Chapter seven

Late that evening we arrived in Belgrade. Desperately tired and hungry. Bursting I descended into the dark dank depths of the stations toilet. Standing at the free standing urinals, I let go. But something was not quite right. I was standing tip toe in an inch of water. I looked under the facility and noticed the down pipe was emptying straight onto the floor at my feet. I was standing in one inch of piss. A mop appeared between my legs. A little old women, dressed head to toe in black, was trying to mop the liquid from where I was standing.
"Mop somewhere else." I said. But she didn’t understand. For Chrissakes the whole floor was under one inch of water. Mopping round my feet was going to make no difference at all except to push little waves of piss over my shoes and into my socks. I started hopping from one foot to the other, but it just made things worse.
I looked to my left, and a man was in the corner looking at me over his shoulder with a big grin on his face. He had a round sweaty face and thin greasy black hair combed toward the back of his head. His clothes were dark, grubby and loose. Ever so slowly he pulled at his hard on. The old lady continued to mop and the man in the corner masturbated. They were not concerned about each other.
For Chrissakes! How long does it take to empty your bladder? The mopping continued round my feet and the man in the corner gave me his lascivious grins. I splashed my way to freedom. They were welcome to each other.
I got back to the platform "You wouldn’t believe what I just saw."
"We must eat." said Gary.
"Yeh but you’ll never guess what’s going on down there."
"Where?"
"In the toilets."
"There’s some guy down there."
"Yeh? So?"
"He’s wanking."
"No!"
"Yes and there’s this little old woman in black mopping the floor."
"That’ll be his Mother. She probably brings him along to work so she can keep an eye on him. Anyway I was wanting the toilet but I think it can wait now. Let’s go eat then find a place to sleep."
"Where do think?"
"There’s a youth hostel in Belgrade, we’ll go there." said Gary folding up his travel guide.
"You know where it is?"
"It’s on the map. It’s not a problem."
"OK but first we’ll eat."
So we left the station and walked out and into the streets of Belgrade. We found a small shop with no front window or door opening directly out onto the street. Piles of newspapers were arranged on wooden crates. Behind a glass case full of cakes pasties and pies, stood the owner. A large grey haired man. Seeing us he immediately turned and raised his hand toward the shelves of cigarettes behind him, we hadn’t even spoken, he just assumed we were going to ask for cigarettes. Gary waved a hand "No No cigarettes. Food." and he pointed to his mouth. The owner shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the glass case in front of him. We chose something. We didn’t know what it was but it looked safe. A sort of pasty. A local delicacy. He picked up two of the rectangular flat pasties and dropped them into white paper bags. We paid, turned and walked away with our prize. A flaky pastry outer which when bitten, revealed some unidentifiable white goo inside. They turned out to be the most disgusting pasties we had ever eaten. They went into the bin.
By now we were tired, dejected and traumatised. We headed for sanctuary, the youth hostel. Somewhere we could feel safe and secure. Far away from the Militia and others with guns and surrounded by others of like mind to ourselves. Traveling innocents. It was just before midnight when we arrived.
We rang the bell at the counter. A small man in a suit appeared from a doorway and positioned himself behind the counter. He looked at us carefully slightly puzzled.
"We need a room."
"We are full. No more rooms." He said.
No problem, we’d never been turned away from a youth hostel in our lives. Even full ones. We’d slept in armchairs, on the floor. It never mattered.
"That’s OK we’ll sleep on the chairs" I said.
"No you will leave, we have no room." said the hostel Manager looking officious.
Remembering English youth hostels, I said cheerfully. "NO. It’s OK we’ll just sleep on the floor. We don’t really need a room."
"No you must leave." he wasn’t about to be cheerful.
We were so tired. We could not go anywhere else. "No! We’re not moving. We are going to stay here sleeping in these chairs." Gary said determinedly.
We turned and flopped down in two armchairs in the reception area of the hostel. The manager was not pleased." You can not stay here. The hostel is full. I will call the Militia."
"Do what you want. We’re not going anywhere. We must sleep." I said defiantly.
He called the Militia.
