Wednesday, 9:50
I sit on the train to Budapest. This time I have company in my booth, a middle aged man on his way to Colombia. I imagine business, but it holidays he tells me. A cruise. He wears a pale pink polo shirt and Pierre Cardin socks. He’s taken over the booth with his luggage, his body spread to dis-encourage people to come in. He is a pleasant company non the less.
Good Pathe I said to the owners friend. thank you he replied in Italian. Idiot, muttered his wife who sat alone next door. They continued the discussion in the living room. I knew it was going to end abruptly although I had no idea what they shouted at each other. It wasn’t important to know. They just couldn’t stand each other anymore. He said that after four children she’d lost the attributes which made him fall, and all she did now was smoke 3 packs per day. Smoke smoke smoke he said to me lowering his voice. His mouth tight, eyes sharp and hands dancing in the air. I heard a slap and he came back to finish his dinner. He started with his comic tone complaints again. He explained how his wife didn’t understand Italian and called him an idiot. I asked him to calm down.
The country side is now flat and merges with the sky on the horizon. I enjoy flat landscapes. Whether in the sea or on land the horizon is special to me. I am tired from yesterday night and it soothes me. I wondered the streets and bars of Novi Sad til late. Merging with the night and the people, being part of nothing. Wasting my hours of sleep, and quenching my thirst. A small bar trapped me, sucked me in by osmosis. The band stood playing amongst the drinking crowd. But there was joy in the air. Everybody sang to the guitar, while the accordion and violin answered to the their voices. The foot bass told it’s own story which no one heard but was still content. I tuned in and merged with the air of joy.
12:20
I wake up in the border when Control asks for my ticket. I lay across 3 seats but had only one ticket. Control starts blabbing Hungarian, it sounds terrible, then says in English, one ticket one seat. I incorporate. What a moment I think, probably just Control.
The Hungarian landscape got cute. Cute little farm houses with Swiss style wooden fences. A man fishing in a pond. I haven’t seen one of those in a long time. Too cute for Serbia. Ponds make me feel like a hypocrite, as much as I would enjoy them, as nauseous they make me. In a plane of green I spot an enormous hare, it is the size of a young deer.
17:49
I couldn’t find a decent pen in Budapest. My blue ink pen was running out. I’ll miss it, specially because it’s replacement is black and has inscribed “I love Budapest” on the side. It works horribly.
There are not as many Chinese tourists in Budapest as there are in Prague, even though the cities are similar. It’s easier to avoid tourist traps here, still I wasn’t prepared for it. But I came to Budapest for one reason only, to take my plane back to London. Yes, unfortunately this is the end, or the beginning of my project.
In Budapest the Danube river is at its most majestic, wide as any river I’ve ever seen, and fast. It is outstanding to sit by the ledge and watch the water flow. So much water flowing with frightful strength. I sit now in a cafe by the river reading Sartre’s “Nausea”. My friend Jaime gave me the book when I visited Argentina this winter. I know what Sartre means by the nausea. It is around me as well. It was there in Belgrade, but not as strong as in Budapest. It left me in Sofia, shortly visited in Nis and was completely forgotten in Pristinha.
Now, it sits next to me, sipping its beer and reading. It feels uncomfortable with my smoking. People who don’t smoke make me uncomfortable, they get annoyed at my smoking as I get annoyed at their not smoking. We are just not compatible. Once, someone said to me that she preferred the company smokers, even that she did not smoke, because they were more pleasant in general, funny, interesting. I don’t know if pleasant, Ill call it surprising.
I look around me suspiciously. I’m trying to understand something I shouldn’t be bothered about. I don’t know what it is. As I look across the river I notice the layers and juxtapositions of different epochs. The pale light of the afternoon hits the buildings across the river. It is a pleasant light and it makes the city lifeless. Except around me, it only accentuates the nausea. I start to understand. I’ve let myself be trapped. The freedom of the rail tracks does not exist here. But then again, I shouldn’t be looking for it here. That is over for the moment. I am here not for freedom. I am here to rest, reflect and give closure to this story. I thank a violin that catches my attention, the music comes to me from the distance and erases my thoughts, takes me away.
20:30
I met the Americano from Belgrade on my way to the hostel. He was heading to Buda Palace and dragged me along. I was tired but let go and joined him for a walk. We walked for hours, I’m glad we did.
Thursday 9:55
I sit by the pool of the Gellert Hotel and Spa. I didn’t expect this. The americano told me I should spend a day in one of the many thermal spa’s of Budapest. It seemed to be what I needed. It was.
I think about Sofia and Pristinha. The people I’ve met, those I haven’t, and the atmosphere of those cities and how I felt in them.
I realise now that it was not a coincidence that railway gave me memories of freedom. It was freedom that made me see the railway as a symbol for it. The freedom which I allowed myself and was permitted to me was something I’d never experienced. Not in this way.
In Kosovo, the freedom of photographing a virgin country, new, open for creation, for untold stories. Dynamic, in constant change, learning with its mistakes.
16:51
As the sun falls in to a sea of pale grey, melancholy surrounds me. There is a mist in the air caused by pollution. It only starts to show itself when the sun has lost its power and recedes. Tomorrow there will be no sun. The low London sky will make sure the city keeps going as an ant hill when raindrops precipitate and the colony is forced to live in darkness underground.
I think of Sofia. It happened to me there that I found myself. Something wonderful made me find myself again. Be myself. I felt love, not for anything, anyone or anywhere. Love, life. Sofia saw the back of my eyes and told me what it saw.
Pristinha also lives in me. After what Sofia did, I was able to see with my eyes, with my heart. Pristinha opened to me, showed itself and helped me in the search for freedom. It told me I was on the right track.
