Zenica to Zavidovići // Solipsism for the Narcissist
© John Bills
And we’re off! 18 minutes later than planned, but I shan’t hold that against the good people of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s railways. Polako, polako, after all. The industrial wasteland of Zenica’s suburbia immediately takes over, a mass of factories fighting over prime smoke-belching territory. The river looks exhausted, like a captive at the end of his or her tether, deprived of everything that an individual requires for so long that it can no longer remember smells, tastes, the rest of the senses. Everything is rusted, the river included, but it is the factories that hold the trophy for Most Rusted. This isn’t particularly noteworthy, as factories here now create more rust than money.
Zenica and rust go hand in hand. Say the word ‘Zenica’ to any Balkan traveller worth their salt, and you’ll get comments about industry, factories, concrete and rust. The city deserves better. It deserves more than it has been given over the last century. The modern world took a small village and flooded it with smoke, only to leave town as soon as that smoke was no longer required. A man behind me is violently coughing. Everyone seems to be coughing more these days. It isn’t a Zenica thing, it isn’t a Bosnia thing, it’s just a thing.
© John Bills
We’re out of the city, following the river as per, a river that seems to gain a little extra vitality with every passing mile. A boy in a bright shellsuit runs down the aisle, talking nonsense. His dad — presumably his dad — gives him the ‘shush’ treatment, and it works just about as well as it usually does, that is to say not at all. The trees remain dead. The trees are dead and dried out, wait for something wild. I forgot to stock up on water for this trip. The first tunnel is coming up, I can sense it. Here it comes, closing in on us like a shadow, a claw. The river moves to the right of the train. The feeling that a tunnel is approaching subsides. Fear, fear, fear, relief. A little white house on top of a rock, it stands out, how could it not? There is conversation behind me, but I cannot deduce the language. It doesn’t matter, the conversation is not for my ears. Vranduk Fortress stands majestically to the right, a vision of glory, pride, power and importance. The tunnel arrives, 12 minutes into the journey.
The train shimmies through the tunnel, taking two minutes to do so, before re-emerging in the same landscape. The river strides on. This is the river that gives the country its name, the river Bosna, an important waterway overshadowed by its more beautiful contemporaries. The Neretva. The Una. The Vrbas. The Bosna can’t compete with the joy of those rivers, but it doesn’t need to. Its work is done. An Orthodox cemetery passes by, outside a small village of equally faceless houses, a sea of grey that gives way to yellows and greens before returning to grey. A child walks with purpose to my left, ahead of a house with a roof that is as blue as the sky. An abandoned wagon, rusted and desolate. A Muslim cemetery, in the hills above. Houses, gardens. A mosque. Houses, gardens. A football stadium, although ‘stadium’ is kind. A village called Nemila. There are so many villages in this world that will never receive a single guest.
More and more Bosnian gardens seem to have a little beekeeping set up. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen a bee in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It obviously isn’t the sort of thing you remember. Every village is 80% grey houses, 20% intensely bright houses. Do the owners need permission to paint their house a certain colour? I wonder what colour I’d paint my house if given permission to choose whatever I liked. Subway green, maybe. Mark Henry fake retirement promo jacket salmon. I once saw a house in Živinice that was literally sparkling. The largest collection of hives yet, coloured blue, yellow, blue, yellow. The Bosna sparkles to my left before we cross it next to a rusted emerald bridge that can’t remember its better days. The train passes through Begov Han, but the village seems to exist of little more than a railway sign and a barracks of some sort. I don’t think I’ll ask.
Žepče // © Ajan Alen // Shutterstock.com
We approach Žepče, a Catholic majority town that was almost completely destroyed during the war. The town’s most famous former resident was Abdulvehab Ilhamija, an 18th-century Bosnian writer killed by the Ottoman pasha in Travnik’s fortress. I make a point to look into his life, read his work, to investigate his influence. How many times have I made similar points? Too many times. Abdulvehab may get his dues, he may get forgotten. The man behind me takes a phone call that he doesn’t really want to take. Grunting, short phrases, and an eventual hanging up. A swear word. If you speak Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, whatever, you know the phrase. His phone rings again, and he gives the caller the old "hello? hello?" gimmick. A furniture factory is off to the left, the only sign of life outside the grand old city of Žepče. We cross the river once more, where a lonely fisherman stands more in hope than expectation. The phone rings once more.
There is movement in the aisles. The man behind me gets up gingerly, muttering to himself, and carries his plastic bag to the doors. He stands behind two women, one young and one old, and a man in his early 20s who looks like he’s just discovered John Travolta’s heyday. The familiar jingle, the familiar unintelligible announcement. A small shack surrounded by scrap is parallel to the station, below a house so yellow it may well be made of lemons.
The landscape has become increasingly bland, although that is most likely solely my interpretation. This is a beautiful country, but north-central Bosnia is working land, more real than any beautiful village in Herzegovina, Krajina and the rest. The train slowly sneaks past Vinište station, where the Cyrillic form has been spray-painted out. We pass a field with a single bathtub in the centre. Sometimes I think BiH might be a performance art piece put together solely for me. I’m the only visitor to an exhibition that my mind has cultivated. The Truman Show, but nationwide and in a foreign country. Solipsism for the narcissist. Isn't solipsism inherently narcissistic?
© John Bills
Zavidovići is up next. I saw two refugees get kicked off a bus here once. The bus went from Tuzla to Zenica and stopped in Zavidovići so the driver could have his obligatory cigarette. As the bus was stationary, two boys (no younger than 18, no older than 24) tried to steal something from a compartment, as far as I could see. They were caught in the act. The driver, red in the face and looking more like an angry Brendon Rodgers with every second, ordered them off the bus. They tried to show him their tickets, but he simply ripped them up in front of their faces. The driver was understandably furious. Before it could get any worse, a burly man with a bandana stepped in and told the refugees that they should probably wait at this station, and that they probably shouldn’t have tried to steal, but were more unlucky to have been caught. The bandana man subsequently popped open a beer once the bus started moving once more. It was about 10 in the morning.
So yes, Zavidovići, hello again. A group of teenage boys are socialising outside a lavender purple nargila bar. Many people seem to be getting off here, and the station looks relatively new, all exposed brick and East Midlands elegance. A mix of ages disembarks from the train before an old married couple clambers on. A haggard Roma man in a suit shambles towards the train, but he is too late. It seems to be a running joke between him and the conductor. I laugh, and then I stop. The sky is tremendously blue.
