Beliefs or Behavior

“Your beliefs don't make you a better person,” Nina was saying, “it's your behavior that does.” Nina had been an interpreter for the NATO unit that I was assigned to for years now. She had been there for nearly five years. Me, I had only been there in Bosnia for a few months at that time. She had proven to me, several times over by that point, that she was wiser beyond her young years that any one person had the right to be.

My partner, Match Stick and I, sat there and were pondering what Nina had just said when the lighting inside the small coffee bar changed. Someone had definitely opened the door; however, that someone was also large enough to stand in the door and block a good portion of it. That caught my attention.

Using the mirrors behind the bar, I checked out the newest patron as best I could. He was about 6 foot tall, thickly built, very hefty, and he was heading to our table. The finer details I could not make out right then, but it didn't really matter at that moment.

When he did stop at our table, Match Stick and I just acted nonchalant as we both easily dropped one hand to our pistols, secured a grip, sipped our coffees, and blandly I asked him, “What can I do for you, Tiny?” I spoke in Serbo-Croatian. It always spooked Nina when I did this. She was not accustomed to working with a sailor or a soldier ho spoke her language.

He looked sad. Oh, he was tough as hell, no doubt about that. This man was a walking knot of scars and muscles, but at that moment, he was sad. “I know who you are and what you are doing here, so do not bother to deny it or to tell me your cover stories. I have been watching you closely.” Stick and looked at each other and nodded. He spoke up.

“Sit down. Tell us your name, have drink on us, and tell us your story.” Match Stick had a great way about him. He could bring out the best in almost everyone.

That is precisely what this behemoth did. His eyes, as blue and cold as the north Atlantic in the winter, were calm and sad as he told us of the crimes he committed and oversaw during the Balkans War just a few years earlier. He told us things that only someone who was involved in such things could have known. Things that brought Nina almost to tears. This guy nodded at her while speaking to me, “I know where her brother is buried.”

At that instant I flinched. I hate myself from time to time for my own failings. My shitty memory is at the top of that list. Nina had grown up here in Drvar. She had told me about the day that her brother was taken by soldiers. Looking over at Nina, I put my hand on hers, she looked back at me, pulled her hand away. “Thank you, but no,” she said very quietly. I nodded.

After that man left we sat there quietly for several minutes. I was contemplating how lax I had been to be watched so closely by someone. Nina broke the silence. “I know that he was acting under orders during the war. I can see in his eyes that he is sorry for what had happened.” She looked into her coffee for a few more moments. “I forgive him. I think that I can let my brother rest in peace now.”