‘Milos! Keep your voice down.’
I hardly hear her. ‘But to me it means something else. Sure I did go native, I admit it, native as they come. But it’s not entirely my fault and it’s not what people think. I went native all right, but in a weird way. You won’t ever understand. You’re English. You can’t understand … it’s all to do with parcels and history …’
‘Parcels? History?’ She’s lost again.
‘Look, the parcels came first and our family history fed the process of “going native”.’ Niki is just staring at me. She probably thinks I’ve finally flipped.
‘You can listen to this, but you’ll never ever understand what I’m going to tell you – simply because you’re English. You come from a country that was last invaded in 1066. No invader has ever set foot in Britain since. Sure, the Spanish and Germans have tried in the past. It’s madness to try and invade this island – first you’ve got to brave hideous seas, then you’ve got to overcome treacherous rocks and cliffs, and, if you manage all that, you’ve then got to deal with 60 million people with “bad attitude”. So, none of you know what it’s like and your family has always lived in England.’
‘So what?’ Now she’s getting angry.
‘So a lot. You’ve had your last civil war nearly four hundred years ago. You’ve got the oldest and most respected democracy in the world. It’s a democracy which has come about naturally through evolution and not revolution. You people don’t even know what you’ve got here! You take it all for granted. But, remember, no other country in Europe has got what you’ve got …’
‘But, what’re you driving at? Get it out!’
‘All right. This is the way it is. I’m the son of refugees who’ve lost everything they had in Yugoslavia. My father began life in Britain as a displaced person, as a hod carrier. Growing up was a nightmare. There was no money. Endless arguments over making ends meet. We were the only kids at school without pocket money. When you grow up in that environment you adopt the same mentality. You become a sort of Scrooge, a hoarder. My mother won’t throw anything out, ever. She works at Dr Barnado’s and buys half the shop for herself! The house is full of rubbish; the family motto is “mend and make do”. Why? Because she once lost everything. It’s recorded in her memory banks. You become like that yourself.’
‘How does all this tie in with Bosnia and going native?’
‘Simple, Nix. Here’s the rub. You’ve got everything. Life is comfortable financially. You’ve been careful as hell and have thousands stashed away – thousands that will never be spent – just in case … and then you go out there and something massive happens in your life. Something so huge that it makes you go native …’
‘What?’
‘You meet the Little People, as General Rose used to call them. You meet these Little People because you’re in a privileged position. You speak the lingo and you have this curse of understanding, a sort of secret passageway into their minds and mentality. You have the curse because you’re born with it. You are one of them. And when you meet them you’re staring into a time warp. You’re staring at the way your parents once were. You’re looking at people who ten months previously had a life, a family, a house, comfort, electricity and gas at a flick, possessions and things that make life tick along. Everything you now take for granted. And suddenly BANG, they’ve got nothing. They’ve lost members of the family killed, the kids have been evacuated and they’re somewhere in the West – but where? They don’t know. They haven’t heard from them for a year. They’ve got no heating, no light, no gas and it’s freezing cold. They’re cowering in their miserable little flats that used to be homes. Some of the rooms they can’t go into because shrapnel and bullets come in through the window. In a dirty backroom, where it’s safer, they huddle over a jam jar of water which has an inch of oil floating on top, and a piece of string suspended in this thing is burning with a yellow sooty flame. And they’re scared out of their tiny minds because they have no future. But, they do have their dignity, which they cling to desperately because it’s all they’ve got. When you see that for the first time and you’re staring at your parents through a hole in time, you’re touched by something, which I can’t adequately explain. And it’s only then that you realise that all you have, your comfortable home in Farnham, the car, the bike, the emergency dosh – all of it is meaningless. Because you have everything and they have nothing and you’re ashamed. And these were people whom I loathed because they were “Communists”! Up close they’re just human beings who want what you and I want – a life. When that happens, you’re presented with a choice – do something or do nothing. Walk on by on the other side or cross the street … I chose to cross the street. I went native, simple as that.’
Niki has gone terribly silent. Neither of us is saying anything. A million thoughts, none of them good, are turning over in my mind. If that couple over there, sitting quietly with their drinks, minding their own businesses, could read my mind. Christ Almighty. I’m seeing them in Sarajevo, in Hell, going through what people out there go through. They haven’t the faintest idea what it’s all about. Niki breaks my train of thought, thank God.
I can feel her tugging on my arm. ‘Milos! You’re staring at those people. Are you all right?’
‘Do you think there’s such a thing as Fate, Nix?’
‘I do. I’ve always thought there was such a thing.’
‘Well, there is. I know it exists because I’ve experienced it. I sound like a bloody raving missionary. It comes out of nowhere, it leads you down a path and yet you don’t know you’re being led. And it starts with something totally innocuous.’
‘For example?’
‘Well, in my case it was a small parcel from the UK. Y’know, I didn’t just up and decide to be a do-gooder. As I’ve explained, my instincts are quite selfish. Had that first parcel not come out I’d probably have done a couple of six-monthers out there as a regular Joe interpreter. I’d have come away from that place clean, but none the wiser. I got pushed into it by that first parcel.’
‘I don’t understand this thing about parcels.’
‘That’s because I haven’t told you about it. Listen, as I’ve told you, the fighting between the Muslims and Croats intensifies throughout January. The tension spreads north-eastwards right up to Vitez in the Lasva valley. Checkpoints spring up all over the place – BiH and HVO checkpoints. They’re like dogs marking their territory, staking claim to their villages and hamlets. The road linking Vitez with Kiseljak through the Busovaca valley is riddled with these checkpoints and very shortly the fighting erupts there at a place called Kacuni. By now Bob Stewart is spending every day trying to keep the lid on all this. He’s shuttling the various commanders up to Kiseljak for talks at BHC. In front of the UN they agree to cease-fires that collapse before the ink is dry. The situation gets so bad that eventually Brigadier Cumming is summoned back to London on 22 January to attend a Prime Minister’s working supper at Number 10.
‘That morning he’s up in the MoD briefing various people and he bumps into Major General Mike Jackson, who has some job in the Ministry at the time. Jackson’s a Para. He was CO in the mid-1980s when he commanded 1 PARA in Bulford. We call him PoD, the Prince of Darkness, because although he’s English we reckon that he actually comes from Transylvania and needs at least a litre of fresh human blood every day to keep him going. We adored him, but he was dangerous – if you drink with Jackson you die! Jackson hands Cumming this small parcel. Apparently, he’s got an au pair, a young girl from Sarajevo, who was stuck in London when the war started and hasn’t had any contact with her parents in Sarajevo. Jackson gives Cumming this parcel and asks him to see if he can get it delivered. That evening he attends the supper at Number 10. They’re all there: John Major, Lord Owen, Douglas Hurd, Malcolm Rifkind, etc.
‘Later, I asked Brigadier Andrew how it went, so I’ve only got this second hand. So, they’re all there pontificating about how to make