The TRIBUNAL (4 page)

    “You brought your family here as well?” Mrs. Kelly suddenly asked him in an accent that sounded Irish.

    “Yes, I have.”

    “It’s a shame about your job offer and the funding.”

    “Yes, it is. I was really looking forward to working here.”

    “Well, perhaps something will come up.”

    “I sure hope so,” Kevin said with a forced smile. He opened the door and turned to say goodbye to Mrs. Kelly.

    “You know,” she said, handing Kevin some papers, “maybe you can work as defense counsel. Their funds have not been frozen because, of course, those arrested must be given a lawyer. If you’re interested, fill out this application.”

    “Thank you,” Kevin said, taking the application.

    Lowering her voice, she said, “I’m sorry about what happened. Please don’t judge us all by
him
. Get your application back to me and I’ll see that it gets to the right place.”

    Mrs. Kelly had a gleam in her eye as she turned back toward her office.

    The warmth of the sun felt good on Kevin’s face when he left the building. The Tribunal was a cold place with its own set of strange customs and rules. Nevertheless, Kevin was excited about the glass-enclosed courtroom with the judges in red satin. He wanted to be working in that courtroom on the other side of the glass. He had no doubt he’d be more professional than the prosecutor he had seen at work in there today.

    He took a tram from the Tribunal to the Central Station, and then switched to a bus to the suburb of Wassenaar. The public transportation system in Holland was excellent. As he rode on the bus, Kevin noticed that every street had a bicycle lane. People of all ages were riding bicycles.

    When he got back to the row house in Wassenaar, it was noon. Diane and Ellen were still asleep, no doubt jet lagged; it was still only 3 a.m. California time. Unable to adjust to the 9-hour time difference, they’d been in and out of bed all night.

    Kevin put the defense application in a drawer. He did not want to defend war criminals. He had been on the side of the good guys his whole career. He didn’t move here to defend some mass murderer.

    Kevin prowled around their new home, looking for something to eat. It was lunchtime and he was hungry, but they hadn’t yet gone grocery shopping. He went into his bedroom where Diane and Ellen were asleep. He moved the curtains, allowing some light to stream in.

    Ellen’s eyes opened. “Where am I?” she yawned.

    “In the city of Wassenaar, province of South Holland, country of The Netherlands, continent of Europe,” Kevin replied. “Does that answer your question?”

    Diane stirred at the sound of voices. “What time is it?” she groaned.

    “Twenty past twelve in the afternoon,” Kevin answered. “You two need to get up or you won’t be able to sleep tonight. And I’m hungry.”

    Ellen stretched her arms high in the air. Kevin couldn’t resist. He struck quickly, tickling under her arms, and then on her sides. She squealed, then squirmed out of Kevin’s grasp and ran up the stairs to the third floor.

    “Missed me, missed me, now you got to kiss me,” she taunted.

    Kevin started up the stairs.

    “You guys!” Diane called. “Someone’s going to get hurt on those stairs.”

    Looking at the stairs, Kevin realized Diane had a point. The stairs in the row house were extremely narrow and steep. It was the Dutch way of saving space. They were geniuses at that sort of thing.

    “You can’t come up to the ‘Ellen level’ without permission,” Ellen yelled down.

    “Well, get dressed while you’re up there,” Kevin yelled back. “We need to go grocery shopping or I’m going to start eating the candy you brought with you.”

    “Don’t you dare, Daddy!”

    One hour and two threats later, the Andersons drove the few blocks to the “Albert Heijn” store, the local supermarket. When they got there, Kevin wrestled with the shopping carts stacked up outside, trying to get a cart. He backed off when he saw a line of people waiting behind him. The person behind him calmly approached the cart, put a coin in a slot near the handle, and easily separated the cart from the others.

    Diane and Ellen, standing nearby, howled with laughter. Diane mercifully fished a Dutch guilder from her purse and Kevin managed to score them a shopping cart.

    By now, Kevin was famished. He piled all kinds of groceries in the cart as they made their way down the aisles.

    “Let’s try some of this,” he said, adding canned herring to the cart.

    Diane and Ellen stuck with familiar American brands, and lots of vegetables.

