steins and saying, ‘Yeah sure, whatever, mate. What did he say? Yeah, the fucking Jews, he’s right, you know, mine’s another massive lager,’ who were then very surprised to find themselves, a couple of years later, marching into the Sudetenland and Austria and Yugoslavia? ‘No, sure, Boney, let’s march on Italy, Egypt, Prussia, why not? Russia? Fuck, yeah, sure thing! (Never gonna happen.)’ Then freezing to death and mumbling under their breath, ‘It fucking did happen.’
Bob looked hard at the road atlas. Next to him Sara picked cat hairs from Shannon’s knitwear. At the back of the van Simon wiggled his bum, trying to make a suitable dent in a sack of rice. In the end, almost all the rucksacks had gone up on the roof rack under tarpaulin; there wasn’t much soft material left for him to rest on and he sighed self-pityingly as he tried to rearrange a tin of ghee for an armrest.
As we made it into Camden, I tried to think straight for a moment about what the fuck I was actually doing. Did I want to go? Really? Well, yes, a bit. But why? I estimated that of my urge to go 51 per cent – the majority shareholding – was animal. Desire for Penny. Lust, and more than lust: to move eventually to a farm with her and grow potatoes and drink strong tea, that was the ultimate aim. Sex and conversation, and to sleep along the length of her dark-wood Norse-boat body from stern to prow.
Next, after Penny, was the humanitarian motive. The direct love of one’s fellow man and outrage at slaughter on our own Continent. I was generous with myself and said 20 per cent of my urge to go was humanitarian, and looked to see if anyone objected, and since they didn’t, I stuck at a fat fifth. Then, allied to the humanitarian motive, was the desire for praise for having had the humanitarian motive; the possibility that someone somewhere might build a statue of me, or that I might be the subject of an inspiring assembly at my old secondary school. Being hard on myself now, that might equal 20 per cent too. After all, is there any charity without a PR plan? Without a logo? The truth is, action and display are part of the same movement.
The van seemed to be going round in a loop near Regent’s Park.
Then there was the desire not to flake out, to follow through on a publicly stated aim. That was a hell of a lot when I actually considered it. But I said 5 per cent to make the maths work. Then, as we again passed the car park where we had started out (‘because of the one-way system’) I got down to the trace elements: lust for adventure, for seeing foreign skies, drinking their hard liquor: 1 per cent. Interest in local high-fat pastries: 1 per cent. Opportunity to read on the minibus: 1 per cent. And 1 per cent left for the carry-over, things I’d forgotten – possible role of peace play in preventing a second European holocaust, etc.
Even though Shannon wasn’t concentrating – she was gabbling to Sara – she was a good driver, smooth on the gear changes and pigeon-vigilant at junctions, before pulling out with a frank American mixture of assertiveness and gratitude. Perhaps I could ask her to stop at the lights to go to buy rolling papers and never come back?
What made up this strong desire to stay behind? 40 per cent desire for physical safety: of a sphincter-loosen at the idea of actual guns and aid workers taken hostage and mortar shells falling like bad eggs on the food queues in Sarajevo; of not wanting to taste a bullet as it ripped through my cheek. Then there was fear of humiliation and failure in my pursuit of Penny. Say 20 per cent.
Ten per cent was the tug back to Helen, or at least home, for the loss of the little cuddle in the night. 20 per cent, a whole shocking 20 per cent, as I tried to be honest, was trepidation about physical discomfort during the trip; fear of uncomfortable sleeping arrangements in Sarajevo and anxiety about the quality of Balkan food. 5 per cent was fear of missing new cultural production, in particular new CDs. 4 per cent was ‘professional’ anxiety about what the fuck my life was going to look like when written down on a piece of paper if I didn’t do something soon. And that left a 1 per cent for every miscellaneous desire to stay at home during wartime.
So those were the two 100 per cents that faced one another up. Fear versus Desire. But how big were they in comparison? I was fairly happy with the percentages but my ratios were harder to see. Was it 100 per cent of one blue whale of a desire to go versus 100 per cent of a single herring of a desire to stay?
We were progressing fast through the daytime streets of London now and we were definitely going the wrong way. Onomatopoeic Bob, the navigator, was mistrustful of state-sanctioned directions – ‘They want us to go that way,’ he kept muttering, looking from his London map to the road signs. He seemed to think that within the transport network were golden threads, ley lines of easy movement that the authorities took it upon themselves to disguise with their complicated architecture of signage. ‘Yeah, they’re trying to take us to Lewisham. They’re trying to get us to fucking Lewisham,’ he commented darkly as we headed further and further south-west, away from the Channel ports.
What I needed to do was to get my headphones on and pile into my tapes. But I wanted to catch anything Simon might call over to Penny. He was talking to her about his dissertation, going on about Wilfred Owen. ‘His uncle played football for Wales, and when the English selectors declared he was in fact English, the guy went nuts and started getting drunk and arriving home waving a shotgun around. Wilfred’s mother had to subdue him,’ he explained. Penny was nodding, but I think he’d lost her. Wilfred Owen’s uncle? That was a long way from the action. Too weary for War and Peace, I pulled the Rough Guide to Yugoslavia from my canvas shoulder bag.
