“Please be sure to greet Senator Hendley for me. And let him know about all of the good things you’re discovering in this wonderful country.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack and Aida headed back out onto the street, each even more impressed with the other than they were before.
“Hungry?” Aida asked.
“Sure.”
“Have you ever had ćevapi?”
“No, but I’m dying to try some.”
“I know the best place in the city. Let’s go. My treat.”
38
The waitress set the platter of ćevapi in front of Jack. The aroma of the sizzling beef sausages and grill-charred bread triggered his inner, slavering wolf. Aida ordered a half platter of the same.
Not sure how to attack his plate with the available utensils, Jack waited for Aida to demo the long-awaited delicacy. She tore off a piece of flatbread, forked one of the finger-sized sausages onto it, and piled a little mound of finely minced sweet onion on top.
Jack followed suit. He thought he might cry for his culinary joy. The grilled minced-beef sausages were mildly spiced, the wood-fired bread was smoky and savory, and the raw onions provided a sweet, crunchy heat. The dish was simple but perfectly combined in its flavors and textures. In his travels around the world, Jack had found that “peasant” food was usually his favorite. Poor people could never afford the expensive ingredients of “haute cuisine” and so had to find a way to coax the maximum amount of flavor out of their simpler fare. This ćevapi was the food equivalent of an exquisite Ansel Adams black-and-white photo.
“What do you think?” Aida asked between delicate bites.
Jack was working a mouthful of food like a hyena devouring an antelope carcass. He took a swig of Austrian bottled water to wash it down. The restaurant didn’t serve alcohol.
“Unbelievable. I’ve heard about this stuff. Had no idea how good it could be.”
“It’s the best ćevapi in the city, and believe me, there’s a lot of good ćevapi in Sarajevo. I’m glad you enjoy it.”
The place was packed, inside and out. When they arrived Jack didn’t think they’d get to eat. But Aida approached one of the servers, and before she said a word, the server dashed into the back. She emerged with a busboy carrying a small table and two chairs, setting them up outside near the side entrance, where several other customers eagerly consumed their lunches.
Jack was halfway through his feeding frenzy when he saw Gerry’s phone number appear on his silenced iPhone. A moment later a “Voice Message” alert appeared. Apparently, Gerry had read his text that he wasn’t going to be getting on that plane for D.C. today.
Ten minutes later, Jack popped the last fragments of bread, onion, and beef into his mouth and polished off his water.
“Ready for the rest of the tour?” Aida asked.
“Can’t wait.”
The server approached the table along with a middle-aged man, who looked like the owner, greeting Aida with a deferential smile in their native language.
“Everything was good?” he finally asked Jack in his halting English.
“I can’t imagine anything better. Incredible.”
Aida opened her purse to pay, but the owner waved her off with a magnanimous shrug and words Jack didn’t know but completely understood. Aida thanked him, and the two of them headed back to pick up the van at the Happy Times! tour office.
* * *
—
Aida navigated the crowded street traffic in the Volkswagen T5 tour van like a New York ambulance driver, skillfully weaving and accelerating as conditions required. Jack watched the little arrow on the dashboard GPS screen changing lanes in real time, too. They passed Sarajevo’s first of only two McDonald’s and, later, the presidential building. The buildings on this side of the city were definitely more modern and taller.
“I noticed quite a few Turkish flags in the crowd this morning at the youth center,” Jack said.
“Hundreds of thousands of Turks live in the Balkans, and twelve million people of Balkan origin live in Turkey. Turks are popular here.”
“It’s all a little confusing.”
“Of course it is,” she said with a smile. “It’s history.”
She pointed at a huge, multistory Holiday Inn. “That was built for the 1984 Olympics. You can see pictures of it online when it was burning during the war.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them. Terrible.”
A little farther along, Aida asked, “Have you heard of Sniper Alley?”
“No.”
“We’re in it. Google it sometime.” She pointed at the surrounding mountains. “Serbian soldiers were up in those hills and in the skyscrapers, shooting at civilians as they ran through town, dodging bullets to find food and water during the siege. Of course, the whole city was a Sniper Alley. This is just where the journalists got shot at.”
They left the city center, passing apartment buildings, offices, and light manufacturing facilities.
“Ever heard of Srebrenica, Jack?”
“The place where the massacre happened?”
“Eight thousand Muslim men and boys slaughtered by the Serbs.”
“Are we going there now?”
“No, too depressing. If you want, I can make other arrangements with one of my guides for you. There is also a museum in town dedicated to it, and you can see many documentary videos on YouTube as well.”
Jack wanted to get to know her better. He knew that the war was important to her understanding of the world and herself. He just wasn’t sure how far he could probe. Since his mother was also a part of her story, he hoped she might let him in, at least a little.
“Was your family connected to Srebrenica?”
“Every Muslim is connected to it.”
“I’m sure. But I mean, did you lose family members there?”
