The hotel proprietor stood at the end of the ally in the fading sunlight. From 30 yards away in the bustling main street he waved his hand encouragingly, ushering me into the bombed out courtyard I hesitated beside. Apparently a man who could give me a room for the night was waiting for me in there. Hiding somewhere, I thought.
I had only been in Mostar for an hour and was desperate to get a room before dusk vaporised into night. Decked with my backpack and laptop case in my mind's eye I screamed target. In an internal appeal to calm I reminded myself that the hotelier seemed to be from a nice hotel, what would he have to gain from a shadowy set to round the back of the premises? Nervously I looked back again. He waved. "Inside!" he shouted grinning. Half propelled by foolishness, half by politeness - two emotions that can flatten any trepidation - I stepped into the ruin.
It was empty. Stacks of rubble surrounded me. I felt like I would have to fight or run. I ducked my head back to see the hotelier laughing with two young men on the street. Presumably about me. Presumably about my idiocy, my simpleton nature, my nerves. How right they were.
I heard a footstep inside the courtyard and I swivelled back again. A young man now stood in the middle of the space. Thin, his hair greasy to his forehead, wearing shorts and a t-shirt and an apron. In a moment of pure fear I made out a revolver holster under his arm. For a moment then I thought perhaps this was it. I hadn't been mugged before. Maybe I could run? With a 15kg pack and the right sole coming away from my shoe? I stayed rooted to the spot.
The greasy haired man looked up and out of thin air he plucked falling keys, presumably from a window high above. "Room?" he said flashing his own toothy smile winningly. "We go"
Knowing not really what to do I followed his lead through more rubble, past a pizza restaurant and then over a foot bridge. As we banked round the second corner I realised the holster was a bumbag tucked into his armpit. I could have wept with relief. I experimented with tentative talk about football. A bottomless well of communication that I always dip into. We exchanged names. I relaxed, he chatted. About his mother who had left Mostar for Uppsala, Sweden. That he had never been to London. That he loved his city. Steadily we ate up the dusty yards and the conversation lulled.
"I came from Split" I said, to build our tentative understanding.
"Ah" he said, suddenly flat once again, the smile dropping from his face. "Croatia".
We didn't speak again until we had crossed another dyke of rubble to stand outside a tower block riddled with bullet holes and stark in bare concrete, the frontage having dropped off.
I had only been in Mostar for an hour and was desperate to get a room before dusk vaporised into night. Decked with my backpack and laptop case in my mind's eye I screamed target.
It was empty. Stacks of rubble surrounded me. I felt like I would have to fight or run. I ducked my head back to see the hotelier laughing with two young men on the street. Presumably about me. Presumably about my idiocy, my simpleton nature, my nerves. How right they were.
I heard a footstep inside the courtyard and I swivelled back again. A young man now stood in the middle of the space. Thin, his hair greasy to his forehead, wearing shorts and a t-shirt and an apron. In a moment of pure fear I made out a revolver holster under his arm. For a moment then I thought perhaps this was it. I hadn't been mugged before. Maybe I could run? With a 15kg pack and the right sole coming away from my shoe? I stayed rooted to the spot.
The greasy haired man looked up and out of thin air he plucked falling keys, presumably from a window high above. "Room?" he said flashing his own toothy smile winningly. "We go"
Knowing not really what to do I followed his lead through more rubble, past a pizza restaurant and then over a foot bridge. As we banked round the second corner I realised the holster was a bumbag tucked into his armpit. I could have wept with relief. I experimented with tentative talk about football. A bottomless well of communication that I always dip into. We exchanged names. I relaxed, he chatted. About his mother who had left Mostar for Uppsala, Sweden. That he had never been to London. That he loved his city. Steadily we ate up the dusty yards and the conversation lulled.
"I came from Split" I said, to build our tentative understanding.
"Ah" he said, suddenly flat once again, the smile dropping from his face. "Croatia".
We didn't speak again until we had crossed another dyke of rubble to stand outside a tower block riddled with bullet holes and stark in bare concrete, the frontage having dropped off.
Dabor showed me the keys and we stepped inside the stairwell to climb seven flights to the top floor flat. He opened three locks one by one.
My blossoming feeling of security was squashed by more questions that emerged agitated from my sub conscious.What did I know of this man? Could he prey on people like me? Who was inside the flat? I did not even know the address. Would I ever be seen again?
As it happened no one was inside. Dabor left me after a quick tour of the bath room and laying out some sheets on the bed. The flat was well kept. Family photographs. The stern mother, now in Sweden. Grainy images of the father. "He is dead" Dabor said. In my room sat a Koran above my bed, alongside, rather incongruously, a clock whose face formed a map of Australia.
