The Kosovo countryside flows past the window as the old wooden train chugs into Pristina. Roisin, in work mode on her ipad doesn’t see it. She doesn’t see anything, not the family with children nearby, or the young mother breast feeding. Her eyes remain completely fixed on the screen. The train stops at a station, the door springs opens.
A man jumps on and sits opposite her. Roisin doesn’t look up. He’s got brown hair and a great smile. He watches her work. It’s raining, there’s condensation on the window. He coughs; she doesn’t look up. He then writes “Hello” on the window. She slowly looks up. He smiles, pulling a smile from her in reply. She pauses and then writes “Hello” back.
“Going to Pristina?”
She nods.
“Coolest place in the Balkans.”
She notes his slight London accent. He tells her he’s sussing it out for a stag weekend. The chemistry is natural, almost immediate but Roisin internally bats it off because of his age, he looks early thirties.
“Your head is full of work.”
“That’s cos I’m at sea.” She has surprised herself; she’s opened up to him.
They get out at the station. It’s stopped raining, the sun is
shining; it catches her long auburn hair. He asks where’s staying? It’s the same hotel… he
suggests they share a taxi. She agrees. They both laugh, Roisin bites her
lip.
As they get into the huge main square, she’s dazzled by the light-coloured Brutalist
buildings. So different, fresh.
They check in… she’s quietly wondering if their rooms will be close. They aren’t.
“I wanna see you,” he states: shockingly bold.
“I’m working.”
“Before. A drink. Martin by the way.”
“Roisin”.
She hesitates but then swept along by his confidence nods. Leaving their luggage in their separate rooms, they have a tea outside in the square lined with cafés. Metallic chairs round a square metallic table. It’s Ramadan. Nothing to show that other than the sound of the prayer through a megaphone. She is astonishing herself, she can’t believe she is there, but his very easy-going approach puts her at ease.
“Why do you feel at sea? Look on land to me!”
“I’ve just had my second miscarriage in two years.”She blurts it out.
He nods, it’s a lot, but she already knows he can hold this, it’s not too much for him.
“Maybe in a previous life time, I was their mother.”
“But also in this one, you were their mother.”
This has visible impact on Roisin, such a positive way of framing.
“Anyway, you asked, and sorry, I just don’t have a fuckin’ filter at the moment!”
He laughs.
“Do you really believe in past lives?”
“Yes.”
“So, you think we may have met before?”
“Maybe.”
“That trivialises the meaning of death and life.”
This surprises her.
“The real appreciation of a person’s life comes from knowing that when death comes, we will never see that person again. So, we make every minute count.”
He gets up. “Maybe see you in the morning, for a Pristina plod?”
She laughs, considers. “Maybe.” A gentle smoulder. He goes, moving smoothly,
gracefully. She watches him.
Roisin looks around the buzzing square. She stares at the huge yellow and blue
Ukraine flag draped down a building. Magnetised by it all, she gets up, pays and
walks.
There are a lot of fortune tellers, around mostly women with
children. She stops with one, a man. He does her tarot cards, but before he has
turned them, he tells her it will be third time lucky. Next time she will go
full-term. She is stunned but delighted. He tells her also there is a
good-looking younger man around her, he wants a fling, maybe sex… She listens
fascinated, flattered. She goes to pay and leave. He tells her this guy will be
dead in ten years, from suicide. He can see the gravestone he tells her.
Shocked, she tells him he should never say something like that. He hasn’t even
read the cards! He tells her he doesn’t need to, he sees images. As an Irish
woman she has a residual belief in all this. Freaked, she pays him, leaves. He
tells her to be loyal. She bites her lip.
Returning quickly to the hotel she’s surprised to find Martin in the hotel
lobby chatting to the receptionist. He waves.
“Finding the tops spots, to recce the stag. Wanna come?”
Roisin hesitates.
“Carpe momentum” he says… she laughs.
“Okay.”
Martin blinks, smiles.
