PAUL : I watch her as she sits on the stone wall of the Kalamegdan Fortress, looking out at the landscape. The Danube as it forks in front of us, a cloudy early afternoon. She opens a map, before us is War Island, it seems like all the names and streets in Belgrade are like that : Prince, Despot, Duke, Emperor, Admiral… a monument to the victor, a monument of gratitude to France...all some kind of conquerors.

She looks out at the landscape and says: “ Serbia, Greater Serbia, Serbia is as long as the eye sees.” This is a phrase that she has heard many times in the last fifteen years. She can see this saying from the Kalamegdan Fortress. She looks out into the distance; I look as well, and see the same.

The green cut grass brings to mind war memories that are thousands of years old. Everything is annulled now, clean and neat.
As if there was nothing.

RENATA : As if there was nothing, as if nothing had ever happened, forgetting heals all, as my mother says: time heals everything, you’ll get used to it, she says.

It’s like that here, everyone is delighted by my Split accent, it seems to me that it was so long ago when Split was known for its beautiful women and the sea. And, now again, in Belgrade, as if nothing had ever changed, as if this is still the capital and still one country.
Forgetting heals all, seems to be the general motto.

PAUL : There’s a wedding on Kalamegdan. The groom poses, dressed in a blue uniform, with medals; it is 2005.
A small orthodox church, with icons. She definitely wants to leave, she can’t look at those gold icons, she goes on about the conquering mentality, the Ottoman Empire, the last thousand years, nothing has changed, she doesn’t feel well.
We leave as quickly as possible.

PAUL : Excuse me, what’s the best way for Vukovar ?
RENATA : Paul! “Oprostite, koji nam je najbolji put za Vukovar ?”
Vukovar, ma, to ti je lako, mozes autoputom, mozes starom cestom, to ti je sat vremana voznje, ma isao sam ja na Vukovar...ides lijevo ovdje, pa desno na...

I went for Vukovar! With my eyes bugging out I try to explain to Paul what that means, means marched on Vukovar, many times, one hour drive, highway, old way, which way you want…

Paul looks at me all concerned and tells me to relax, he’ll drive, everything will be ok.

Paul, this can all start again, only one more Prince, Despot, General, Duke, Emperor…

THE HIGHWAY OF BROTHERHOOD AND UNITY

RENATA : Vukovar. Croatia.

The girl from Split, and the gentleman from Austria.

PAUL : She hated the Serbian plates on our rental car. And she kept opening her window to speak more frequently in her Split accent. So that they could hear she wasn’t from Serbia, more to comfort herself, as nothing could surprise them anymore. For the first time I see her belonging nationally somewhere, I sense that it is her first time too, at least she thinks so.

All the fields around us with their small green hills only remind her of mass graves.

OVCARA (ex-concentration camp)

We hear cows mooing. They’re mooing from the hangars. In those hangars, where people were once kept.
Now, you can hear the sound of machines, they’re building a new hangar somewhere in back, you can hear and smell the pigs and chickens.

RENATA : At the Vukovar City Museum there is an exhibition about 1991 with day-by-day testimonies, photos and texts on the systematic destruction of the town. The simultaneous bombing from boats on the Danube, from planes in the sky and tanks on the ground. The city of Vukovar becomes the Hero City.

PAUL : Now when I see her she says :

RENATA : every journey is a danger. It can change your life.
Every ideology rests on emotions. Emotions are blind: in love and in hate.
Emotions justify the ideology. Oh how they managed to manipulate me.

PAUL : Now I am completely empty and no longer think of Vukovar or of Serbia or of her. It’s as if I hadn’t been anywhere, as if nothing had ever happened. I sometimes ask myself if I was in love with her those five days in 2005? Poof, I can’t remember, as if there was nothing, as if I hadn’t been anywhere, forgetting ... so everything can start again…