Title: Press ESCAPE to Cancel

Author: Bruce Connew

In: Sport 24: Summer 2000

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, March 2000

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Literature

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Sport 24: Summer 2000

Press ESCAPE to Cancel

page 66 page 67

A man and a woman in a small red car reversed along the dirt berm towards me. I had been hitchhiking less than ten minutes. The previous evening, in Lazio's bar, I had celebrated the Kosova Albanians return with twelve men, including the man driving the small red car. He reminded me of this, because I didn't recognise him. We established, in and out of gesticulations, and some English words, that his wife worked in a laboratory or that's what I thought we had established. When we reached their destination. I looked out the car window while gathering my overnight bag and camera, and observed, through a high wire fence, two men in pyjamas lying in long grass under a warming sun. In the way that photographers do, I took two quick photographs. On seeing me do this, the man from the small red car waved me towards the guarded entrance while his wife turned and grinned embracingly. I pointed to my camera, and then towards the entrance, and he laughed loudly, shouting, 'Free Kosova!' She laughed heartily too. We were at Enti Special Hospital for me Mentally Ill. The wife was the doctor, and her husband was delivering her to her first day back since the bombing began.

page 68 page 69
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill, Shtime

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill, Shtime

page 70
Picture frame re-hung empty after Serb looting—Kabas village

Picture frame re-hung empty after Serb looting—Kabas village

Unloading possessions into burnt and bullet-pocked home—near Peja

Unloading possessions into burnt and bullet-pocked home—near Peja

page 71
Garden of Eden mural—near Prizren

Garden of Eden mural—near Prizren

Possessions in a wheelbarrow—Ferizaj

Possessions in a wheelbarrow—Ferizaj

page 72

The destruction in Peja was staggering. I walked around and around while loose spouting rang a dirge against itself, and broken plate-glass windows swayed in the breeze, oscillating reflections that caught my eye, startling me. It was spooky. When the few remaining civilian Serbs bussed out, under a Nato escort, perhaps forever, the atmosphere in the small, broken city tangibly shifted, as if an exorcism had concluded. It nudged me back two afternoons to when I had stepped from the car that brought me here. The atmosphere then was unmistakable. It was not a good place to be.

page 73
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 74
Two tins of nugget,a baby feeder cup, a comb,a shaving brush and a tea strainer for sale outside the destroyed offices of a lawyer, a teacher and a dentist—Ferizaj

Two tins of nugget,a baby feeder cup, a comb,a shaving brush and a tea strainer for sale outside the destroyed offices of a lawyer, a teacher and a dentist—Ferizaj

page 75
A man climbs the rubble that was once his home—Peja

A man climbs the rubble that was once his home—Peja

page 76
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 77

page 78
Returning Kosova Albanian refugees—near Prizren

Returning Kosova Albanian refugees—near Prizren

Serb signs daubed to the wall of a garage said to have been a Serb torture chamber—Ferizaj

Serb signs daubed to the wall of a garage said to have been a Serb torture chamber—Ferizaj

page 79
Serb passport photographs found in a ransacked house—Kabas

Serb passport photographs found in a ransacked house—Kabas

Returning Kosova Albanian refugees—near Prizren

Returning Kosova Albanian refugees—near Prizren

page 80
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 81

page 82
Clipped hair found amongst dried blood in a garage said to have been aSerb torture chamber—Ferizaj

Clipped hair found amongst dried blood in a garage said to have been aSerb torture chamber—Ferizaj

page 83
Ransacked house—Ferizaj

Ransacked house—Ferizaj

page 84

Ismete Pajaziti, a teacher in Ferizaj, held up her wedding photograph from thirty years ago. Her eldest son sat alongside her. She said the Serbs had come on April 11, to Radijeva village, where she and her family had sought safety. The Serbs demanded her husband cross himself, in a Christian way, and he couldn't, or wouldn't.

‘Are you an Albanian?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Are you an Albanian?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Are you an Albanian?’ ‘Yes.’

They shot him there and then.

