The Elusive Mr Lee

Posted Tuesday, March 06, 2007, 8:06 PM by Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet author Vesna Maric was curious to find out what had happened to Bruce Lee after his disastrous start in Mostar, Bosnia-Hercegovina, but getting a closer look proved remarkably difficult.

The office in charge of Mostar's parks is supposedly where Bruce is hiding. I walk into the '70s Yugoslav socialist-modernist-cubist building and ask a woman with a bulging neck where I could talk to someone who'd show me Bruce Lee. She says, with a faint smile you might direct at a lunatic, that I should go upstairs to room number 1 and ask someone there.

Inside room number 1 two women are drinking coffee and smoking. I knock and get a dead-pan reception. Bruce Lee is so last year. After I realise that my mother knows one of the women personally, everything changes: you can go from a sub-zero degree reception, to being bathed in human compassion within seconds of dropping the right name. The women smile, make phonecalls. They call a man called Dragan, who is in charge of guarding Bruce. Dragan is taking his role as 'The Guardian of Lee' very seriously:

"I was given orders" says Dragan, "to wrap him up in two blankets and tie the whole thing up with selotape. Then they said I should also wrap him up in a newspaper. They also said no one can see him unless the authorities say so, so I'm afraid you can't come here unless you have permission. I can only say that I wish I was as well protected as he is!"

So I go look for 'the authorities'. I get a number. The woman, apparently in charge, is out of the office. So, thinking I may not get a look at Bruce Lee after all, I go to the city park to take a picture of where he used to be. The place is graffitied, unimpressive. The park is completely dug up and five thousand new lights are being installed. There's so much light in the park, the couples who used to come here exclusively for the darkness will have to look elsewhere for petting grounds.

Defeated, I go home, where my mother tells me she is friendly with 'the woman in charge'. She calls her and: ta-da! I am invited to go and see Lee immediately. I run, bits of lunch still fresh on my shirt. 'I'm gonna get Lee, I'm gonna get Lee' I keep thinking.

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