    When they had filled their cart, Kevin maneuvered it toward the checkout counter in the front of the store. He was disappointed to find that the line was long, but they patiently waited their turn. Just as Kevin was about to begin unloading the cart, a kindly old woman said to him in English, “You haven’t weighed your vegetables.”

    Kevin looked at the woman. Was she some kind of a nut?

    “Americans make that mistake all the time,” she said. “There are scales over by the vegetable section.”

    Kevin was suspicious until the woman picked up one of her own vegetable bags and showed him a pre-printed price sticker.

    “Thank you very much,” he said.

    He moved their cart out of the line and headed back to the vegetable section, wondering if anyone would notice if he took a bite out of an apple.

    Diane and Ellen followed him, cracking up.

    “They’re your vegetables,” Kevin said in mock sternness to Diane and Ellen. “You guys weigh them.”

    Diane and Ellen pulled the vegetables out of the cart and weighed each of them.

    Then they headed back to the checkout area. The line was even longer.

    “We’ll wait outside,” Ellen announced, grabbing her mother’s hand. “I’m bored.”

    When Kevin finally reached the cashier, he dutifully unloaded the cart full of items. He relaxed when he saw that the cashier was ringing them up. He wondered where the bagger was as his groceries stacked up behind the cashier.

    “Who bags the groceries?” he asked as he paid the cashier.

    “You do,” the cashier replied curtly.

    “No problem,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know. We just moved here.” He scanned the counter again. “Where’re the bags?”

    “You have to bring your own.”

    “What?” Kevin exclaimed a bit too loud. “Really?”

    “Yes,” the cashier replied. “That is how we do it here in The Netherlands.” The man’s English was excellent.

    Kevin looked with despair at his huge mound of groceries. He searched frantically for Diane and Ellen. In desperation, he said to the cashier, “What should I do? I don’t have any bags.”

    “You can buy some over there,” the man replied, pointing to an odd looking machine against the wall.

    By now, Kevin would have gladly paid a small fortune for grocery bags. He ran over to the machine while the other customers waited in the ever-growing line at the checkout counter. Kevin felt his face getting red as he fumbled with the coins for the bag machine. He raced back over to the counter with five bags, praying that they were enough. Kevin threw his groceries in the bags as fast as he could and loaded them into the cart. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and staggered out of the supermarket.

    “Daddy, what took you so long?” Ellen asked impatiently.

    They went home and had their first meal in Holland.

    Afterward, the three of them headed out for a leisurely stroll.

    “When do you start work?” Diane asked nonchalantly.

    Kevin hadn’t yet told her he was unemployed, and he dreaded doing so.

    

    

    After hearing nothing from the Tribunal for a week, Kevin called Mrs. Kelly to ask if she had any news.

    “I’m afraid not, dear. That’s really too bad, coming with your family and finding out you have no job,” Mrs. Kelly commiserated. “At least the weather is good. Enjoy it while you can. It gets rather gray here.”

    “We may only be here for the summer. I can’t afford to stay without any income.”

    “How’s your family enjoying Holland?”

    “You’re very kind to ask. We love living in Wassenaar. It’s got everything: woods, parks, sand dunes, even a windmill.”

    “They call Wassenaar the Green Oasis of Holland for a reason. Of course, it’s nothing compared to Ireland. You have a daughter?”

    “Yes. She’s eleven.”

    “How’s she getting along?”

    “She started summer camp at the American School this week. She’s already made friends and is riding all over town with them on her new bike.”

    “It’s very safe here. That’s one of the things I like about it. With all the violence at home, you know. And what does the missus do?”

    “She’s volunteering at the American School, helping get the library ready for the school year. The truth is my family is happy and busy. I’m the one at loose ends.”

    “Oh dear, Kevin. I do hope something breaks soon.”

    The next week, Kevin visited the Tribunal in person. He brought Mrs. Kelly a bottle of California wine from Sonoma County. She was delighted with the gift, but sorry that she still had no good news.

    When Kevin returned to the lobby, he saw a familiar face.

    “Nihudian,” he called. “How are you doing?” He strode over to the bench where Nihudian was sitting and offered his hand.

