The Holiness of Fear
God gives to me, and God takes away from me. I don’t see the sun anymore, I don’t see the moon either. I feel that there is no you, there is no me, just the shadows of war. Ghosts walking around reminding me of my fate and the rest of my life. My past, present and future are carved out for me the minute I am born, and it seems that there is no choice left but to submit to the imperfect history, flawed, full of blemishes that uncover the real the truth about my tribe. Yet I’m here, I’m back.
I step out of an airplane (it’s Lufthansa, and it’s clear how organized and clean Germans are) that flew all the way from New York City to Munich. For me, a long and painful flight; stomach churning, fires that speak the truth, lies and suppositions. Will they love me, will they embrace me; or will they reject me? Will they blame me for leaving him all alone, for not loving him enough and for being such a horrible daughter?
Being at the Munich airport makes me one step closer to Sarajevo. I don’t wish to think about this idea right at this moment; I am only running towards the gate 32H, passing too many American accents, tourists going back to New York with bags full of coffee-table books about Bavaria and the wonders of Germany. This disgusts me. The rejection of materialistic ideals is easily found in my mind and I am preoccupied with the endless judgment and rejection of those people. Yet I am incredibly jealous. The normalcy is what I wish for: buying CDs at Barnes & Noble; choosing which scarf goes well with a blue long-sleeve shirt; taking out the garbage in front of my house that is garishly decorated with snowmen and red lights and Baby Jesus; having two SUVs in my driveway; eating large dinners every day at 6pm; playing “Trivial Pursuit”; going out bowling; measuring the streets in blocks. Instead, every day I risk losing my identity, living in a confusion that encloses my identity. At this point, I don’t even know where I’m from, and of what history I am made. I am an outsider in Bosnia, I am an outsider in America.
The airplane that will take me from Munich to Sarajevo is small. The passengers have to take a shuttle bus in order to get into it. I am exhausted (not just from the trip but from the mental pressure that has been accumulating in me for eleven years), yet that does not stop me from observing the people that are sharing the Lufthansa shuttle. I hear them, speaking almost silently, but the intonation of the speech tells me they are Bosnians. Like me. Except now I carry an American passport in my hands. These people are tired, worn out, I can see it on their faces and their hands. No matter how much they use make-up or any other devices to cover the truth about their faces, hands always betray. Veins bulging; lines clear; lines that have their own lines, like a roadmap; nails cut way too much. Faces tell me that most of the people in the shuttle are Bosnians. I can just tell without any explanation to others or to myself. The environment we live in reflects how we look physically (that is what I always thought) and that is how I distinguish different peoples. Does that mean that I look American? Are they looking at me seeing a Bosnian that sold herself? That fled and never cared for her country? Maybe I look half-half. But how can I? It’s been eleven years since I left. I even started to forget the words in my own language and I converse with my mother in English.
There are other nationalities on the shuttle. American and German soldiers, part of the SFOR peace-keeping forces in Bosnia. What a paradox! Peace-keeping FORCES! How can you force peace? But they do and in a way Bosnians are happy with that. As long as we don’t start killing each other again.
There are Americans, civilians, and later I would find out that I was traveling from New York to Sarajevo in the company of the New York Philharmonic conductor who conducted a concert that took place in the National Theatre, a concert given for victims of September 11 and concentration camps in Bosnia. A concert I would later attend with a friend I hadn’t seen in seven years, a friend I was in love with. It would be too warm during the concert (lack of air-conditioning), yet I would feel part of the culture of both continents, as the orchestra played a new composition called Bosnian Inferno and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.
There is a Bosnian woman with two children on the shuttle, carrying too many things, all alone. I wonder where her husband is. She carries a pouch for the passport that reads: St. Catherine’s, Ontario. Her husband probably couldn’t get vacation time, a problem in North America—too much working. I like this variation better. I wouldn’t want to think that he perhaps died in the war, or that she is a Moslem woman and was in a rape camp, and that these children are a result of Serbian seed and her husband left her once they entered Canada as family. But that seems to be mathematically impossible, yet I still don’t let go of such a notion. She is struggling with two children and a baby stroller, so I offer help. She accepts it.