They meander slowly around the city, almost floating. They pass a huge concrete monument commemorating women assaulted and killed in the Serbian war. She whips out her phone and takes a snap. He observes her.
“Documentary I’m doing is about this.”
They pass an old statue of a local patriot on a horse who fought and won against an invading army. She admires the spirit of the Kosovo people; they got them out. He teases her about the Irish and their global anti-colonial agenda. Taking the bait, she says she doesn’t get why the Brits won’t face their history. He reminds her Kosovo was rescued by the Brits.
This turns into a jokey
argument about rescuing countries and if it’s just another form of
co-dependency.
They stop at a late-night café. Roisin
casually remarks on all the fortune tellers and asks Martin what he thinks.
“I think it's a con; they prey on trusting people tell them what they want to hear.”
“I know I should think that, but I kind of believe it. Maybe it’s an Irish thing.”
He picks up her coffee cup and reads the coffee grains at the bottom.
“I see big lights, dancing!”
She laughs.
They pay and go and carry on meandering.
From a side street Euro music blasts from a huge old Brutalist building with rusty iron doors.
“Wanna?” An alluring gaze. She laughs, nods.
They dance. It’s fun but also becomes quietly electric.
“This is sex.” Martin tells her.
“That kills it,” she tells him. Martin gives her a quizzical look. She bolts. He follows.
“I’m thirty-two, a young man, got sex on the brain, sorry… girls often like that.”
“Do you always give women what you feel they want? What do you want? Validation of your charm and good looks?”
“So, you think I'm good looking?”
She laughs despite herself. She walks; he joins her. They walk in silence.
“Where are you going?” Roisin asks.
“Making sure you get home safely, that's all.”
It is sincere and heart-melting.
“Actually, you saying that was exciting, truth is… I’m not available.”
He looks down, sighs, letting this sink in.
Roisin spots a cinema across the square.
“Want to see a movie?”
He nods, but still in silent mode.
“What kind of stag do is it?”
“The usual drunken bollocks… I don’t believe in marriage.”
“You don’t believe in the afterlife; you don’t believe in marriage, what do you believe in?”
“This.”
“What is this?”
He shrugs in a good-natured way.
Meandering again they amble into the cinema; it’s a rundown old art deco building. It’s open but no one is there. They decide to wait. They play a game. She tells him she is thinking of a number between one and ten can he guess what it is?
He thinks.
“Three.”
“Bloody hell! Yes!” she says, her eyes opening wide with joy.
“A lucky guess! A one in ten probability.” He laughs shaking his head.
A drunken hen do arrive, they’ve rented out the old cinema and are waiting for a male stripper. Martin unexpectantly picks her up in a fireman’s lift and brings her out.
“Didn’t think you would want to be there for the whole thing,” he says, piss-taking as he carefully puts her down.
She is laughing. There is now a feeling of elation. A kindness also. A falling-in-love feeling.
They try to find another café to have another coffee but everywhere is closed.
“The hotel?” she suggests.
“What about the cemetery?”
“The cemetery!!! I’m forty-one not fourteen!”
“We’ve gone past that. It’s off the agenda.”
Roisin considers, intrigued. “Okay then.”
They carry on their stroll until they reach the cemetery.
They go in. Trees line the path; the moon hangs over, huge statues over the graves.
“I did my recce for the stag a few days ago,” he confesses. “I was on the other platform waiting to go back and saw you on the train and leapt on.”
She swallows amazed at this. It’s flattering but also… They sit down on a bench.
“I do that kind of thing all the time,” he replies as if reading
her mind.
Roisin, stares at the nearby gravestones remembering what the fortune teller
said. It distresses her.
“Jung said if we don’t get conscious about our unconscious it drives us and we call it fate. It’s all personal choice.”
“It was a conscious personal choice. I jumped on the train. But maybe fate too?” He looks at her, his playful smile is back.
