Milan and Mario - a postwar story
I had the privilege of helping open two Hubert Burda Media branches, one in Serbia and one in Croatia, between 2001 and 2004. That brought me into contact with ordinary people, just like us, who were still scarred by the war between the two countries. I hired some of them, others disappointed me, I ran training sessions for some, while with others I simply listened to their stories.
The atmosphere was pleasant, the teams were young and the employees enthusiastic. Still, I could feel (especially in Serbia) the influence of the old regime in their slightly more guarded attitude toward anything new and toward foreigners. I always used the following example to understand their reluctance: imagine an Albanian walking into a Romanian company and explaining to the know-it-all Romanians how things were done. That was more or less how they saw me at first: the Romanian who, paradoxically, was an expert rather than a black-market hustler, and from whom they were expected to learn various things, swallowing their pride in the process. Once that hurdle was out of the way, I earned their trust and respect and began to see their sad side—the side of people who had fallen victim to a stupid war in which many of them had lost relatives.
Mara recently published a moving story related to the Israeli-Palestinian war. It reminded me of the way I used to cross the Serbia-Croatia border in 2002.
Milan was the driver who would pick me up at Timișoara Airport and drive me to Belgrade and back. We were already friends by then; we’d made dozens of trips together, and that’s how I heard all sorts of stories from him, from American diplomats visiting prostitutes and then being blackmailed, to the effects the state of emergency had on travel agencies after the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić.
One day I couldn’t drive my own car to Zagreb, so I called Milan. I knew he refused to enter Croatian territory, but I called anyway, hoping he could suggest some other option besides the train. He came up with a very interesting solution. He called his friend Mario in Zagreb, who had been his business partner in a taxi company before the war. Mario agreed to drive to the border and pick me up.
And so I found myself in the unusual position of crossing several hundred yards of no man’s land at the border on foot, carrying my bag with me. The customs officers stared wide-eyed: there wasn’t a car in sight, just a lightly dressed Romanian with a laptop bag over his shoulder and his passport in his hand. One of them poked his head through the little window of the booth they were sitting in and took another doubtful look. He halfheartedly stamped my passport, already nearly full of Serbian stamps, and went back to the backgammon game in the deserted customs post, banishing the sight of me from his mind like an unwelcome thought. He must have dreamed it. Who in their right mind crosses the border on foot? And why? But that wasn’t his problem.
Mario was waiting for me on the other side of the border, smiling. He was every bit as friendly as Milan. I asked him what had made them fall out. He looked surprised and told me they’d never fallen out, that they were and always would be friends—but he would never set foot on Serbian soil again, and Milan would never set foot on Croatian soil either.
To this day, it remains a mystery to me how those people could have been driven into such a tragicomic situation. Friends who can never see each other, separated by an imaginary wall, by ideologies, by sorrow, by war and the deep scars it left behind…
Comentarii din vechiul blog
ce poveste frumoasa si ce multe lucruri ai mai trait si tu! din pacate toate aceste drame au fost cu adevarat traite de oamenii de rind! pacat, ca nu de cei care au hotarit de ex. cindva ca Berlinul va fi despartit in doua si in felul asta au despartit fara mila atitea familii. Ce vina aveai tu de ex. , ca nu locuia toata familia in acelasi cartier? si , ca sa iti vizitezi mama la doua strazi mai incolo aveai nevoie de un pasaport!!!macar de ar invata omenirea din lectiile astea crude!
Sunt atat de impresionata de articolul tau,incat nu-mi gasesc cuvintele potrivite sa-l comentez.Un lucru e sigur:urasc razboaiele si consecintele lor.
Chiar impresionant.. Si anii vor trece, unele lucruri se uita, poate baietii se vor intalni in Romania, cine stie?
haha!sebi, asta e scenariu cu care se castiga premiu la cannes!in locul tau as face un film, foarte serios dupa acest subiect..cu personaje si tot tacamul.daca vrei il facem impreuna.
Poveste si trista si frumoasa, asa cum imi place mie sa citesc povesti inspirate din realitate. Din cand in cand o voi mai spune: ai talent la scris, uneori scrii de parca ai fi publicat mai multe carti pana acum (nu glumesc) si, vorba Luminitzei, ar iesi un film extraordinar din acest sinopsis al tau. Felicitari!
Ai avut ceva intamplari la viata ta, iar stilul tau de scris il apreciez inca de cand ti-am citit primul articol. Eu am ceva prietene in Serbia (bunicul meu fiind sarb), prietene de care nu mai stiu nimic de la bombardamentul americanilor. Trist.