Aida shot Jack a sideways glance, keeping one eye on the traffic. “What the war did to my family is hard for me to talk about.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s good to talk about it. Maybe later, okay?”
“Sure.”
“But today I want you to understand how the war affected the whole country. If you understand what happened to all of us, then in a way you understand what happened to my family. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“What the Serbs did at Srebrenica is unforgivable. They still won’t even admit it happened, which makes it even worse.”
“In your mind, is it safe to say that the war and all the things Bosniaks suffered were caused by Serb nationalism?”
“No, not at all. During the war, we were also attacked by the Croats. They’re no better than the Serbs.”
Aida made a turn off the main road. “The Ustaše were Croatian fascists who cooperated with the Nazis during World War Two. Croatia engaged in ethnic cleansing during the Yugoslavian wars, and Bosnian Croats fought us just like the Serbs for a while.”
“And now the three of you—Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs—are trying to live together as a democracy.”
“Yes, with Croatia and Serbia as neighboring countries. We’ve been doing it for over twenty years. I’m just not sure how much longer it can last. There are nationalist forces on all sides agitating for a breakup.”
She made another turn onto a small country road.
“I read about a Unity Referendum coming up soon?”
Aida smiled. “Yes, because there is always hope. Sure, there are many bad Croats and Serbs, but there are also bad Bosniaks, yes? But there are many, many more good people on all sides than bad. We’re hoping the referendum will be a big victory over the bad guys who want to start another civil war.”
Jack watched a Lufthansa regional jet arc low across the windshield on approach to the airport.
“Will the referendum be enough to prevent it?”
Aida turned onto an even smaller street crowded with parked cars. “What did Burke say? All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing? But we have to do something, or at least try, don’t we?”
“Of course.” Jack noticed the Sarajevo airport several hundred yards away.
“And yet, NATO and the EU did nothing to stop the war once it began.” Aida found a spot to park and killed the engine. “And that’s why we’re here.”
39
Aida led Jack past the knots of tour groups inside the Sarajevo Tunnel of Hope Museum, pointing out the exhibit of IEDs and land mines planted in the grass, and the display of mortar and artillery shells that hung like wind chimes at the entrance to the tunnel itself.
She led him crouching through the short span of timber-framed tunnel and out to the other displays depicting the tragic and heroic efforts of Sarajevans in crisis and under siege.
But the main point she wanted to drive home was on the other side of the cyclone fence. She pointed at the airport where Jack had landed a few days before.
“Sarajevo was completely cut off by the Serbs who occupied the surrounding hills. But here at the airport was where the UN and NATO planes landed with their food supplies instead of the guns and ammunition we needed to fight.”
“I think I read that the West was worried about the war escalating. They were trying to keep guns out of everybody’s hands, not just the Bosniaks’.”
“And yet the Serbs and Croats had tanks and planes and all the ammunition they needed to fight, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, I guess they did.”
“But at least we had food.” She led Jack over to a glass-enclosed display. “See? We received American military rations from the Vietnam War.” She smiled. “Very generous, yes?”
Jack read the label: 1963. He was embarrassed.
“Wow.”
“We received powdered chocolate, but no sugar. Flour, but no eggs. My mother used to pick hazelnut leaves off the trees to make dolmas because there weren’t any grape leaves. It was a very hard time, and all of it could have been prevented . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Jack finished her thought. “If only good men had not stood by and done nothing.”
It would’ve been a tough call for any NATO government, he thought to himself. Wage war to stop a war? With the Russians next door?
It wasn’t unreasonable for NATO to try and tamp the fire down first with an arms embargo and hope it went out by itself.
Unless, of course, you were a Bosniak living in Sarajevo in 1993.
As a student of history, Jack understood NATO’s reluctance. But he imagined himself as a Bosniak standing here with a family nearly starving to death in the city behind him. He knew he would be as angry today as Aida obviously was if he had experienced the war the way she and her family had.
Tough call. For the umpteenth time, he was glad he would never be president.
“In 1984, the whole world was cheering the Sarajevo Winter Olympics,” Aida said. “Ten years later, when it really mattered, who knew we were suffering?”
* * *
—
After the Tunnel of Hope Museum, Aida drove him to the seventeenth-century Jewish cemetery located on the slope of Mount Trebević.
“After Spain expelled the Jews in 1492, many of them sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire, and many located here. It’s the second-largest Jewish cemetery in Europe, with nearly four thousand headstones and sepulchers.”
Many of the stones were toppled and damaged. “The war was here, too, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, we fight even among the dead. Unexploded mines and bombs weren’t removed until years after the war. It’s safe now.”
Safe but neglected, judging by the graffiti on some of the stonework and the trash in the grass.
Aida then drove Jack to a high point in the pine-covered mountains overlooking the city, a sea of red-tiled roofs in the sprawling valley down below. She pointed out the Serb positions, and from here Jack could clearly see the advantage their guns would have had over the terrified civilians below.
