Journey

That was last fall. This spring the fight already takes place on the platform of the bus station in Belgrade. Protagonists: the busdriver and the woman who wants him to take the package to Bosanska (now Kozarska) Dubica. ``Listen, lady, I can't take the package. I'd be harassed on the border if I did.''

Fear is justifiable. Unlike Serbian police who do their job quickly and routinely, Bosnian Serb police take their job seriously. At the border crossing in Bosnian (now Serbian) Raca, I.D.'s are carefully examined by young men in new uniforms and the trunk is thoroughly checked by customs officers, ``Whose is that bag with flowers? Will you please get off the bus?'' It turned out that the flowers were artificial and harmless.

The bus drives through Bijeljina quickly and without problems, that is if one avoids the market day when the narrow street beside the market is completely blocked by trucks, cars, and cattledrawn carriages. The first traces of the war can be seen in pockmarked and ruined Brcko where the bus is filled with soldiers. Most of them come from Bosnian Krajina and are on their way home on leave. The feelings are running high so that no one really minds if he feels a ``Kalashnikov'' pressed against his back on the overcrowded bus. The journey is inconceivable without a tipsy merrymakers who goes on entertaining the passengers for hours about the aunt of his fellowinarms, i.e. her impressive chest. The music on the radio is ethnically clean and one kind onlypatriotic folk music.

The music is interrupted by the speaker's voice announcing that ``this morning Muslim forces opened infantry and mortar fire of the positions of the Army of the Serb Republic in Bosnia around Brcko, but the Serbs did not respond.'' A soldier who obviously flunked the course in moral and political training comments merrily, ``The bitch is lying! Only my battery fired 15 shells this morning. Ha, ha, ha!'' Belligerency is frightful and the news that the U.S. Senate voted to lift the embargo on arms for the Muslims is received with an almost immediate approval, ``Fine. So they can't prevent us now from settling our accounts for good.''

The macadam road around Derventa is the worst part of the journey through the corridor. This road, now only occasionally used, was cut through right after the corridor was established and before it got widened. The stretch, lined with completely destroyed houses on both sides, is 20 km long. It can be covered in an hour's time in the best of cases. It's hot and each car coming from the opposite direction blows a cloud of dust on the bus. The windows are being closed and one experiences the real meaning of the word ``stuffy.'' But, the windows remain closed even when the bus leaves the macadam road and proceeds towards Prnjavor and Banja Luka on the fairly decent tarmac. Every attempt at letting some air into the redhot tin box is followed by fearful and pleading looks, ``Please, don't. It blows straight onto my head.'' The strain of sweaty faces clearly speaks of the attempt to pinpoint the culprit for such heat: the Muslims, the Croats, the opposition leaders in Belgrade, or, perhaps, the busdriver. The closed windows have nothing to do with it.

The journey to Belgrade from Pakrac also begins with a fight. The drivers are more liberal and accept the package for Belgrade but refuse to allow anyone on board for free. ``You've gone to Belgrade a dozen times and always with some certificate from the Red Cross, the townhall, the firm, and God knows who else. You must buy your ticket this time.''

The ticket from Pakrac to Belgrade costs 25 dinars, and from Belgrade to Gradiska (which is 40 km less) 27 dinars. The reason why the ticket bought through ``Pakrac Tours'' is cheaper may be the fact that there is no music on the bus, which, on the other hand, may be an advantage. This time the bus avoids the macadam road and goes straight through the center of Derventa. But, one cannot avoid the checkpoint where an eager policeman takes an hour to check the papers and the contents of the above mentioned package, which has a label on it saying ``fragile.'' Suspicious contents turn out to be ham, eggs and nuts. Apart from a regular onehourlong rest in the restaurant ``Athens'' between Brcko and Bijeljina (the prices are similar to those in Belgrade, and the toilets make one hold his breath), there is another stop to pick up at least a half of the passengers of the bus that broke down on the way from Okucani to Belgrade.

Elderly ladies with huge bags successfully push themselves on board while a young woman with a child stays behind making a right decision that the uncertainty on the road is a lesser evil that having her child choked on the crowded bus. On the border it proves that it is more difficult to leave the Serb Republic in Bosnia than to enter it. The baggage is not checked but every man ``of military age,'' the bearer of an I.D. issued by the Serb Republic in Bosnia, has to show a piece of paper as a proof that he had fulfilled his military duty. Bosnian Serb policemen are especially eager if a family name may be of a nonSerb origin. Such people can be saved only by an I.D. that is issued in Belgrade.

And, finally, when a Serbian policeman boards the bus in Sremska Raca, a normal person cannot but feel the temptation to embrace him. He examines the papers in a relaxed manner and makes a casual (but unfulfilled) threat, ``If you have a weapon, hand it in so that I don't have to look for it.'' This along with an already forgotten ``Goodbye and Bon Voyage'' only goes to prove that a distressed man doesn't need much to be lulled by a treacherous dream about freedom and democracy.