‘Happy holidays,’ Christian said beside me.
It was true. The friendly blue book with its pastel picture of a Croatian coastal scene didn’t match up with the Sarajevo we believed we were heading for: an active and integrated culture that generates an exciting oriental feel. History will tend to make an arsehole of you if you write a travel book for what turns into a war zone. Admittedly, there was mention of tension in the city: was it right to build a new skiing facility in Sarajevo, a town with no skiing tradition? I fingered the money belt strapped under my T-shirt. Whether Sarajevo can continue to build on this burst of glory isn’t clear, but one thing is certain: with its mix of styles
and peoples . . . Sarajevo is the most fascinating city in Yugoslavia.
‘What are they using for money, do you think?’ I asked Christian.
‘The French soldiers in Sara buy a whore for two packets of Marlboro.’
Hmm. I looked thoughtful, and wondered, yeah, but what if I want some cheese? Would I have to go via cigarettes? Trade money for cigarettes and then . . . get a prostitute to use our allotted sex time to buy or . . . make, cheese?
‘And how much is – a packet of cigarettes?’
‘Whatever a man’s willing to pay.’
I read on, looking for good ‘cheap eats’ in pre-war Sarajevo, cross-referencing them with a graphic I had from the Independent showing the worst spots for sniper deaths, so I could see where I might theoretically safely eat the best burek, the local intestine-shaped pastries filled with a feta-like cheese or potato.
‘So, remind me, how exactly did you come to know the language?’ Christian asked.
‘What? Well, you know, actually, after the war, the Second World War, a lot of Serbs, they came to live in the UK. Lots in Shropshire.’
‘Yeah. OK. Right. Yeah, I’ve heard that.’
This seemed unlikely, since it was a lie.
‘So your whole family speak it?’
‘My gran and grandad – and my dad, he always spoke it to me, and round my nana and grandpaps.’
‘I will not rest till we bathe in the Miljaka,’ he said and looked past me out of the window. ‘I will not rest till we bathe in the Miljaka,’ he tried again – and this time I felt, well, I’ve let him know I’m definitely not interested in whatever he’s saying, but it would be rude not to ask.
‘How do you mean?’
‘The Miljaka – that runs through Sarajevo.’
‘Oh yeah. Right.’
‘I want to get in it? Don’t you want to get in it?’
‘What, get in the river?’
Penny turned and said, ‘I know what you mean. I’ve just got this urge to get in amongst it. Haven’t you? To get at the heart of things?’
‘This is the Spain of our generation,’ Simon said from between the provisions. He’d got his feet up under him and his legs crossed, so he looked like a king-buddha on his sack of rice at the back. ‘Laurie Lee walked over the Pyrenees to get to the Civil War. So we can take a minibus to Sarajevo for Christ’s sakes, can’t we?’
Fucking Laurie Lee. He was going to be the death of me.
*
It was in a motorway service station on the M20 that I got down to work. I’d been putting it off and off, hoping that some event would intercede, that we wouldn’t actually go, or some moment would arise when I could say, ‘You know about me speaking Serbo-Croat, yeah? – well, that was actually a lie. My grandpa was just straight-up English and he had flat feet so he didn’t even fight in the war, he worked in a cobbler’s – where he possibly became interested in the human foot, because after the war he set up as a chiropodist, although interestingly he was never accredited to a professional body.’ But there aren’t many moments when you can drop those sentences into casual conversation.
So while the troupe assembled in a self-service cafe, I snuck off to a set of hard moulded-plastic orange seats near a nook of fruit machines and pulled on my Walkman headphones. I’d done good work on the cassette. ‘Prince’, it said on the adhesive label I’d stuck onto Side One of ‘Colloquial Serbo-Croat’, ‘K-Klass’ on the other.
The first section was a list of common vocabulary. I mouthed the words back and it was comforting. It reminded me of being in Manchester Central Library taking the cassettes out and sitting a while among the graduate students and old men and oddballs. I didn’t know what the words meant, but as I repeated them now it felt possible I could busk my way through the next few weeks. Dobar. Dan. Drago mi je.
Then we got to the bit which had made me shut off the tape in the library. A conversation. A rattling market chat with nothing my ears could latch on to. As the gabble of consonants percussed shapelessly by, I felt angry. I needed help. I needed a way in. What the hell were they talking about? This is rude. Then, abruptly, it was over. There was a beep, a ping, and another long beep – signifying what? Should I repeat something? Take a drink of water? Write something down? Stab my forehead with a biro? I flicked through the inadequate leaflet of explanation. Then another beep and the next conversation was starting and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I felt like I was at a party and no one had shown me where the drinks were or said hello; instead everyone had in fact very much just started talking in rapid Serbo-Croat all around me.