“Say ‘thank you,’” she tells her children in English.
Westernization. What is happening to us? We are changing and nobody’s noticing. As long as we work hard and live like all those other people who have houses and families, we should be OK. But we’re not. We are nervous. Tremendously nervous. We are on shuttles such as these and we wear the latest in European fashions and American sneakers with any article of clothing; we insert German and English words in our own language, and as we speak a foreign tongue, we add a genitive or a dative ending that corresponds to Bosnian language only, yet we make it our own and “improve” the grammar. We don’t want to be flagged as Bosnians so we try hard to forget and substitute the soul of one people for tangible things. But faces in airplanes and shuttles reveal that deep down we cannot forget and we cannot forgive.
I am getting closer and closer. I think that I am flying over Austria, which means I am getting closer to Bosnia. I wonder whether I will recognize it, the landscape, how will I know? I hear voices from left and right, from the back and the front, and for the first time I feel claustrophobic. A man of thirty sits next to me. He has blond hair, and as he turns towards me I notice his blue eyes. Stereotypically, I assume that he is a German. I find out that he is. He asks me why am I going to Bosnia and as I give him standard answer (visiting my family) I get to practice my German. He tells me that his wife is part of the SFOR forces in Sarajevo and that he is visiting her, going on a vacation. Vacation to Bosnia? How nice for him, I think. This makes me feel even further away from normalcy and I wish to discontinue this conversation. And I do.
We are almost landing and by now we are flying over the Bosnian landscape. I don’t sit next to the window, so I have to struggle to see. Another wave of jealousy arrives. Now I am envious of Bosnians that travel from Germany, those that visit Bosnia practically every three months and have the privilege to see the landscape often. I don’t. But the country and the landscape cannot be missed, it is unmistakably Bosnian. I would recognize those hills anywhere, in my sleep, deaf, mute. It is green, so green that I think the color will either evaporate or start dripping. As if the green will turn into water, into river, and will overcome the airplane and I will become part of those hills. The green that will enter my body, my veins, my arm, and then my stomach and uterus. The green that will force any kind of procreation in my body, that will give out the anger and pain, and sorrow and constant determination to go further and never to give in to the evil. To be loud and overbearing and to hate my history and to love it; to hate what the country has done to me, and what kind of twisted human it has made out of me, and to still love the damn hills and the glorious mountains and the paved streets that are so steep, I almost have to fall; to hate the pavement cracks that only remind me of how many bombs fell there; and to love how even though we are dead, we never die.
I never cry in front of others. But there is too much. Emotions and memories that are very significant are coming to the surface and I start remembering every single moment of my life before the war. These moments have no form, they just appear and reappear like a fast-forward slide show, a silent film accompanied by the organ with a mix of Romani music and all of what means to be me. I have changed, yet essentially I am the same. The memories involve too many people and I start to cry, I start to mourn all that has passed and all that never will be. It’s not even a cry that I let out; it’s a moan, an uncontrollable sob that doesn’t involve tears at all. My eyes are dry but my lungs are working overtime.
I carry luggage and follow the exit signs. I don’t feel like a traveler at all. I don’t feel the way I felt when I first visited Chicago, self-importantly carrying a suitcase as though I were going on an important conference. This time, there is fear, and I am afraid whether I will be hated or loved. How many family members are waiting for me? Will they recognize me? Will I recognize them? Will they blame me for my father’s death? Is it I that deconstructed the family?
I emerge. I become human out of the seed of Bosnia, the same green color of the hills is what made me and lets me become part of the natural world that produces good and evil. Suddenly, I feel that I’ve lived three lifetimes and I am tired. What chapter might this be? I’ve lost count. But I go ahead and plunge into another river with hands tied, letting the choices of my history to claim me.
“Emina,” utters my father’s brother.
Otium
