Location/Setting : Vienna, Pristina

Projected place : none

Route : West-East-West

Time of action : Late 1990s

Markers: none

Vienna

“We’ll hole up in Vienna and have little babies, we’ll hope that all the excitement is over before we realize how much our peoples loathe each other. Frank sits in silence,
waiting” (p. 41)

“I’m supposed to go to Vienna with Armin right after New Year’s Eve, they’ve prepared everything behind my back.” (p. 55)

Bosnia

We have lived together for a very long time. Already during the war in Bosnia. I’ve never talked to you about it, don’t you think that’s strange?” (p. 40)

Belgrade

“I’m Serbian. I was born in Belgrade. Very often I wished I was someone different. Or that the world would be different. The askance looks, the horror when you talk about your origins.” (p. 40)

We’ll go home. I to Belgrade, Armin to Pristina, each to their own camp. On the way back we will meet on the train and pretend nothing happened. We will get married and ignore the horrified looks from our family, my mother will sigh deeply indignantly and look at me sadly, my father will say that Armin is a good boy. I don’t know how Armin’s parents will react, I still don’t know them, and that says it all.” (p. 41)

Pristina

“I feel a bit like a traitor. So far it hasn’t affected our peoples. His parents are in Pristina, mine are in Belgrade. We belong to two opposite camps. So far it has been the Serbs against the Croats and against the Muslims in Bosnia. That didn’t affect us directly.” (p. 41)

Kosovo

“Und überfliege die Schlagzeilen. Die “hilflose NATO” lautet eine Überschrift. Der Artikel handelt von Kosovo, vom Ultimatum an Serbien und von Milosevic.” (S. 20) 

“In Belgrad steige ich aus, Armin fährt weiter nach Kosovo.” (S. 45)