We had cut down from Vienna towards the border at Sopronpuzta, about 80 kilometres west of the main Vienna - Budapest highway, where we passed unhindered through the Austrian checkpoint.
Unlike others parts of the border between east and west, the narrower two kilometre wide no-man's land here was cultivated soil, but still enclosed by parallel lines of barbed wire fencing, punctuated by flimsy looking watchtowers, stretching away across the fields and hills like a broadly painted green line. We drove slowly and tentatively across it towards the Hungarian control.
Two guards got up from the bench outside their office, slung Kalashnikovs across their backs and stood waiting for us. It had been a long hot day, their ties and jackets hung limply as if they too were exhausted. Across the evening sky a low sun continued to spread unrelenting heat, and the bronzed faces of the young men glistened. Zuzana's newly acquired dark blue and gold British passport was examined with particular interest before being handed to a more senior looking man, who took it away to an inner office. Perhaps phone calls were made. We waited, trying to appear as relaxed as possible. Zuzana lit a cigarette. One of the guards casually examined the camper van with seemingly little interest other than to pass amused comments to his colleague about the right hand drive steering wheel, the small kitchen fittings, the sink, the kettle...
Our journey east may have ended at this point had the passport examination resulted in a refusal for Zuzana. This was her first time back to the Curtain she had fled through from Prague seven years before. Her surname, Bluhova, did not go unnoticed or unchecked. We waited half an hour.
"She left and now she comes back for a holiday" muttered one guard to another as he handed over the passports, unaware of Zuzana's knowledge of their language. We politely thanked them and drove slowly beneath the lifting barrier, saying nothing for a while as I accelerated along the empty road. Zuzana lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and muttered: "Little shits. Little... fucking... shits."