I let the tape play on; a sullen student, starting to wallow in my incomprehension. I looked at the name of the author of the booklet and tape: Celia Hawkesworth. You’re not going to be able to teach me Serbo-Croat, Celia Hawkesworth, I thought bitterly. I can tell. Your method is not very encouraging to the beginner, Celia Hawkesworth. I have no idea what anyone is saying and you’re not giving me any help, Celia Hawkesworth.
The tape played on. I could still hear it but, haughtily, I was no longer listening. I would find a way. Soon I would let it drop, playfully, that I didn’t know any Serbo-Croat, actually, and we’d all laugh at what a lovely rogue I was and everyone would grin.
The tape clicked off.
Chapter 7
AT DOVER, WE huddled in the Transit waiting to board the ferry. The summer clouds dropped fat spots of rain that blotched the tarmac like splattering water balloons. Once the weather cleared, we squatted and paced by the van while Simon brought the news from his transistor radio that details of the new Contact Group Peace Plan for Bosnia had leaked to the media. Shannon, Christian and I all disliked the plan. Everyone who was an aficionado of the conflict did. It was the latest in the line of international mediation efforts: Carrington–Cutileiro, Vance–Owen, Owen–Stoltenberg. We all preferred for there to be Western intervention to save the Bosnian Muslims. Of course we all had our own separate reasons for disliking the plan and we all found each other’s arguments slightly annoying
‘It’s nothing but Vance–Owen with a smiley face,’ Christian said.
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Shannon said.
‘It starts from an invalid assumption,’ I was starting to say when our attention was drawn to a Volvo stopping in the distance. At first it looked like holidaymakers arriving too fast and parking up at a skwiffy angle in the wrong place. But from out of the car stepped Von. He walked towards us over two hundred yards of wet Dover tarmac like Lawrence of Arabia. Penny couldn’t believe it – that the family Volvo was down here. She climbed back into the minibus, thinking that something unimaginable was about to happen, that she might be grabbed by force.
When Von arrived, waving back to his dad in the car, he announced to the group that Penny was not going to be allowed to go unless he came too as her guardian. He presented the ultimatum with a straight face and a sense that, from his own point of view, he didn’t give a toss whether he spent the next month under gunfire in Sarajevo or smoking weed in Hammersmith and wanking in his en suite shower room.
The first and most obvious solution was to say no, and just go. With Penny, without Von. But the threat they had sent him with, which he delivered as a fiendish kicker, was to cut off her credit card, the bubbling brook that lubricated the trip, fed by the unimaginably vast reservoir of cash that her parents kept, like hydroelectric potential, dammed up in Lloyds Bank. Shannon and Sara had grown used to easy access to Penny’s card, swiped and imprinted and re-pocketed so often that little plastic filaments sometimes hung from it, shaved from the sides.
No, Penny’s card would have to come, and if that meant pretty, funny, huge Von coming too, then so what? Except –
‘Someone’s got to stay behind. There’s eight ferry tickets, there’s only room for eight on the bus. That’s all there is,’ Shannon said, and a quiver of grim excitement ran through the group. For while no one wanted to be thrown out, here was drama that brought a bit of focus to a hea
dachy evening by the great iron wall of the ferry. Someone was going to get eaten. But who?
Penny, safe now. Von, the wild card, the joker turned ace. Shannon, she got a bye, of course, and Sara too. Onomatopoeic Bob, with his screwdriver and road map, probably safe. Christian originally came from a separate Bosnian relief mission – ‘Really,’ he explained, ‘technically, I’m an organisation, not an individual’ – and therefore wasn’t available for removal.
‘It’s between Cally, Simon and Andrew who stays behind,’ Shannon said.
The three of us were being invited to scrabble for survival while the outsiders watched. We eyed each other, looked to our potential benefactors, and then Simon said, ‘Listen, Cally should go to Bosnia,’ and smiled at Penny, who smiled back.
I considered a veto but then agreed that of course she should go. ‘Of course.’ That’s what I’d always intended.
I just hoped Simon would overdo the Christ act and say, ‘Andrew, you should go’ – because I fucking would, like that.
But no: ‘I can . . . I have written pieces in support of our mission, obviously,’ he offered.
‘And I speak the language,’ I countered, ashamed to be grappling in front of the gang, promising myself I’d dive hard back into Hawkesworth, soon, and looking at Penny and Von and Christian and Cally and thinking: how do you always stay out of the mud, you rich ones, how do you always escape the embarrassment?
‘And my – poems? From the point of view of the popularising-of-the-message, I am able to offer that,’ Simon said.
‘Sure. That’s very useful, Simon. Although, I do, myself, have a background in construction. I could help the folk we’re going to aid actually, physically, rebuild their homes. Their shattered lives,’ I said. Yes, so long as what Bosnia’s refugees needed was a day labourer able to hide for eight hours at a stretch, lying among rolls of fibreglass loft insulation eating Cadbury’s Dairy Milk by the square metre. Jesus, though, what indignity.
Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals Page 5