40% of Bosnia is Muslim. They once fought alongside the Croats. Then they turned against one another. The Croats murdered 8000 in one particular massacre.
Dabor quickly left, politely and saying I should pay tomorrow. He trusted me completely, passing me the key and giving me free reign over his own house as he returned to work. A good TV sat on the side table. A nice L shape of a couch. A fully equipped kitchen. I walked onto the balcony to look at the vast panorama of shelled concrete, new building and the rehabilitated medieval Ottoman quaint architecture that surrounded the famous rebuilt Mostar bridge.
In the evening I braved the dark to eat at a local pizza place. My table was surrounded by eight kittens and a mother cat, purring and fawning, and gathering. I tried to ignore them as I worked my way through The Ghost and a prosciutto pizza. The Ghost is a plot about the International Criminal Court, a theme that resonates here in Mostar I suppose.
I glanced up to see each emaciated furry creature looking at me with fearless eyes. One climbed up and onto the table, sniffing at a serviette covered in mayonnaise. A group of children across the ally laughed as I equivocated. Should I pick them up? Or shoo them? Or indulge them? Before I decided the kitten hopped down once again.
All the while from the footbridge on my right the people of Mostar emerged to promenade into town. From their bombed out streets in cotton dresses and checked shorts, tanned and at ease amongst this lunar scape. To me it seemed so inconsistent.
Abashed I slunk across the bridge, over the river far below. The water itself A former front line, the flow bequeathed by nature to be deep enough and wide enough for divers to cast themselves from 21m at the bridge's apex while friends collect cash from onlooking tourists.
I did not sleep that well at first, in a strange house, on Dabor's mother's departed bed, surrounded by pictures of his dead father in military uniform looking down on me.
Yet I drifted off finally into a deep and surprisingly secure sleep, from which woke intact, lying on that same bed, looking up into the image of Australia, the tickling clock, and a woven image on the wall of an old lady in a headdress peering down with imperturbable eye.
After using the bathroom to shower and change I paid Dabor's brother who was still in the house, Dabor having gone to work, who spoke no english but refilled my water bottle and shook my hand.
My blossoming feeling of security was squashed by more questions that emerged agitated from my sub conscious.What did I know of this man? Could he prey on people like me? Who was inside the flat? I did not even know the address. Would I ever be seen again?
As it happened no one was inside. Dabor left me after a quick tour of the bath room and laying out some sheets on the bed. The flat was well kept. Family photographs. The stern mother, now in Sweden. Grainy images of the father. "He is dead" Dabor said. In my room sat a Koran above my bed, alongside, rather incongruously, a clock whose face formed a map of Australia.
40% of Bosnia is Muslim. They once fought alongside the Croats. Then they turned against one another. The Croats murdered 8000 in one particular massacre.
Dabor quickly left, politely and saying I should pay tomorrow. He trusted me completely, passing me the key and giving me free reign over his own house as he returned to work. A good TV sat on the side table. A nice L shape of a couch. A fully equipped kitchen. I walked onto the balcony to look at the vast panorama of shelled concrete, new building and the rehabilitated medieval Ottoman quaint architecture that surrounded the famous rebuilt Mostar bridge.
In the evening I braved the dark to eat at a local pizza place. My table was surrounded by eight kittens and a mother cat, purring and fawning, and gathering. I tried to ignore them as I worked my way through The Ghost and a prosciutto pizza. The Ghost is a plot about the International Criminal Court, a theme that resonates here in Mostar I suppose.
I glanced up to see each emaciated furry creature looking at me with fearless eyes. One climbed up and onto the table, sniffing at a serviette covered in mayonnaise. A group of children across the ally laughed as I equivocated. Should I pick them up? Or shoo them? Or indulge them? Before I decided the kitten hopped down once again.
All the while from the footbridge on my right the people of Mostar emerged to promenade into town. From their bombed out streets in cotton dresses and checked shorts, tanned and at ease amongst this lunar scape. To me it seemed so inconsistent.
Abashed I slunk across the bridge, over the river far below. The water itself A former front line, the flow bequeathed by nature to be deep enough and wide enough for divers to cast themselves from 21m at the bridge's apex while friends collect cash from onlooking tourists.
I did not sleep that well at first, in a strange house, on Dabor's mother's departed bed, surrounded by pictures of his dead father in military uniform looking down on me.
Yet I drifted off finally into a deep and surprisingly secure sleep, from which woke intact, lying on that same bed, looking up into the image of Australia, the tickling clock, and a woven image on the wall of an old lady in a headdress peering down with imperturbable eye.
After using the bathroom to shower and change I paid Dabor's brother who was still in the house, Dabor having gone to work, who spoke no english but refilled my water bottle and shook my hand.
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