A few minutes later we heard the sirens of the militia, and not wanting to tangle with them again, decided to leave. Quickly. We were not going to get involved with the Yugoslavian Militia again. We made our way to the station. There was no where else to go. We lay our sleeping bags on the concrete platform and went to sleep.
I was woken early next morning by screaming. I looked out from my sleeping bag. Over night twenty more people had lined up along the platform by our side, like a battle zone, long lines of body bags with corpses in. At the opposite end of this makeshift dormitory, the station caretaker was cleaning down the platform with a high pressure hose. He was wearing a black waist coat over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his jacket hung from a hook on the wall behind him. The people closest to him were getting soaked. He seemed to be taking delight in his work. Leaping out of my sleeping bag, I shook Gary to wake him.
"Get up quick!"
"What?" said Gary sleepily.
"Get up. For Chrissakes!"
"What’s happening?"
We managed to clear our bags from the ground just as the water hit. The air was filled with screams and shouts of abuse at the station cleaner, who, when all the sleepers had risen, turned off the water, threw the hose into a corner and walked off. Lifting his jacket off the hook as he passed and slung it over his shoulder, he was whistling.
It was five AM. The sky was blue, the sun just coming up. It was going to be a hot day. Aching from sleeping on the concrete we walked along the now newly cleaned platform to the ticket office and checked the time table on the wall. The next train to Athens left at 9:30AM platform three. Four and a half hours to wait. We walked to platform three. There was a single carriage already there. It was full.
"This can’t be the train to Athens."
"No, it must be an earlier train to somewhere else."
"But one single carriage?"
"Who knows? Perhaps they’ll bring more carriages later."
We walked to the end of the carriage. In a slot, by the far door, was a board that read "Athens".
"This is it?" I said in disbelief. "One fucking carriage. I don’t believe it.""Look on the bright side." said Gary, "at least we don’t have to sit in that carriage waiting for another four and a half hours before we even get moving. We can go for a walk, maybe get breakfast somewhere, we’ve plenty of time."
"Shit! Breakfast. When did we last eat?" I said, suddenly remembering I was hungry.
"I’m not sure. I don’t think we can count last night as having eaten. So I guess we last ate in Germany or did we have something in Switzerland."
"We had a beer in Switzerland that cost us an arm and a leg. We could have eaten or had a beer. We couldn’t afford both."
"Another one of life’s bitter choices." said Gary philosophically.
We walked out of the station and into the grubby streets of Belgrade. Over flowing rubbish bins lined the pavements and old newspapers drifted about. It was so depressing. Everywhere we went, we were eyed with suspicion. Maybe we were getting paranoid. They’re out to get us. One way or another.
By seven we had found a small shop that was just opening. We went in. Behind a small glass counter they displayed the same disgusting pasties we had tried, and failed, to eat the night before. Our hearts sank. We couldn’t recognise anything that may be even vaguely edible. We were hungry, very hungry, we had last eaten properly three countries ago, and God knows how long ago that was. Two days perhaps, we’d lost count of time. Time for us had no meaning. Days and nights merged, nothing was real we hadn’t slept properly since Germany. It was like a walking dream or nightmare
Lack of sleep and hunger was making us hallucinate, hearing voices. More than once I turned to Gary when he had called my name and he would be nowhere near and I would stand there quietly and still be hearing the same voice echoing round my head calling my name. I knew it wasn’t real.
"Mikel." it was real this time, solid, not the ethereal whisper I’d been hearing. "Mikel What about this?" I looked up and Gary was pointing to something in a cold cabinet.
Milk! At last we had found something.
"Mileko." I said in my best Yugoslavian. "Deux, dos, zwei, two.....Shit! Gary what’s two in Yugoslavian?"
He didn’t need to answer because naturally, without thinking I had held up two fingers and was given two "Mileko".
We stepped outside the shop with our Mileko. Opened the cartons and drank the cool fresh liquid. Heaven.
"See Yugoslavia isn’t so bad is it?" I said, feeling good about myself now I’d filled up on milk.
"It’ll be a lot better when it’s behind us." Gary replied, wiping a milk moustache with the back of his hand.