Chapter Two

Yugoslavia under Tito was a dark, threatening place where everyone seemed surly and unhelpful. Even the bread was dark grey and so hard it nearly broke your teeth. It was there that we got lost; we ended up in the mountains on roads that were so narrow and scary that in the end we decided to stop and spend the night in the car. As soon as we found a stretch of road which was wide enough we pulled over, parking the car well away from the steep drop at the edge of the road. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could – we couldn’t move the backrests much because of Summer’s pram on the seat behind us – and gradually settled down to a restless doze in the cramped front of the car. I drifted in and out of sleep for the next few hours until something woke me very early the next morning. Feeling stiff and cold, I turned round to check on Summer, who was warmly wrapped and still sleeping, then I began wiping the inside of the windscreen which had steamed up during the night. Once I had cleared a patch of glass I could see that the morning was grey and misty, while the road was little more than a bumpy track.

After that I started to de-mist the window nearest me, rubbing it with the sleeve of my jacket in the hope of catching sight of the main road somewhere below. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with some ugly-looking characters who were leaning forward to stare at my shocked expression as the window cleared. They peered into the car, probably wondering what on earth we were doing there. I leaned over and tugged at Zane’s jumper, urging him to wake up, and trying a tentative smile through the window in the meantime. Their expressions did not change but they seemed to move closer together, all leaning in towards the car at the same time. It dawned on me that the car was surrounded on three sides by these rough-looking men; they looked anything but friendly so I began shaking Zane much more violently, urging him to wake up.

I was just thankful that we had locked the car before settling down for the night, but as soon as Zane was alert enough to take in the situation he opened his door and jumped out of the car. He spoke to the men in English, then in his fragmentary German but they did not seem to understand but stood there wordlessly staring, or possibly glaring, back at us. They varied in age from late middle age to quite young teenagers, but they were all similar in that they were swarthy, unshaven, unsmiling and silent. I wished that he had stayed inside the car because the situation did not look at all promising, but instead Zane leaned over and poked his head inside, taking out our maps and spreading them on the bonnet. He tried to convey through mime that we were lost, inviting them to indicate our whereabouts on the map with smiles and self-deprecating shrugs. It did not work; they continued to stand in silence until one of them muttered something in guttural tones, upon which they turned as one man and moved back to a spot a few yards from us, where they stood huddled and silent, shivering in the early morning mist. As we were now freezing ourselves and it was obvious that no assistance would be forthcoming from them, we started the car and went further down the road until we found a spot where we could turn. Later I was to understand why they behaved as they did, but at the time the incident just hardened my impression of Yugoslavia as the most unpleasant of the countries we passed through.

We eventually got on the road to Sarajevo and by the time we reached the city the weather started to warm up at last. I remember it as being very beautiful, with wide avenues and squares which were crowded with people, many of whom looked like gypsies or beggars. Whilst we were having a look around I took off Summer’s cardigan and tights so that she would get some sun on her plump little legs; they used to turn brown really quickly when she was a baby, which I thought was very cute. However, one of the women passing by obviously did not agree. She waved her arms and pointed at Summer’s legs while she harangued me, then pointed towards her own layers of clothing. It was obvious that I did not speak her language so in the end she gave up