BORDERLAND
It is about 1:15 am. I am standing outside of the bus I just disembarked. I blink several times to get my eyes to focus correctly. My legs also struggle to focus correctly. It has been four hours since they have been used. The nautious scent of cheap cigarettes wafts my direction from a couple of old men talking.
I have stood here 100 times before, literally; riding the night bus from Varna, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey or the other way around. It most likely, will not be the last time.
For years I would take two of the boys with me over that border in the mountains. Tino and Rocco. Or Rocco and Gianni. Or Noah and Vito. Or Tino and Gianni. Or Rocco or Vito. I had to stop that, though, after the Bulgarian border guards wrote up a fine for Vito. He was six years old. I was incredulous. I would not sign it. Someday we will finally resolve the visas.
But tonight I am alone again.
For the first nine years or so I would bring books to read on the bus. Or my Kindle. I have read a couple hundred books on that Kindle. It is much lighter than books, too. I call my Kindle my Ipad. I have never had an Ipad, but I named it “Ipad”. Ipad be thy name.
About a year ago, I had to stop reading on the bus, though. I can read on planes and generally I do not have motion sickness, but I had a couple of long, hot, crowded bus trips that put a damper on my reading about a year ago. I now am armed with some downloaded podcasts on my laptop that I will listen to. In any case, I have always been able to sleep anytime, anywhere.
The busboy yells in Turkish into the cold, mountain, night air for all of us to grab our bags from underneath of the bus. There will be an inspection. After all, this is the European Union border also. Lots of drugs come through this area. Benign in comparison to the human trafficking, though. Also much of that in this area.
Tonight I am going into Bulgaria. I stand in a whipping breeze with a group of speechless wanderers who are also traveling home or to visit family. We are all surrendered to the inevitable uncomfortable task of pleasing sundry nation states by having our passports stamped.
Thump. THUMP. The Turkish border guard hits the inkpad and then slams the passport of the person in front of me with a stamp. A mumbled “thank you” from the recipient or nothing at all.
I hand him my passport. Turkish passports are red. Bulgarian passports are red. Mine is American blue. I have had to have 48 blank pages added to my already doubled 24 pages that I requested when I last applied for my passport in 2010. The guard flips through the 96 pages and the plethora of stamps from Bulgaria and Turkey and Romania and Czech Republic and Slovakia and Hungary. Half-page or full-page visas from Malawi and Egypt and other places dot my passport. He glances at me deciding whether or not he wants to ask me my business. His fatigue and the deadness of the hour discourage him enough to simply grab his stamp.
Thump. THUMP.
I love that sound.
A few minutes go by. We wearily board the bus again and pull forward a few hundred feet. A Bulgarian border guard steps aboard gruffly and takes our passports one by one, examining our faces to see if they match our passport picture.
He disappears off the bus and we wait another 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes – you never know.
As I lean my head against the window, I see the harmless bribes of Coke and Fanta being exacted to the border guards by our busboy. Every bus keeps the tradition. It just keeps everyone in a better mood.
I doze off. It is now 1:50 am. I am awakened by the bus boy yelling names of people on the bus. He holds the stack of passports all stamped now.
“David!”
For some reason they always call my middle name. There is no need. My passport is unique. They know who I am. I think they simply like to say the Americanized variation of a rarely used, though familiar name.
I reach and grab my passport. Instinct pushes me to examine her pages one by one. Memories flood into my head of border crossings everywhere.
The bus jerks forward. The lights go off again. I jam my passport into the outer pocket of my laptop bag and lay my head back.
Just four more hours and I will be with the one who love me and whom I love. I lay my exhausted head back, close my eyes, and thank God that I have the life that He gave me.
Just four more hours.
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