“No, I’m saying maybe you’re right about what you were saying before in the café there is no fate or destiny, it’s all choice.”
“Tell my mum that,” Martin says.
She looks at him not understanding.
“She’s buried here; one of a group of women killed by Serbs.”
A long silence. Roisin is moved.
“Me and my dad left the Balkans immediately after. I was very young, I don’t really remember anything. I went to uni late. I was like doing the clubs for years. I’ve applied to lots of places. I’ve not got many offers,” he discloses, opening up.
“Something will turn up,” she tells him gently.
“Maybe we can meet here in eleven years’ time?” Roisin says.
“Eleven years? You’re here for another few days!”
He very smoothly but suddenly kisses her.
His smiling face creates her smiling heart.
The fizzy whoosh of early love.
“Kind of emotional, isn’t it, “he says lightly touching his heart.
She nods. His honesty startles her, but this time in a nice way.
He lies down on the ground. She pauses then lies down beside him.
They lie, just holding each other, slowly falling asleep.
“You, okay?” he asks. She nods.
“This is the weirdest day.”
He laughs, puts his arm protectively round her.
The night moon and night sky watch over.
As the sun rises, they are still lying asleep. She wakes, whispers something. He smiles, opens his eyes, the sun falls on them, lighting them both. They get up, laughing at their aching bodies from lying on the ground.
As they head to the exit he stops at a little pathway. It’s his mum’s grave. They stand and look with solemn reverence, then leave.
They walk in a long sweeping silence until Martin spots an open café. Martin chats to the cafe owner in Albanian which amazes her. They discuss what to eat for breakfast, in the end he orders a traditional Albanian breakfast of feta cheese, soft cheese with bread, yoghurt and Turkish coffee.
“So how long have you been with this guy?”
“…We broke up. I lied.”
“Why?”
“I went to a fortune teller, yesterday …he told me something nice, something I wanted to hear. When he said I should be loyal to my partner, I wanted that to be true also cos then everything in his prediction about me would be true.”
“So, you prefer a fantasy lie to a horrible truth?”
“Just for today, yes. Not always.”
“What was the nice thing?” he asks.
“It’s obvious,” she replies.
“Tall dark and handsome?”
“…a baby,” she murmurs.
He nods, looks down, sighs, he understands.
“What else did he say?” he gently probes.
Roisin bites her lip feeling uncomfortable.
“… I have to work today, I’m being paid.”
“If I paid you to make babies, would you?”
She laughs.
“I can show you some horror sights later.”
He calls over the waiter and orders something else in Albanian.
A local liquor ‘Raki’ is brought. And two small glasses.
“Holidays,” he says smiling.
He drinks. She doesn’t.
“Do you ever think about dying?”
“What?” he practically chokes on his drink.
She picks up the small glass and takes a sip.
“Do you?” he asks, still appalled by her question.
Seeing his response, Roisin wonders if maybe the fortune teller was just trying to stop her from doing something he saw as socially unacceptable, a woman and a younger man.
“It’s very conventional here, isn’t it?” she comments.
“I don’t really know, I was a toddler when I left.”
Roisin picks up and now knocks back the Raki.
“I think about dying, well not dying. I’m scared about what happens after… hell.”
“Hell?” he asks. “You believe in hell?”
“No but yes a little bit of me does and even though I’m not a mass murderer or anything, I’m scared of going to hell.”
He shakes his head. “Hell stuff is just there to control us, it’s this.”
“Consequence could still be operating in ‘this’,” she says.
He nods. “Agreed. I’m not saying be a prick.” He orders two more.
They drink the two more. So early in the morning, it goes to her head.
“How do you feel about your future?” she asks him.
“I’m confident. I sometimes get anxious about sudden changes… you don’t have to be a therapist to work that one out.”
Roisin nods. She twists a bit of her long hair.
“What about you? What do you feel about your future?”
Roisin lets it all spill out.
