Balk Fiction

Shaken into consciousness by the industrial groan and jolt of the old engine, I shouldered my heavy pack with a practiced swing of the hips, assumed what I imagined to be a stoical look (much respected in these parts), and exited the train decidedly downward onto the bare tracks, completely winding myself.

‘The train’s on time?’ Ivan’s familiar voice called in mock amazement. Sucking in the cold clear night, my attempted look of ‘long-suffering’ was now effortless as I made my way across the weedy overgrown rail lines. As I took in the picture before me I was reminded of why I’d come back to Croatia: Osijek’s sombre, shrapnel-scarred train station, and beneath its dimly lit shelter stood my Croatian friend, clearly beaming as he watched me struggle. This juxtaposition was a typical scene throughout former Yugoslavia yet every time, I could not help but feel moved.

Driving along Europa Ave, Ivan briefed me on the following day’s itinerary. This was my favourite street- lined with Art Nuevo houses harking back to the last days of the Empire; their once proud and manicured exteriors now a story of violence and neglect. Yet, to look closer was to notice the warm glow seeping out of the windows and the photograph-adorned walls, betraying the soft heart behind the war veteran machismo.

We pulled up at a red light, parallel to the inspiration for The Adams Family mansion. ‘Listen’ pestered Ivan, his tone of suppressed excitement flagging my attention ‘Tomorrow we’re going in a competition, ‘Vinski-Maraton!’ A car behind us was broadcasting Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’ to the neighbourhood but blasted their horn just for us. We looked up; Ivan pointed past the traffic lights green glow towards a distant crowd of former communist housing blocks, huddled together like factory workers in the cold. ‘I just moved last week, the river side one is ours. Not bad, eh, Comrade?’

The following morning was fine and sunny with a strong chance of vino predicted in the late afternoon. 40km out of Osijek, the annual Zmajevac village Wine Marathon commenced with the donning of a wine glass attached to a cord, worn around the neck. From there, each competitor had to pay lip service to each of the 12 wine cellars and elderly cellarers who insisted without compromise that their medicine was best.

And on the third day the sunlight came through the windows of the riverside block revealing a day as clear as the fact that Grandma’s medicine was in fact not medicine at all.
From the balcony I watched the swiftly flowing Drava River, hardly noticing Ivan’s briefing of the previous nights itinerary until ‘and you with the stock-whip, Man! Everybody loved it!’ My left hand involuntarily tracing the welted stripe across my cheek ‘Oh, yeah?’ I offered, more to the Drava. My head was a thousand tones of communist concrete and steel and worse still: Madonna was trapped under it all “Just like a dream, things aren’t what they seem”.