“The eyes.” For a moment she looked unsure whether she should say more. “And we don’t see those shoes much around here.” I snuck a peek down at the Converse high-tops I’d pulled on in a last-minute fit of groggy defiance.
I followed Sharon out of the main lobby and down a corridor. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and I wandered the hall. I poked my head into open conference rooms trussed in heavy curtains and adorned with religious-looking paintings that, upon closer inspection, were devoid of any actual religion, eagles and haloed planet earths in place of crucifixes.
Farther down the hallway I noticed a set of ornate wooden doors and a plaque declaring CHAMBERS OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL. I imagined the delegates of a decade ago convening on the other side of that wall, discussing the body count of my parents and friends and determining that yes, something would have to be done to keep up appearances, but that it would be best to stay out of such a messy conflict. I slipped my fingers around the handle and tugged gently, but the door was lighter than it looked and opened wide. A rush of air wind-tunneled into the room and a few delegates in the back row turned to look at me.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was enough to startle me into loosening my grip, and the door swung closed. Sharon was offering me a cup of coffee and a frosted croissant in wax paper.
“They’ll be done in a few minutes. Then a quick coffee break and we’re on.” She tried to snap her fingers, but the wax paper got in the way. I followed her to a smaller room with fossilized adhesive on the wall where a plaque had been removed.
She tracked my gaze. “It’s our room now,” she said with pride. “But I haven’t had half a second to put in the application for new signage. Why don’t we go get settled at one of the front tables?” She handed me the cup and the pastry. “Any of the ‘reserved’ spots is fine.”
The room was windowless and paneled in dark wood, the tables and chairs arced in a semicircle. I chose a seat and took a swig of the coffee that turned out to be hot chocolate. I choked it down; I usually took my coffee black. The sweetness stuck in my mouth, and it dawned on me that, for Sharon, I would always be ten years old.
—
In America I’d learned quickly what it was okay to talk about and what I should keep to myself. “It’s terrible what happened there,” people would say when I let slip my home country and explained that it was the one next to Bosnia. They’d heard about Bosnia; the Olympics had been there in ’84.
In the beginning, adults operating somewhere between concern and nosiness had asked questions about the war, and I spoke truthfully about the things I’d seen. But my descriptions were often met with an uncomfortable shifting of eyes, as if they were waiting for me to take things back, to say that war or genocide was actually no big deal. They’d offer their condolences, as they’d been taught, then wade through a polite amount of time before presenting an excuse to end the conversation.
Their musings about how and why people stayed in a country under such terrible conditions were what I hated most. I knew it was ignorance, not insight that prompted these questions. They asked because they hadn’t smelled the air raid smoke or the scent of singed flesh on their own balconies; they couldn’t fathom that such a dangerous place could still harbor all the feelings of home. Soon I changed my approach, handpicking anecdotes like the Great Ding-Dong Ditch affront on the Serbian man’s flat, or the games we invented in the shelters, until I’d painted Zagreb with the lighthearted strokes of some carnival fun house. The version of things they ended up with was nonthreatening, even funny. But to create a palatable war was tiring and painful, so one day, I stopped completely. I grew and my accent faded. For years I didn’t reveal anything at all. I passed as an American. It was easier that way—for them—I told myself.
But the UN delegates, now making their way to their seats, knew who I’d been a decade ago. They would be thirsty for gore. I wasn’t sure what to tell them. I’d stayed up late thinking of what to say, had tried to organize things into an outline, but all these years later I still had no narrative to make sense of what had happened. Across the room two teenage black boys shuffled into the front row and slumped low in their chairs. Africa, I thought. Lost Boys, or RUF child soldiers. I wondered whether Sharon had recruited them, too, or if they were someone else’s project.