We made our way to the restaurant car as the train was approaching Budapest. It was almost empty: there was one passenger, a man in his fifties, sitting alone; and a group of four railway employees–men–sitting at another table.
Their ‘style’ was very striking and unfamiliar. I scan memories of groups of men sitting together and nothing fits. What is it? Heads together plotting, is one phrase that seems worth trying. Men who have serious business to attend to, could be another. But it’s not business in the sense of company employees, salesmen and women, that is so familiar in our capitalist ‘West’.
One of the men, middle aged, stands and acknowledges us, gives us a menu to peruse, which is very meat orientated; schnitzel in a variety forms dominates. I opt for a Serbian style, mmj (from memory) chooses Cordon Bleu.
Crossing the Duna as we come into Budapest
In the confusing nature of hungers, whereas we thought we needed lunch, perhaps what we needed was to invite the waiter to sit down, have a drink, and tell us his ‘story’. As it was the schnitzel sat heavily in my stomach and my mind was left to chew over my experience of these Serbian men.
That evening in Belgrade, after the walk from Station to hotel through darker streets than we were accustomed to, passing the armed guards outside an unmarked building, protected by ramps and heavy duty metal posts, we entered the restaurant for a bite of late supper, to find another of these Serbian middle aged men waiting on table. There was a sense of, what have we done to upset this man?
There’s some way in which I attempt to find a friendly basis for dealing with waiters, ticket office officials, but there’s another agenda present in Serbia which I can’t fathom. What is this about? Is it a hang-over from the secret police state of Communist East Europe? Is it a Serbian ‘style’ which long predates the twentieth century?
At breakfast the next morning a corner table was taken by a group of waiting/kitchen staff, again it was heads together, ‘plotting’, possible hostility–what are you people doing here? One man appeared to be the boss, more imposing, more authority, shaved head, moustache.
In the corner diagonally opposite these four, an elderly man sat alone, a regular, military background I would guess, downing a cognac, then being served a second.
What I hear from the news is the common cross-over between political terrorism and more standard criminality: drug dealing, bank robberies. Whether it’s the IRA in Northern Ireland, the insurgency in Iraq, warlords in the former Yugloslavia . . .
What am I being invited to see? What conclusions to draw?
ak