I am writing this more to understand what I feel than to tell anyone else anything. A few weeks ago I was in Belgrade and saw several good friends that I had not seen for a while. Yet most of them were people who, when the war came to what used to be Yugoslavia, had got out and moved in with friends in Hungary or Austria or Italy. Gradually during the war years we reestablished contact with telephone calls across those borders which were not sealed. We often met up to exchange gossip or seek information about missing friends over a coffee or a brandy in Budapest or Graz or Vienna or Ljubliana, neutral ground so to speak. Now most of them are back in Serbia as the Demon is gone and it is now possible to travel there with ease. And so our friendships continue, not quite as before, but they continue. But there are quite a few people who I lost contact with on those terrible days and weeks in 1991 as nightmare came upon us all, never to hear from them again or learn what happened to them, and for reasons I only half-understand myself, I have made no attempt to find them…and that is especially true of one person in particular.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to a New Years party in Vienna by an old friend of mine, a lovely Croatian woman married to a wonderful Austrian man. As we have many friends in common, I asked who else would be there and she told me. She mentioned many acquaintances and a few fine friends, but at the sound of one name, I almost dropped the phone. I had to wait a few moments before I could even speak. I wanted to ask her what she knew about him, where he had been, was he married? Where did he live now? What does he do for a living? Were his parents still alive? But I did not ask her any of those things. After just a moment I just told her I would come and that was that. I would meet Him again.
And so I went to that New Years party in Vienna, driving up from Croatia in my baby Mercedes and not telling my parents exactly who would be there. As I expected, the party was a charming extravagance, well attended, lively and disdainfully elegant in a manner in which the Austrians have no equal. Although I was quite unsettled at the idea of meeting Him, I was also determined to be cool and not over-think the situation. For a while I wondered if he would even recognised me: I was blonde then, my hair is black now. Silliness of course. I was looking around for him, trying not to look overly preoccupied and wondering if I should slap him or kiss him or laugh or cry. Maybe I would hug him and wish him well… or more likely curse him for disappearing that terrible morning when strange trucks appeared in my little town and the first crackle of Kalashnikovs from nearby told me that life as I had known it was ending, right here and right now. I rehearsed a few things in my mind, and then changed my mind, many many times.
And then I saw him and he saw me. It was a strange and electric moment. So I just smiled and said hello. And I realised that ten years and the jumble of events had produced such a confusing static of thoughts and emotions, that all that was left was the breath quickening spark of attraction. And so we talked about everything and nothing. He touched my dark hair, making me shiver, and I touched his face, running my finger along an unfamiliar scar. We drank and we danced and we chatted to mutual friends and once the old year had died, we left together. As we walked down the cold Viennese streets to where I was staying, we stopped talking but held onto each other as if afraid the other might disappear like mist. We did not say much at all for the rest of the night, but as daylight came I must have finally fallen asleep with him, time somehow telescoping ten years into a few hours.
Then as morning, or rather early afternoon came, I woke as he got up to dress. We exchanged a few words, smiling and laughing. He grinned when he could not find his undershirt and I realised how little and how much we have both changed. And finally more words, sweet lovely words that neither of us really believed as I felt him touch me again.. and then he was gone, just so many echoing footsteps as he trotted down that stone stairway outside. And if it was not for his tee shirt that I still held under the sheets, smelling of him, I would have said it was a dream, an echo like those footsteps.
I have never forgiven him for choosing an accident of birth over me when I needed him most, and I know for sure now that I never will. But I also know it does not matter. The past is the past and He is just a ghost heading eastwards, an echo of another time and another life, as I am to Him. In a few days I will drive to Milan. I am glad I came here and I am glad I am leaving. Vienna is full of ghosts.
[Editor’s note: this started out as a private e-mail to me from Natalija that I convinced her to make into a blog article]