“That fortune teller said someone here, around me, a guy, who was interested in me was going to kill themselves in ten years’ time.”
Martin is astonished.
A shocked silence. He seems angry.
“And you think that might be me? And if it was more than a one-night stand, that you might you know torture me somehow and I would be so hopelessly in love with you that effectively you would kill me. I would kill me, but really it would be you. Wow! You have some ego! You really think you have big impact don’t you!”
“It’s not even 9 am and I’m drunk! I’m not going to say that’s an Irish thing,” Roisin says attempting humour.
Martin doesn’t find any of this funny.
“You’ve told me that. You’ve given me that,” he says. “That is terrible.”
“I’m sorry.”
He leaves money down for the extra drinks and gets up and goes.
She follows him and he ignores her. Roisin sees the women fortune tellers are setting up. She goes to talk to one, behind her she hears Martin’s voice.
“They say magic words over a melted bullet. Spiritual cleansing. Wanna get my soul cleansed? Save me from you?”
She turns to him. “I’m really sorry”
He just glares at her. She turns and carries on walking, now at a sharp pace.
She becomes aware Martin is striding in a similar march mode behind her.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Being a dead man walking,” he replies.
She half laughs despite herself.
They carry on but not together in the direction of the hotel.
Eventually they get there. Both take the hotel lift to go to their rooms.
“I thought you didn’t care about all that,” she says. “You said fortune telling was rubbish. Look, I was freaked, the drink had gone to my head… I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you’re saving me? Lifting ‘the curse’.”
“I don’t care what you do in ten years’ time! It’s not about me! It’s all up to you, your choices,” she says. “I’m not a rescuer.”
“It’s horse shit. Bollocks from some fraudulent prick who you paid to stop you having the shag of your life.”
“You said it/this, was emotional,” she replies looking at him directly.
He doesn’t seem to hear, a glazed look.
Roisin leaves the lift first. She slopes down the hotel corridor.
Roisin goes into her room. She sits very still on her double bed with a beautiful crimson bed runner. She weeps, everything all mixed up and mixed in.
After some time, there’s a knock on the door. She ignores it.
“I don’t want children. It’s not me giving you the baby. I’m not important.”
She pauses, unsure, then slowly gets up and opens the door. Martin stands opposite. He pulls a packet out of his pocket.
“Calmee!?” she says.
He laughs embarrassed at the over-the-counter mild anti-anxiety supplement; he’s taken out by mistake. He rummages in his pocket and produces a packet of condoms.
Inside her room they are both trembling, hearts beating fast, kissing, undressing.
Still tipsy, with the sun blazing in from outside they make love for the first time. Fun, silliness, bursts of laughter, lovely pleasure feeling of love, of pleasure. At an intense level.
After, he nestles into her. She nestles into him.
“Do you have a partner? What’s the truth Roisin?”
“I did. We split up… but… I think…I want to get back with him, try again for a baby.”
No more words are spoken between them.
Martin abruptly gets up and dresses. He goes.
Roisin looks out of the hotel window, over the square. It’s raining.
She’s devastated.
“I want you” she writes on the condensation on the hotel window.
The old wooden train starts to move. Martin upset and angry leans back against the seat, he stares out the window as the Kosovan countryside moves past.
He writes on the condensation on the train window, “Don’t worry I’m not going to kill myself.”
As if hearing this, Roisin half smiles.
She goes out and wanders around the city alone.
She walks past the wall of huge yellow letters spelling REBORN.
The train speeds into the night. Martin is asleep. On the steamed window, “Bye” is written. And also “CU in 11?”
Roisin sits in the café where they had breakfast that morning.
She spells “Bye” on the table with the salt.
Then wipes it away.
And writes “CU in 11.”
About the author
Maeve Murphy's debut feature film Silent Grace was 38 in Irish Times Best 50 Irish Films Ever Made. Her debut novella, Christmas at the Cross, was published in 2021. A short film 2024, based on it is winner 8 international film awards.
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