Tuzla to Doboj // Neon Orange with Grey Slats

© John Bills

Neon orange, with grey slats. A dull grey, with a purple towel slung over the peak, a blue towel poking out the bottom. A ragtag mix of black, white and purple, although the white is maybe one more storm away from no longer being accepted as ‘white’. A strangely calm turquoise. Claret and blue, the colours of Aston Villa/Burnley/West Ham/Whoever. Royal blue, although the royal blue is the first without a taught bottom. Again royal blue, but with a grey mat on top, a brown rug on top of that. The same orange and grey as at the beginning, only this time with a somewhat crude red window slashed into the side. Neon orange and blue. A tiny, tiny royal blue, that surely cannot be used. Grey. Yellow. The platform ends, the yellow marking the entrance from the stairs or the exit from the platform, but any pretence that this is a platform has long left the station, if you’ll pardon the pun. Towards the beginning of the list, between the black, white, purple and the calming turquoise, a mattress, on top of another mattress. Four men — are they men? Four boys? Teenagers? — sit, hooded, with yellow and orange plastic bags, containing something that might be sustenance, that might be edible, that might be neither. The rain continues to fall.

On the other side of the wagon, a group of boys — definitely boys — frantically wash their hands and brush their teeth and wash their hair. The conductor no longer acknowledges their presence. He doesn’t ignore them, there is no malice. The sight of humans living in this state has become as ordinary to him as the bricks and mortar of the station. The bricks and mortar of the station barely function as it is. Only three trains leave, the same train returning, from here to Doboj, Doboj to here. The rain gets a little heavier. The carriage seems cruelly warm. A whistle. A knock at the window, a cousin saying goodbye to his family. Smiles. Jokes. Two feet are peaking out of the royal blue with the grey mat. The tents continue on the other side of the staircase, by barrels that cannot function as anything other than an aesthetic landmark. The train pulls out of the station, past a USAID building, past a shopping centre, past the salt factory, past dilapidated building after dilapidated building after industrial plant after dilapidated building. Tuzla to Doboj, Doboj to Tuzla.

The train stops at Kreka. There are no tents, but there is little of anything else either. The conductor checks my ticket, a babyface, the sort of face that hasn’t changed in 40, 50 years, save for a few wrinkles and a bit of periorbital puffiness. He asks if I’m going to Doboj. I wonder if there is anywhere else I could go. There must be. There is always somewhere else to go, although ‘always somewhere else to go’ does not seem to be something afforded to us all at birth.

In Bosanska Poljana, action outside. Conductors are running towards the train, although it conspires that the enthusiasm is for shopping, supplies from the big city. The train continues to Lukavac, although there isn’t much to report. A man with a hammer. Industry. Rain. In no particular order. Every industrial area seems to be but a few miles removed from industrial graveyards, where old equipment has been left to be used for scrap, or for ornaments, or — most common — nothing. I’m ignorant to industry. Always have been. I will gawp at a smokestack in the same way I gawp at a cruise ship. Immensity. Awe. Disgust. Intimidation. It is all the same really. The rain continues.

© John Bills

Puračić is next, although the station sign is 85% rust, there is almost certainly a mistake in that. The conductor yells out the window to what sounds like a child, vulgarity and all. Every now and then the train picks up speed and the romance returns, that familiar clunk and clink of the wheels turning, the track holding firm. The grass outside seems to cover almost every dark shade of orange, a conveyer belt of colour broken only by the fly-tipping. There is always fly-tipping. Newly-built mosques look even fresher in the rain. Old houses the opposite. Another station. The steam from the train is obscuring the figures outside. It is like fog, but definitely not foggy. Like a fire burning nearby. The station is Dobošnica, although there is no station. There is a shack, straight out of any old film about sleepy railway villages. Like the Hrabal book? Maybe. Were there any train-related rebellions here during World War II? Maybe. Why does it always have to come back to war?

Again we pick up steam, a phrase almost certainly coined from this very setting. We join the road once more, the very development that spelt death for Bosnian railways. Why bother with trains? Romance, nostalgia. Romance and nostalgia aren’t efficient. Romance and nostalgia are by nature procrastination. Mirčina, just a sign on a clump of earth next to the tracks. No need for anything more. You either know the train times or you don’t. We cross the Spreča, the orange mass returns. These seats are surprisingly comfortable. Petrovo Novo. Not sure if I want to see Petrovo Staro. The rain continues. Men walk the aisle, talking about pensions. A little more. Još malo. The NAPCO bed factory idles by, next to what might be a kindergarten, might be something else entirely. Petrovo. Maybe there is no Old Petrovo, maybe this is it? The station has a satellite dish attached. That doesn’t mean much in Bosnia. Plenty of people get on the train at this point. Big City Boys. The armrest of my seat moves with whoever moves in the compartment behind me. That’ll be the Big City Boys. Conductor asks them for documents. Nothing happens.

