Where
borders are real borders, borders that remember that they are there to
control people, to prevent people, to dominate and diminish them. “The
state”, the border says, “is all. You are nothing”. The suspicion is
all enveloping. “You are but a supplicant who may, if we feel inclined -
may, let me stress - may, with our permission, be allowed to pass – but it is doubtful, very doubtful”.
There is a knowing with absolute clarity that you are unfit,
untrustworthy, suspect, someone who should not be tolerated. You are a
danger. Your very presence will contaminate, will corrupt. You should be
barred, turned back, driven off. You are like an unwanted virus, a
contaminant, a disease. The border is here to prevent such infections
spreading.
It
is dark, night, a chill has settled and this is my first experience of
the border. The bus slows. There is a jolt where the smooth road surface
ends and the concrete blocking starts. The bus makes a right angle turn
and then another. The first stop light and the wire towers over,
looming in the glow of the arc lights. Everything is seen in stark
contrast. The glare of lights or deep shadow. Colours are drained as if
they are illegal migrants. This is a place of wire, concrete, dark and
suspicions.
A
long wait and then a green light. The bus bumps forwards, following the
right angle turns in the road. No chance for speed or for turning back. The
road is only just the width of the vehicle. The wire has it trapped. And when the wire passes the dark spaces of grit and gravel that fill between - barren places that plants dare not grow in. This is not a
place of one, but of many fences. The bus halts in a queue. Long times
elapse. There is a silence that is not friendly - it is the middle of the
night and no-one on the bus wants to talk in this place. We are awake
because we know that it is the border; that we have to be awake; that
not to be awake is to commit an offence.
After
a while of edging forward one vehicle’s length at a time, followed by a
long wait after each move, the bus finally reaches the next fence and its control post where
another red light holds us until we are allowed to pass into the next
compound. Eventually the light changes and we bump and jolt across that space towards a distant yawning shed. We get nearer and it grows
larger, its harshly lit interior a chasm opening between concrete
buildings. The bus slowly makes a last sharp turn and lines up with the
entrance. It stops and waits once more.
It
is signalled forward and comes to a halt inside the shed. The driver
opens the doors and sits and waits. He and the other crew know that that
is all they can do. The border guard will come when they are ready.
When they choose. If they choose. May be now. May be in an hour.
Whenever. You know the bus is being watched, carefully watched. The bus
is not to be trusted. We are warned to have our passports ready.
A
guard enters the bus. Takes each passport in turn, looking long and
hard at each and then at its owner. There is not a flicker on his face.
The passport is then added to the growing stack that he holds, open at
the photo page. Not a word is spoken. We all know our parts. Sit very
still. Do not talk. Look past, not at, the guard. There will be no
questions here. They may come later.
Eventually all of the passports are
collected. The guard gets off the bus taking one of the crew with him -
the one to be held responsible. The waiting begins again. The time is
slow. It is ponderous. It knows not to take risks.
Eventually
the driver returns. He looks heavy with worry. He hands back each
passport to its owner and returns to the front, attentive, waiting for
the next instruction.
The
bus moves forward once more, out of the shed into another darker
wasteland between more fences. Stops. Moves. Stops again. We wait.
Another shed. More bleak buildings ahead of us. Once more we are
summoned forward. The bus stops in the lane it has been directed to. The
same sinister ballet is taking place in the parallel lanes under the
arching roof of the border control shed – the stopping, the waiting, the
silence. The driver gets off and opens the hatches under the bus where
all the baggage is. In other lanes vehicles stand with all their doors
and hatches open; stand waiting as if in some strange ballet of
exposure.
The
driver return to the bus and signals to us that we must all get off. We
are told to get our bags from the hold and take them to the benches
that line the side of the lane. We obey. We lift out bags on to the long
benches and stand behind them, waiting. It is getting cold and a steady
wind is blowing chill through the shed. Nothing happens. No voices are
heard. No one moves more than just to shuffle in a effort to keep warm
and to keep awake. Time feels manacled. It dare not protest by moving
forward.
A
guard appears and points at the bags. We are to understand that they
should be open. He goes away. A delay for our impudence at not having
the bags open ready? The night cold begins to get past our clothing. We
wait.
The
guard returns and looks into each bag. Not at us. He has a pen with
which he occasionally pokes at something, or uses to hold the bags more
open. He goes away. Nothing happens. Nothing happens for quite some
time. Another guard climbs on to the bus. He has a torch and a dog. He
takes quite a while.
The
building in front of us has big halls with benches and tables under
cold lights. You are aware of places where questions are asked.
Questions that are asked very slowly. Questions the answers to which
could lead you to smaller rooms where even more questions are asked - to
rooms with bare lights and hard chairs. Rooms which are there to
protect that which lies beyond. Rooms from which some people do not
return. Rooms where the state sanitises itself of those of whom it does
not approve: entrances to years of questions and cells.
We
are told to get back on the bus. We do up our bags and carry them to
the hold. We climb back on. We sit and wait, not quite daring to rest
or relax. The driver does not start the engine. We sit and wait. It is
the middle of the night but no-one risks sleep. The engine starts. We
lurch forward bumping our way across more concrete blocks, following the
roadway between yet more fences, round more sharp twists and chicanes,
the customs shed receding behind us diminishing into
remoteness, a place of bright light in a
growing gloom of half lit roadways and fences.
Once
more the bus stops at a red light. The final guard post in the last
line of wire. The light changes and we bump through and onto a normal
road. The night embraces us as we slide away from our place of trial and
suspicion, many hours after first having entered it.
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The Ukrainian Polish boarder, autumn 2011; echoes of the Soviet era and mindset still strongly present. The guard that know their importance and their power. Their boots still shine.