    Nihudian shook it warmly. “Quite well, thank you. I just finished another morning in the monkey cage.”

    Kevin smiled. “Do you have time to grab something to eat?”

    “Sure. Have you been to the beach?”

    “No, I haven’t.”

    “Come on. I’ll introduce you to the favorite food of the Dutch. My treat.”

    The two men walked outside and through the guardhouse. Kevin told Nihudian about his expected employment as a prosecutor at the Tribunal, and the difficulties that had cropped up. At the corner, they hopped on a tram.

    “The Yugoslavian Embassy’s over there,” said Nihudian, pointing to the south.

    “What is the relationship between Bosnia and Yugoslavia anyway?” Kevin asked.

    “Bosnia was one of the six republics that made up the Yugoslavian federation. Like one of the fifty states in the United States. Yugoslavia included Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro.

    “When did it break up?”

    “In late 1991, Slovenia declared its independence, followed by Croatia, and then in early 1992, Bosnia. That’s when the war in Bosnia started. Bosnian Serbs wanted to remain part of Yugoslavia, united with Serbia, while the Muslims and Croats living in Bosnia wanted to be independent.”

    Nihudian stood up as the tram came to a stop in front of a huge old hotel with a dome shaped like the U.S. Capitol. “That’s the Kurhaus Hotel,” he said as they got off the tram. “It’s where the rich and famous stay in The Hague.”

    Kevin wondered if Nihudian was taking him for some fancy meal, and hoped that the Bosnian was not planning to spend his hard-earned money on lunch with Kevin. But instead of going inside the Kurhaus, Nihudian and Kevin followed a path around to the back of the hotel. It led to a wide strand of boardwalk and beach with a long covered pier, food and souvenir stands, and waterfront restaurants. Kevin saw the high surf of the North Sea bringing wave after wave onto the beach.

    “This is Scheveningen, The Hague’s big resort area,” Nihudian said. “It’s packed on the weekends.” He pointed to an old metal food stand behind the Kurhaus Hotel. “That’s the place.”

    “Two large orders of French fries with mayonnaise,” Nihudian told the man behind the counter.

    “This is it,” he said handing Kevin a plastic container overflowing with French fries. “The Dutch delight.”

    Kevin loved French fries, but wasn’t sure about the mayonnaise. They walked over to a bench where they could watch the waves and people on the beach. Many of the women were topless.

    To his surprise, Kevin loved the fries and mayonnaise combination. He took a deep breath of salt air. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” Kevin said, picking out another French fry and dipping it in mayonnaise.

    Nihudian laughed. “It’s a long way from Bosnia, that’s for sure.”

    “What was Bosnia like before the war?”

    “That seems like ages ago. Marshal Josip Broz Tito ruled Yugoslavia from the end of World War II until he died in 1980. Tito managed to keep the three major ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, united under a very tightly controlled central government during that time. In Bosnia, it was not uncommon to find a street with a Serb, Croat, and Muslim living next to each other. Everybody got along fine.”

    “What went wrong?”

    “After Tito died, politicians like Slobodan Milosevic, the President of Serbia, started fueling the fires of ethnic hatred, encouraging Serbs to seek revenge for injustices they had suffered in the past at the hands of the other ethnic groups. Ruthless Serbian gangsters formed paramilitary groups. They bombarded the people with paranoia that the Muslims were going to slaughter the Serbs. Pretty soon the people started believing it.”

    “Who was the war in Bosnia between?”

    “Good question. It started out with the Serbs against the Muslims and Croats. Then the Muslims and Croats starting fighting each other. They got back together and fought the Serbs again until the peace agreement was signed in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.”

    “What group do you belong to?” Kevin asked hesitantly.

    “I’m a Muslim.”

    “Were war crimes committed?”

    “Oh, definitely. There was brutality on all sides. The Serbs carried out ethnic cleansing, where they would come into a village, take the Muslim men to concentration camps, and force the Muslim women and children to leave. Only Serbs were left, and entire Muslim populations were eliminated. In the camps, the Serbs shot, beat, and tortured Muslim civilians. It was awful.”