Wine flowed as did talk of the Internet. I listened to his plans for websites, home servers, self-programmed databases, caught up in this wave of enthusiasm, amazed that a subject so different from politics excited me this much.
The next day Sydney called and invited me to the Tower of London. We toured the torture chamber. I wondered about this unusual spot for a first date. More followed in restaurants and cafés. We visited Morocco after Christmas.
“Two colonials who met in the Motherland,” I told Sydney. I wondered if that’s why we had clicked.
One huge problem loomed. I had already signed on with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), through the British Red Cross. A staff member there said employment in Canada might be an option after work overseas. Offers for postings arrived. I stalled for as long as possible. I had to decide whether to quit my job and go or coast along in London.
“Have you ever thought about working overseas?” I asked Sydney one evening.
“I am overseas.”
“I mean really overseas, somewhere completely different. You did call yourself a tumbleweed.”
I had already turned down postings for singles in conflict zones, but this latest one in Sarajevo included sponsorship for a partner.
“Would you be willing to come?” I asked. “I won’t go otherwise.”
“Let me think about it,” Sydney said. A few days passed and we did not discuss Sarajevo again. Then Sydney phoned after work. “I’ve done it,” he said.
“Done what?”
“Told my boss I’m going. He said he’d have me back if I change my mind.”
“Seriously? We’re going to Sarajevo?” I said. When the conversation ended, I lay on my bed and imagined the future. I had never moved countries with someone else before. I felt happy, with one small doubt only. Sydney had lived a quiet life in Australia and England. What if he hated Sarajevo?
The next month passed quickly. We resigned from our jobs, packed our belongings, had medicals and booked our tickets. I would leave first. Sydney was to follow a few weeks later. On an early June day we travelled out to Heathrow and toasted our new life over a drink in the bar. We had already planned a move back to Canada in a year. Boarding time came. We said goodbye. I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked to the departure lounge for my Sarajevo-bound flight, happy at the thought that I would soon meet Sydney at the other end.
11
BOSNIA
Bosnia-Herzegovina, a dramatic, mountainous country endowed with deep gorges and green valleys, showed scars of war on the descent toward Sarajevo. Roofless buildings, timbers black and broken, dotted the landscape. As the airplane swept low, I peered straight into the charred innards of what was once someone’s home.
Military hardware dominated the runways. Helicopters landed, took off, circled or hovered in the air. I thought of Apocalypse Now.
Passengers trudged to the terminal and joined the line for passport control and customs. The line inched forward, but I cleared quickly, with none of the staring contests so typical of encounters with border officials in Ukraine. Two tall men stood out in the crowded arrivals hall. They held signs with the IFRC logo, offered a warm welcome and instant membership in their team.
We left the building and walked over to a car park. I saw yellow hazard tape everywhere. One of my colleagues loaded my luggage in the back. I pulled myself up into the passenger seat of a Land Cruiser designed for much bigger people. As we drove away from the airport, I noticed more areas marked off with hazard tape; my colleagues warned me that one of the most disturbing aspects of day-to-day life in Sarajevo was the mines left scattered through the city.
It was June 1997, eighteen months after Croat, Serb and Bosniac (Bosnian Muslim) leaders had signed the Dayton Peace Accord, which ended nearly four years of war. I was reminded once again of rules already drilled in to me at the head office in Geneva — mines still posed a major hazard; paved surfaces were the only safe place to walk.
I had a map of Sarajevo in my luggage. It showed the city surrounded by a ring of small, bright red dots. Each dot represented a minefield. Some of the dots crept down toward the centre; others stood scattered through unlucky neighbourhoods. Exploding yellow stars marked the site of “mine incidents,” most likely where someone had lost a limb, or a life.
As we drove past Dobrinje, one of the worst affected areas, not far from the airport, I found it hard to imagine that life had once existed in this gutted, utterly ravaged, mine-ridden place. We turned onto the main road — sniper alley — that led into the centre of Sarajevo. It took no imagination at all to understand the impact of war on the outskirts. My colleagues told me that the teetering Oslobodjenie tower, which, we passed, was one of the best known landmarks of destruction. In the centre, they pointed out the National Library, shelled and burned along with much of the country’s historical and literary treasures inside.
Low-level buildings in the centre initially seemed remarkably unscathed. However, on closer inspection I could see walls pockmarked with bullet holes and dented sidewalks, mini craters left behind by shells that had exploded. Plastic, the United Nations’ UNHCR logo visible on it, covered many windows whose glass had shattered in the war and still had not been repaired.
We drove to the office, centrally located by a bridge over the Miljacka River, and parked in a lot full of four-wheel-drive Land Cruisers. I met more new colleagues — foreign delegates, most of them from European countries, and local employees, mainly Bosniac. I liked the bustle and sense of purpose in the office. No one sat idle. After introductions and a tour of each division, one colleague drove me to my new home, a ground-floor apartment near a park. The office had planned my arrival so well there seemed little left to do. I unpacked my suitcases and explored the apartment, which was large and dark. A bullet had grazed the living room ceiling, but all the walls remained intact. I had noticed many damaged tower blocks, with plastic sheeting where walls should be.
Across the street, a well-worn path led across a park. People walked along the path, so it seemed safe to follow behind. Soon dogs appeared, only a few at first, then a pack, one Great Dane and several other purebreds and mongrels of different sizes. Charlotte had said that many families turned their pets loose to fend for themselves when food ran short during the war. These dogs wagged their tails and seemed friendly. I wanted to pat them but kept my distance just in case. I heard that some still ran wild and attacked people.
I strolled through the city, past mosques, more parks and cafés. Then I wandered down to the river and along the embankment that led to the old town, which was peaceful and quite prosperous. I was unable to shake old Eastern Bloc travel habits, so my suitcases contained a stock of shampoo, soap, dried food and other basic supplies. But commerce appeared more advanced here just one and a half years since the war than in Ukraine six years after the collapse of Communism.
So much in Sarajevo seemed normal, but I found it impossible to forget the war for long. Hardly any trees remained in the city. I mostly saw stumps. Charlotte had described how people had chopped them down for firewood during the siege. Lost in thought, unable to really imagine siege-time Sarajevo, I wandered into a narrow alley, drawn by the mellifluous call to prayer that echoed off buildings and the soft light of a soon-to-set sun. Then I saw graffiti, the words scrawled in English on two walls: “Welcome to Hell” and “Paradise Lost.”
The next morning when I arrived at work, I saw one of my new colleagues from the press office, Senad, on a sofa in the hallway, the morning papers spread before him. He was slightly younger than me and wore jeans and a blue blazer. Old World manners prevailed. He rose with a formal greeting, invited me to join him for coffee, returned with two cups of espresso and sank back into the sofa. I sat down beside him.