Konjic to Hadžići // Somewhere, the Sun Has Risen
© John Bills
There were a lot of ducks in Konjic. Ducks and war memorials. Lists of people who died fighting in the city, defending the city. Lists compiled of 25 to 40-year-olds, with the occasional 62-year-old. And the occasional 18-year-old. And the occasional 13-year-old. 13 years old. The train being late isn’t so important.
But the train was late, 12 minutes late to be exact. That might not seem like much to the British reader, but this is Europe, things run on time here. The window is filthy, grimy, covered in the dirt of the past, but the air outside isn’t much cleaner. A girl lies asleep across two seats. She has a South Park rucksack, one covered with images of the characters, filling every inch of space. I’m almost convinced I had the same bag. The short lifespan of things we covet. Dead trees outside. Winter, winter, winter. To think, some people claim to like winter. What is there to like? The weather is awful. Being cold is awful. Nature is dead. Days are short. ‘Winter people’ are little more than contrarians, trolls. I say this as someone who once claimed to be a winter person. I say the same about summer. We should all be spring or autumn people.
Two small villages. Are there any other types of village? One above the valley, one below the valley. Mostar to Konjic is definitely the beautiful part of the famous Mostar to Sarajevo railway line. The left-hand side of this leg seems to offer a lot more. I should go and look, but I don’t want to disturb the sleeping girl. Tunnels.
© John Bills
We pass through Grad, Bosnia’s answer to Central African Republic. A lonesome guard stands outside, arms tersely held around his crotch as though he is posing for a photo, a picture to be used in a political campaign of sorts. Maybe he was the mayor of Grad. The King of Town. A woman, white top and jeans, walks down the aisle, I presume to use the toilet. Gone are the days when needing the toilet on a BiH train created nightmare scenarios. Modernity has a lot to answer for, but what it has done to toilets on trains must be applauded. The woman in the white top and jeans heads back down the aisle, no look of terror detected. Another woman walks up, wearing black from head to toe. She looks like an older Menna Robbins. I left high school 21 years ago. I left university over a decade ago. I left Ljubljana more than half a decade ago.
A frantic knock behind my head. It wakes the sleeping girl up, who looks down the corridor with disgust and curiosity. Is someone locked in the wall? Her sleeping is done. She also looks like someone I knew over a decade ago. What was the knocking? The Menna-lookalike had returned to her seat, so it can’t have been her, locked in the toilet. I’m not even sure if there is a room behind me. The train is slowing down, with shards of snow still clinging to the jagged sides of the hills. The snow looks like fake snow. Like strips of tarpaulin. Like a marquee blown away years ago, left to the elements up in the hills. The party was so chaotic that they didn’t notice the missing marquee. The girl has gone back to sleep. The Sarajevo - Čapljina Express passes on the left. A functioning railway network. We’re off again.
Bradina station. Four men standing outside, although none of them is standing anywhere near the other. Another tunnel. The longest one yet. There is probably someone somewhere in the world right now, making a convincing argument in favour of all railways running through tunnels only. I wish there were no tunnels on the train to Sarajevo. The tunnel ends, and the sky is blue, the clouds are darker, but the sky is blue. The trees remain dead. The villages return. I wonder how many people live in these isolated villages. Have the young people left? Every taxi driver in every city seems intent on telling me that young people have left the cities, so these villages must be populated solely by the elderly.
© John Bills
The sun is out. It has woken the girl up, but she isn’t annoyed this time. The sun shines directly into my face. Painful, debilitating, needed. Winter people, what madness. The landscape is softer. We’re either out of the valleys or above them. The train approaches a bend, with a bridge visible. A gorgeous piece of understated architecture and engineering. The appearance of roads and traffic to the right suggests we have left the valleys, but the commitment and determination of the sun make it difficult to work out. Another tunnel. The villages are getting bigger. They might even be towns. The occasional house blots out the sun. I wish for more houses, I wish for more sun. The silhouette of a minaret up ahead.
Minarets are beautiful things, stylish structures that are made for the elegance of the silhouette. Islam appeals, although the reasons why — sobriety, discipline, creativity — are all things I could commit to without the need for spiritual guidance. Islam without the Islam. Cherry-pick the many faiths of the world and build your own. The girl’s phone rings. She wakes up, although the weakness in her voice suggests she hasn’t woken up entirely.
© John Bills
A man gets up and heads down the aisle. It is his turn to use the toilet. He resembles someone who would head to Hell’s Bells Rockin’ Pub in the early evening and stay there until long after midnight. Black goatee, long black hair, plain black t-shirt. The goatee looks dyed. We pass Pazarić, but the sun makes it difficult to make out any figures by the station and thus makes it impossible to judge them. A children’s playground, a petrol station, a cemetery. A vast cemetery, in the garden of a mosque. The uniformity of Muslim cemeteries is another thing about the faith that appeals.
Graveyards on the side of the road. Frost on the ground. The oncoming inevitability of another tunnel. Mist, fog, bad air, all combine to thwart happiness. Discipline and sobriety in Islam, honesty and acceptance in Christianity. Someone’s phone is ringing, but they aren’t answering it. The ringtone sounds like the theme of a late-night TV wizard, and by late night I mean early morning. The line between the two. Three or four in the morning. When the street lights go off. Somewhere the sun is rising. Somewhere, the sun has risen.
The train jingle once again, the usual impossible-to-understand grunting from the speakers. Something something Hadžići. Something something broj sedam. Movement in the aisle. A man, having the misfortune of resembling Šešelj, follows the conductor up the aisle. The urbanised atmosphere of a town appears outside. Hadžići. An absolutely beautiful town name, especially in Cyrillic. Хаџићи. Concrete blocks next to the station, concrete blocks with windows, balconies, clothes left out to dry. I wonder what the main tourist attraction is in Hadžići. The town appears residential, although such thoughts make me feel very stupid. What is a town if not residential?