A professor from Skopje's university impatiently pulled a card from his wallet. We were in conversation over Turkish coffee after lunch. The card listed the birth rates of Macedonia's various ethnic groups. It was clear that the Albanian ethnic group was the most reproductive. He presented this evidence as plain proof of Macedonia's (and the Balkans') Albanian ‘problem’.

page 85
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 86
Human remains in a burnt out home—Sojeva village

Human remains in a burnt out home—Sojeva village

Child with a toy gun—Peja

Child with a toy gun—Peja

page 87
Child with a toy gun—Ferizaj

Child with a toy gun—Ferizaj

Ransacked shop—Peja

Ransacked shop—Peja

page 88
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 89

page 90
Kosova Albanian name taped to the door of a vacated Serb apartment—Peja

Kosova Albanian name taped to the door of a vacated Serb apartment—Peja

Used shampoo bottle,left by a window,containing the name of her husband buried in a grave with five others—Barazan cemetery,near Ferizaj

Used shampoo bottle,left by a window,containing the name of her husband buried in a grave with five others—Barazan cemetery,near Ferizaj

page 91
Photograph of a missing father—Ferizaj

Photograph of a missing father—Ferizaj

Missing persons's board—Stankovec 2 refugee camp,Macedonia

Missing persons's board—Stankovec 2 refugee camp,Macedonia

page 92

‘Press ESCAPE to Cancel’ is a repeating line from one of Jabir Derala's love poems. Jabir is a Balkan poet, writer and journalist. I asked him, amongst other things, to describe his ethnicity: ‘My father is mixed Albanian and Turkish. My mother is mixed Turkish, Croat (Dalmatian) and (a bit) Iraqi. My blood is probably even more mixed, but I don't have time to explore it … it's not a jarring question. I find it very exciting. But, not extraordinary, because we on the Balkans, as the rest of the world, have mixed blood more than we are ready to admit. Somewhere it's a starting point for beautiful achievements, and somewhere it's a reason for bloodshed … I was raised as a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world, with love for people, regardless of their backgrounds. I am proud to be different. I am completely aware that it brings trouble very often. Almost always, when we mention Balkans (and, not only) … being different brought my father a bullet in the head in 1992 in Stolac. Killed by a Croat. Should I hate Croats, then?! I am a bit of a Croat (25%), too. So, I have to hate a part of myself.’

page 93
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 94
Photograph of stage actress, Adriana Abdullahu (22), shot and killed in a Pristina cafe two days before the bombing began—Ferizaj

Photograph of stage actress, Adriana Abdullahu (22), shot and killed in a Pristina cafe two days before the bombing began—Ferizaj

Land mine amputee—Ferizaj

Land mine amputee—Ferizaj

page 95
Serb note stabbed to the door of a home: behave or will be back—Sojeva

Serb note stabbed to the door of a home: behave or will be back—Sojeva

More photographs of Adriana Abdullahu on a table at her mother's home—Ferizaj

More photographs of Adriana Abdullahu on a table at her mother's home—Ferizaj

page 96
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 97

page 98
Tractor towing a tractor—Malisheva

Tractor towing a tractor—Malisheva

Adriana Abdullahu's grave —Barazan cemetery,near Ferizaj

Adriana Abdullahu's grave —Barazan cemetery,near Ferizaj

page 99
Dead horse on the road from Albania—near Prizren

Dead horse on the road from Albania—near Prizren

Tank track on a car bonnet—near Glareva

Tank track on a car bonnet—near Glareva

page 100

I spotted a UN worker with a Polaroid camera, darting in and out of the ranks of returning refugees at Macedonia's Blace border crossing. He even climbed aboard buses waiting in the long queue, urging people off, so he could photograph them. These photographs, quickly developing in the hands of the refugees, would be proof, in the absence of other identification, that they were who they were.

I stayed two nights in separate Serb apartments. In the second, I had a bath, a splendid hot bath, and shaved in the same mirror used by the absent owners. They had been gone several weeks (their calendar said May, and it was now June 25), but they had left everything, even milk on the bench that had curdled, as if they had expected to be back in the afternoon. Three towels hung from a line that stretched the length of the bathroom. As I looked up from their bath, it crossed my mind that they might never see these towels again.

page 101
Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

Enti Special Hospital for the Mentally Ill

page 102
Banner—near Ferizaj

Banner—near Ferizaj

page 103
American Nato soldier smiles between young Kosova Albanians and a statue of Prince Lazar, the Serb leader killed at the battle of Kosova in 1389—Ferizaj

American Nato soldier smiles between young Kosova Albanians and a statue of Prince Lazar, the Serb leader killed at the battle of Kosova in 1389—Ferizaj

page 104

DESIGN
AND
TYPOGRAPHY
CATHERINE GRIFFITHS, epitome