I make the call. The car fills with the resonance of the European dialling tone, 425kH, distinctly different from the one at home – in the UK – where I have now lived most of my life. No one answers. The tone rings out into the soft hum of the combustion engine burning petrol in the background [Is this Russian or Saudi / Norwegian / Nigerian / Kazakh / British / American oil?]. I dial again and this time I get through to the border guard on duty. I report my intended presence in the border zone, give my name, PESEL identification number and the registration number of the vehicle. I don’t get into any details of what I am planning to do here, and he asks no questions or offers any guidance. I am mildly surprised. Things seem to have changed since October when I last came here: winter [even if this is a gloopy version of its former self] / new government [the populist, extreme-right PiS is finally out after eight years of undermining democratic institutions] / the shockwaves sent across the country [and beyond] by Agnieszka Holland’s drama Green Border portraying pushbacks on the Polish-Belarusian border running through the Białowieża Forest [this border, about fifty kilometres further north]. 

I wish the guard a nice day, and I am sure he understands what I mean. A slow / uneventful shift passed on Facebook / YouTube / Instagram / TikTok / WhatsApp, punctuated by cups of tea [with sugar, without milk] or instant coffee. 

I hang up, make a three-point-turn, sinking the wheels deeper into the mud, splashing brown sludge all over the white bodywork of the car, and return to the original parking spot overlooking the Bug River. A piercing wind hits me as soon as I step outside. I zip my coat all the way up, pull up its collar, change my hiking boots for wellies, pick up my camera rucksack, and set off on foot along the river. I head east.

I walk across a meadow towards the border, then through a forest. I aim for a spot I know well. There, the border takes a sharp turn east and stops following a dead straight line drawn with a ruler and a red pencil [I don’t know this, but I have always imagined the pencil to have been red / bright red / blood red] by a Soviet official under the guidance from Stalin himself. There, the border briefly heads east before turning south again and meandering in the south-easterly direction. There, the Bug River and the border become one. There, the solid silver border fence accompanied by two spirals of razor wire descends from the hill, from the north, from the opposite riverbank, and stops at the water’s edge. It doesn’t attempt to cross the river’s current [even those who decided to build the wall through the last ancient forest in Europe didn’t come up with a folly to erect a barrier within the waters of the river]. On this side of the river there is a flimsy wire fence accompanied by a concertina of razor wire instead. There, in July, looking through the overgrown wires of the fence towards the Belarusian side, I saw a pair of blue jeans, towels, white trainers and some darker clothing laid out on a patch of sand by the river, right beside the silver wall [blinding in the sunshine; it faces directly south]. Laundry, a soldier told me later that day. 

Now, I can’t see either of the Bug’s riverbanks. I can’t get to the one on this side / my side / Polish side / EU side / NATO side. The river has spilled out of her banks after the piles of ice floe and snow she accumulated and dragged south-west melted. Further downstream, within the Polish territory, she flooded villages and small towns. Houses were inundated by the freak February deluge. 

I watch the flimsy wire border fence in the distance where the bank of the river usually is, its top pokes from the water. The razor wire beyond it is completely flooded: a mortal danger to deer and other animals / a mortal danger to those who may attempt a crossing. I know it is there, below the surface of the water. I have seen it / I photographed it. 

I film and photograph the swollen Bug and the half-submerged border fence, wondering whether anyone tried to get across recently. My feet get icy after a few minutes of standing in the shallows of the floodwaters. The river froze in January [when the winter resembled winter for a few weeks]. The owner of the guest house where I usually stay sent me a video of the ice floe drifting gently downstream, both banks covered in snow, cloudless sky. She hoped the cold snap would last and I would see the Bug within the most picturesque season. I imagined the high contrast images I would take. Snow / ice / bare trees / leafless shrubs / low winter sun / glowing razor wire. 

Two soldiers approach me. One male, one female. The male one asks if I have permission to be here. And I say that I do, even if this is not true. No permission is required. He has asked the wrong question. This is not an exclusion zone [at least not anymore, the state of emergency that has hung over the border since September 2021 has been lifted at the end of 2022]. And there is no law in Poland [except in the event of a state of emergency] preventing anyone from being here [that is as long as they have the right to be within the Polish territory legally]. Rather different rules apply on the other side, in Belarus. Ordinary Belarusians have no access to the border zone. And other practices concern those without papers, even if they are against rules / laws / conventions / treaties / accords / agreements / protocols / charters / codes. 

The soldier radios the border post in Janów Podlaski. The guard on duty confirms that my details have been recorded and asks the soldier to remind me I mustn’t photograph ‘the other side’. I nod to confirm I got the message. He must have forgotten to tell me when we spoke over the phone. This is just a local by-law, to which I find it impossible to adhere. How can one study a river [a border] by looking at just one bank [one side]? 

The soldiers walk away. I will see them again later. I will take a shot of their rucksacks leaning against a tree. They will say nothing. They are not on the other side.