Off Croatian Time

It was a beautiful Monday morning, my third one here at Zdravko’s. I went out and pulled up a bucket of well water and washed my face as Zdravko made us a breakfast of eggs, sausage and bread. This was my last breakfast. I was leaving today for Zagreb and points beyond. I‘d decided that I needed to see more than I was able to do at Zdravko’s and I couldn’t force him out of his comfort zone to do things.

As much as I didn’t like it I could understand how Zdravko felt. In one sense he is living in the past. Returning every year to where he had grown up and seeing it change, making him a stranger in the memories of his youth.

He left Croatia with his wife and child in 1987 and ended up in San Francisco with a couple of dollars and the name of a friend. His father had told him that he should leave because it was not going to be a place to raise a family. Within a few years the country was torn apart in war.

His childhood friends still greet him and want to know how he is doing but most don’t really know him any longer. To some he is now a wealthy American who comes home every summer to stay in his family’s house. To others he is still the same, a Roma.

Having family, and friends like Yasa, probably makes it more of a conflict because they do care about him. But the life that Zdravko knew before he left is gone and will not return. Properties that have been in families for generations are being sold as children grow up and leave for better paying jobs in the city. Farms are being bought by wealthy British businessmen who recognize this as prime vineyard acreage.

It’s not that different from how I feel about going home to Pennsylvania. It’s good to see family and some of the friends from my childhood but it’s not the same - it makes me feel uneasy.

We discuss these things, but there is no solution that is going to get Zdravko out of the house so I tell him my decision to leave and we part ways. I may return before I leave for home but since I don’t have plans I’ll have to wait and see. Zdravko walks with me to the bus stop and already I sense his loneliness at staying in the big farm house by himself. He is a good man and I wish him well. I look forward to seeing him again.

On the bus to Zagreb I decide I’ll take the 9:58 train to Budapest tomorrow.

I love trains and could ride them forever. To me they are like being in a big steel womb, the clickity-clack of the tracks is the heartbeat of the protective mother. I’ve logged a lot of rail miles in the US, but most of it was in box cars. I enjoy trains in Europe more than trains in the US. They run on schedule, more or less, and have compartments where you sit with other people, and can have conversations.

On the train to Budapest I share my compartment with a young couple from Korea who are touring Europe on their vacation. In our discussion they mention a cousin who lives in Union City, California. I tell them that an actor friend of mine was who is Korean-American is doing a theater show about growing up gay in a small town in California. They are very interested in the show and want to know more. They ask if people go to see it and when I explain that it has been extended for another month they look very proud. They write down the The Marsh website and say they will send it to their cousin in Union City.

Budapest is the first city I remember wanting to go to as a child—well, after Niagara Falls. I remember being ten years old, in 1956, watching resistance fighters on the evening news fighting Soviet tanks with rifles and Molotov cocktails. I didn’t understand the conflict but thought those people were brave to fight against tanks like that. Ten years later, I read about how they fought against the bureaucratic structure of Stalinism with its secret police, the AVH, and set up workers councils to run the local and state governments.

On the bus ride to the hostel I can’t wait to get out and explore. The first place I head is the Torture Museum. In 1944, during the gruesome domination of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, this building, known as the “House of Loyalty,” was the party headquarters of the Hungarian Nazis. Then between 1945 and 1956, the Stalinist secret police organizations the AVO and its successor the AVH took up residency here. 60 Andrassy Boulevard has become the house of terror and dread. It is now a museum that tells a very chilling history.

That night I receive an email from my wife, Nora, saying that she and two friends, Jan and Pedro, will join me in about 10 days and will meet me in Vienna. Since they want to visit Budapest I decide not to spend any more time here but to head somewhere that we won’t be traveling together.

My goal of going to Odessa to see the steps in the film “Potemkin,” then ferry to Istanbul to see friends, who are currently in Iran, is not going to happen in ten days. After a lively discussion with some people I’d met in the hostel I decide to go to Transylvania.

The night train with a sleeper doesn’t cost much more than a night in the hostel so I set out for the heart of Romania on the 11:13 PM train. My destination is Sighisoara, a dreamy, medieval citadel town of 32,000 which claims to be the home of Dracula.

As we leave Budapest, the sleeping car attendant tells my Romanian compartment-mate and me that we will be awakened at about 3 AM for Romanian customs and that she will wake me in time to get off at Sighisoara. Sure enough, Romanian customs wakes us at 2:45 and wants me fill out a form regarding my travels to any country that may have a Swine flu epidemic. The customs agent gets surly when I ask how do I know if a country I have been in during the last 10 days has had a Swine flu epidemic. “Have you been in the United States in the last ten days?” he barks. I check “no” on the form, accidently sign it on the wrong line and hand it back to him. He gives it back to me and tells me to scratch out the incorrect signature and sign it on the correct line. I do and receive my passport back with a fresh Romanian custom stamp.

I drift back to sleep but am awakened later by a lot of noise and ruckus outside in the hallway of the car. I finally get up and open the door enough to look out and see what is happening. At the other end of the car is a short man with a pencil-thin mustache wearing a trench coat and a fedora. Next to him is a tall, shapely dark haired woman in a purple dress. Just then I hear the door at the opposite end of the car slam shut and the dark haired woman points and yells, “Look, Boris, Moose, Squirrel!”

I go back to sleep and wake up 10 kilometers past my stop.