The Europe Challenge

This is a fictional story, but it is also true.

It must have been about four years ago, yes, I think I remember it quite well. I was in Bihać, which is a small town in Bosnia. You don’t really need to know that much about Bihać, except it’s in the north, right on the border with Croatia. That’s its curse I suppose, because for years many people have been coming to Bihać to enter the European Union via the border with Croatia. And it was the same for me.

I was born in Bangladesh, in a suburb of Dhaka, and it was never easy for my family. I had four sisters and was the only son, so I had to take care of the family from an early age, but since I didn’t know any different, I was at peace with it. I knew another life from Europe or America from television, but it never related to me. That was the other world. When my father became ill and his onion business closed, it became increasingly difficult to find food for us. My mother then told me I had to go to Europe. Maybe to Switzerland or Spain, something would be found. Although I had never really thought about Europe, I was looking forward to it. A few other men from families we were friends with also set off and so we took the train or hitchhiked or walked. It depended. And then we were in Bihać. There was a camp for refugees in Bihać, called Lipa, which was a hellish place even before it burnt down at the end of 2020. I couldn’t find a place there and was always sent away. So, I had no choice but to share a tent with other migrants in the woods outside Lipa. It was worse than anything I could have imagined. I tell you, there are no words for what it was like there. How we felt. We tried to cross the border to Croatia several times and were pushed back. We were put in cars and driven far back into the country. I don’t know, maybe you even think that’s right. But it was always the end for us.

It must have been some time in the autumn when I was in town to buy bread. It was raining quite heavily and all I could think about was how I was going to get my clothes dry again. In the woods, hanging them on branches, it would take a long time. I walked close to the houses so as not to get too wet and saw a small yellow house with a red door nearby. There was a light on and I could see that it was a library. Not that I knew libraries well. But I think it looked like I imagined it would. I wondered if I should go in, but knew I wouldn’t be wanted. I wasn’t wanted anywhere, especially not here, in this town. But then there was the fear of the wet clothes. I decided to just go inside and opened the door. An older woman was sitting there at a kind of counter, looking at me. I looked at her too. I didn’t say anything. I could feel her looking at me, searching for words. I just stood there, undecided. I felt the warmth of the room, I felt the light. Finally, she just nodded and turned away from me. I nodded too and went to a table. I wondered what I was doing here. I couldn’t read books and certainly not books in Bosnian. But just sitting here like this seemed wrong, too conspicuous. The situation was so tense. I went to a shelf and took out one of the books. Something about tractors, agriculture. I sat down and looked at the pictures. I had so many questions, about everything, about myself. I was so wrong here, in this country, in this place, in this library. It was nothing like I would have thought. And not the way I had imagined Europe to be. But I couldn’t go back. What would they all have said about me? That I hadn’t made an effort? That family wasn’t important to me? My mother would have just looked at me, shaken her head and turned away from me.

While I was pondering my thoughts, an elderly gentleman with a hat and umbrella entered the library. He chatted a bit with the lady at the counter, then he saw me. His face became angry in seconds. He started talking at the lady in a loud voice, waving his arms and pointing at me. I knew she would get up straight away and come to me, asking me to go. I didn’t want to feel it. I looked down. A blank stare.

The lady didn’t come to me. She got loud, too, she was arguing. I didn’t understand what was happening. The old man then left the library. She just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. Then she picked up a book. I can’t tell you what had happened. But it seemed that she had stood up for me. Which I hadn’t expected. I was still looking down, but my eyes blurred. I had to pull myself together not to cry. My eyes were staring at tractors.

I stayed for a while longer, until the rain stopped. I soaked up everything, everything that was here. The warmth, the light, the peace. I have never been in a place like this again, where it was so quiet, so bright, so warm. I never learned the Bosnian language. I never went to that little library in Bihać again, even though I stayed in the city for longer after that day. I couldn’t. I couldn’t be seen in a place where I wasn’t allowed to be seen. Where I wasn’t allowed to be there. I will never forget that place, that day. And sometimes when it rains, I go to libraries, here, in Madrid. Then I just sit there and nobody sees me.

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About the Author

Sarah Schütz (b. 1987) is 37 years old, lives in Munich and currently works in the library of a law firm. She is interested in Southeast Asia and speaks the Indonesian language. This year she took part in an essay competition run by the German Federation of Trade Unions and won a prize in the “Promotion of Young Talents” category. In her free time she is involved in helping refugees.