Another station. Now clear why the conductor asked if I was going to Doboj. I might have been going to Dobošnica, Mirčina, Lukavac. No, I’m a Big City Boy, I go to Doboj. A man shapes to enter my compartment. I sneeze three times. He does not enter the compartment. I clap three times. For some reason, I always clap after I sneeze. The number of sneezes, I match with claps. I have no idea what the station is called. The armrest continues to bounce up and down. Very irritating. Sočkovac. The steam continues. The rain stops. The station looks like it might have been painted a nice blue-green once. The steam somewhat obscures it. Names scrawled on an abandoned building. Emir & Sanela, Emina & Suljo. I wonder if they are all still friends. I think about all the times I earnestly penned my name alongside that of a loved one, convinced that it was forever, each of whom has long since moved on. I think of how love can only come with maturity, but that maturity creates a different love to the presumptions of adolescence. I hope they are all still friends, at least. The rain returns.

A fly in the compartment. I’m irrationally irritated by flies. An ambulance screams by us, in the opposite direction. Towards Sočkovac. I make a comment to myself about how the fly is going to need an ambulance. Immediately feel guilty. A group of kids get on at Karanovac. Cabbage patches fill the view outside, all finished for the season. Both armrests start moving now. The fly has stopped trying to irritate me. I don’t believe in jinxing things, such beliefs are juvenile, but am now almost certain that the fly is going to return. Boljanic Novi. Commotion down the hall, but might just be communication. It is difficult to tell sometimes, especially in Bosnia & Herzegovina. He who shouts loudest, shouts best. Something like that. No tents for at least an hour. I don’t suppose there will be any more. We pass a quite gorgeous bit of woodland, where every tree seems to have died in its own unique way. Art. Once living art. When an artist paints a woodland, do they paint every tree the same, or consciously make them all different? Boljanic. Quite a few people get on. Not a chance this compartment stays empty. The graffiti is football related. Partizan this. Grobari that. I guess I’m in RS now. Sale Pantić. Nobody enters the compartment. I can’t tell if the rain has stopped or not. A massive white house, another, a third, then the orange grass and cabbage patch graveyards again. You’re never far from a tree that resembles the famous one from The Lion King. It is definitely still raining.

If I had a stronger stomach, I’d try to do something about fly-tipping in BiH. If I had fewer excuses, maybe I’d make something of myself. Another stop. Stunning graffiti, all the colours, creativity in the middle of nowhere, depicting a giraffe, a boy tangled up in a scuffle, blue skies. Three people enter the compartment, a woman in her 60s, a weathered old man — maybe in his 60s, difficult to tell — and a younger woman, maybe mid-40s. All soaking wet. Man is wearing a leather cap, trying to enter the conversation of the women, minimal success. It takes three minutes for a swear word to come out. U pičku materinu. Swearing here is essentially accentuation. Communication, commotion. Fields of wheat replace the tired cabbage patches. I decide to apply pressure to the armrests, to see if it changes anything in the compartment behind. 83 minutes into the journey, we enter our first tunnel. Sarajevo to Mostar this ain’t. Suvo Polje. Dry field? Not today, baby. The man with the leather cap is definitely older than I first assumed. I’m saying 78. Doboj can’t be far away now, surely?

© John Bills

Doboj. Where the Spreča meets the Bosna. The largest railway junction in what was once Yugoslavia. Home to an old fortress. Doboj. A funny name, too, if you’re asking me. Suvo Polje proper, no more suvo than the previous. Mosques visible off in the distance, although maybe that shouldn’t be plural. I see one. A mosque is visible off in the distance, towards what a map tells me is Klokotnica. The man in the leather cap has stopped trying to interrupt the women. He has too much skin for his bones. His eyes are glassy, but not glassy in a way that hints at a lack of sobriety, a lack of understanding, a lack of clarity. They are just glassy. Sometimes eyes are just glassy. The fields are now more green than orange, but they aren’t exactly lush. It is December, what else do you expect? We stop, no station, no sign, no platform. Just a discordant whistling and the hum of conversation, or commotion, or communication. This could be Dovey Junction. It isn’t. I think it is Josava. Does it matter? Not really. I give up with the armrest and place it up. Another mosque off in the distance. The rain continues.

Restoran Amer Pier, up ahead. Another tunnel. A river, a gorgeous river, with cascades, impromptu rock formations, everything. Bosnia & Herzegovina is the most beautiful country in the world, fly-tipping be damned. Signs of life, we must be getting closer to Doboj. The Spreča blossomed late, but better to blossom late than to not blossom at all. 95 minutes after leaving Tuzla, the train enters Doboj. There are no tents to be found. Orange ground, grey sky. The rain continues.