She next took him to the nearby abandoned Olympic bobsled track, now a graffiti artist’s wet dream of tubular concrete and colorful spray paint surrounded by tall evergreens. It was actually quite beautiful in its own unique, postapocalyptic anarchism. He ignored the FUCK RYAN—USA splattered in red spray paint on one of the support columns, though it couldn’t be missed. Aida was courteous enough not to point it out, even though she surely saw it. He wondered what her reaction would be if she knew how closely connected he was to the slanderous jab.
Jack would have liked to meet the poet laureate while he was rendering his aerosolized thoughts, to offer him a few choice adjectives of his own as he lifted the lad into an ambulance.
Aida pointed out the bullet and shrapnel scars on the bobsled run. “Our forces used these heavy concrete tubes as elevated bunkers.”
“Such a waste.”
“Yes, but by then, what else were they good for?”
* * *
—
How do you get beyond all of this?” Jack asked as Aida drove them to their next destination. “Even if every war criminal went to jail and every politician apologized, it wouldn’t bring back the tens of thousands of people killed.”
“You’re right. If we only look to the past, we can never move forward as a nation. But because we still haven’t dealt with the real causes of the war, I’m afraid we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes.”
“I thought you had hope.”
“I do. There is a bright future for my country. I’m just not exactly sure how we get there.”
They rode along for a minute when Aida suddenly popped Jack on the arm with a friendly tap, trying to change the somber mood.
“Enough of all of this depressing war talk! Let me show you why my city is the most beautiful in the world, and why it will be great again.”
They spent the rest of the day taking in the best Sarajevo had to offer, indoors and out. They wound up back in the Old Town, browsing through the shops of Aida’s favorite local artists.
As they passed one of the shops, Jack saw a phrase stenciled in black block letters on the wall. It seemed completely out of place and yet the owner didn’t remove it: Samo nek’ ne puca.
Jack pointed it out. “What does it mean?”
Aida grinned. “You have to understand our dark humor. It’s a saying that came out of the war, but it applies today. You know, with the high unemployment and corruption, all of our other troubles? The joke translates to something like ‘Our lives totally suck and aren’t worth living, but at least nobody is shooting at us.’”
She led Jack into a small gallery of handmade jewelry and art. She picked out a pair of handmade bronze earrings crafted from thin strips of antique coffee urns, etched with designs and studded with two small stones. The woman placed them in a small, cleverly folded box of her own design and handed it to Jack.
“What’s this?”
“For your mother,” Aida said. “My gift to her.”
“She’ll love these.”
“I know she will.” Aida smiled. “I have excellent taste.”
She reached into her purse, but the gallery owner refused to take her money despite her repeated attempts. Aida finally relented and they headed out.
They ended the afternoon at Baklava Ducan, run by a couple young guys with a passion for culinary tradition. “The best in town,” Aida assured Jack, as they were served coffee and the Bosnian version of baklava. The Greek—or was it Turkish?—dessert was usually a cloying, honey-soaked stack of crunchy phyllo, but the pieces he tried here had far more subtle flavors and a softer texture that practically melted in his mouth. He predicted a world of hurt for himself when he finally got back to early-morning
PT in Alexandria after this bout of sweet indulgence.
But it was so worth it.
Aida never once mentioned anything personal about the war again after the bobsled run, though it was never far from Jack’s mind, and there was a sadness descending on both of them, knowing that the day was nearly over. He hated the idea of leaving Sarajevo, in part because Aida’s love for it had now taken hold of him as well. But he hated the idea of leaving her even more.
Still, he had a job to do back home, and his goal of finding her and delivering his mother’s letter had been completed. Two more unplayed voice mails from Gerry told Jack it was time to push on.
They finished their coffee and baklava, but this time Jack insisted on paying the bill. The owners initially refused until a subtle nod from Aida completed the transaction.
They stepped outside into the setting sun, just as the melodic call to evening prayer echoed above them.
“I’m sorry if I bored you with too much history today, Jack. You Americans are fortunate because you always look toward the future.”
“Your history is fascinating. I wasn’t bored at all. I’m looking forward to coming back soon.”
“It’s too bad you’re leaving tomorrow. I wish we had more time together.”
Jack hadn’t expected that. “I’d like that, too. How about dinner?”
“I’m sorry, but I have much work to do tonight at the office. I still own the tour business, and tomorrow we have a new group of refugees coming to the center.”
“Can I come and see it tomorrow?”
“I thought you were leaving.”
“Let me check in with my boss and clear it with him.”
“It’s nothing glamorous, Jack. I’m sure you’ll be bored.”
“I want to help out, if I can.”
She sized him up and down again. “Come if you want. Or not. Either way, I hope your mother likes the earrings.”
“Trust me, she will.”
“You have my number. I’ll be in the office until late if you change your mind.”