Midnight at the Serbian Police Station

Midnight at the Serbian police station. I may have just helped a small time mobster smuggle a stolen Mercedes across the Hungarian border, but I can’t be sure. Marco, the crook I’ve just abetted, has bought me a suspicious looking steak from the cafeteria. It looks like a chicken schnitzel. It tastes like a chicken schnitzel. But Marco says, “It’s beef…mostly.” I force half of it down and leave the rest unfinished.

The trucker next to me asks about my onward journey and says, “Watch out for those Bulgarians.” In Hungary, people had told me, “Serbians are liars and cheats.” Much later, in Bulgaria, they warned, “Whatever you do, don’t go to Romania.” But in every country they agreed: Albania is the toilet of Europe. It made me want to visit just to spite them, to see the minarets of the Adriatic and hear the call to prayer over the sea.