The Human Cost

PAUL DURCAN sent me a postcard once, from the bridge at Ochrid, in Macedonia.
He thought it one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen. It was on a lake. On the other side of the lake was Albania. I kept the postcard and the thought in the way of things, with Paul, what he says lodges in the mind and one day I ended up in Albania, looking across the lake at what seemed to be the promised land. Albanian honeymooners do that quite a lot. Too poor to travel, they traditionally go to the nearest water s edge and look across at the promised land, be that Greece or Italy or Macedonia. That longing glance is the sum total of their honeymoon.
Hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians found themselves in Macedonia a fortnight ago. After a week in the mud, they were shipped overland, overnight, on to Albania. I think now of the man who met us on a road there and invited us immediately into his home, where his daughter served us tea and cakes. Of an old woman who stood at her door, under fronds of wisteria, and shyly greeted us in French, trying out the few words she had learned in World War II. Of the women making fudge in a room giving onto the street, who broke the strands into pieces, put them in a bag, and presented them to us. Albania is pitifully poor, the people disposed to kindliness. They are not highly regarded by Macedonians or Greeks.
The West is dependent on Albania now, and its kindness towards Kosovar Albanians. Otherwise the West will have to watch the nightmare scene of refugees mired in the mud, going out of their minds. If this cloud has a silver lining, it is that Albania will quickly receive tons of money from the West to help it cope with the refugees. It might even get electricity and water on tap. And glass for the windows there is a terrible shortage of glass in Albania.
Some days a person just wants to stay in bed. Clean sheets, snuggling down in the warmth, the soft ease of sleep; a shower and change of clothes on the morrow, a choice of buttered breads for breakfast; a day s work, a couple of dollars in the bank; an evening with friends, or on the phone to the family. Sanitary towels, underwear, shoes and socks, the granny sitting in her chair, a cup of tea, a telephone, a newspaper, a radio, a sandwich, an aspirin, no rape, murder or burning, a child walking home, a front door to call your own, a glass of water. A glass of water. A glass of water and a toilet and toilet paper. Even if they had money, there are Kosovar Albanians who can t have even that, as they are marched up and down the road, over train tracks, through the mountains. They can t have a glass of water. Or a drink of water.
We live in interesting times. It s not like World War II. It s not as though we don t know. What is interesting is that even though we know, we still don t know what to do. Our government is already stressing that there is no guarantee that such Kosovars as we might take in will be guaranteed permanent refuge. There are no huge crowds on the streets, protesting against that. So now we know that much at least about World War II how it came to be that so many stood idly by. Just like us. Maybe they, too, just didn t know what to do. n