The Quiet Librarian

by Allen Eskens

She had once said that their friendship had been chiseled from marble. Hana liked the sentiment, even though she saw relationships more as water. Marble is inflexible, solid, unchangeable unless the stone splits apart. On the other hand, water can join and separate. It can be large and turbulent like a sea or small and placid like a puddle. And if relationships were capable of high tides and low tides, she and Amina had been on a low tide over the last few months, the lull born of history.

“Men have the capacity for good as much as they have the capacity for cruelty. What is right and what is wrong is written on our hearts. But when there is war, men follow what they choose to follow and rationalize the evil they do. The Serbs see this as their country. They see us as a blight. They are told that the only way to have peace is to expel us or kill us. When such are the words they hear every minute of every day, it becomes too loud for them to listen to their hearts. They will do terrible things and believe they are doing what is right.”

“They did it because they wanted to. We have both light and dark within us, Detective Claypool. We can search for our better angels or we can give in to Iblis. Those men had the desire to hurt us. They had the power to hurt us. And when the war started, they were given permission to hurt us.”

But Hana had learned long ago that living was like walking atop an old fence rail. Get too comfortable, too trusting, and you invite the fall.

To give your life for another can only be an act of love in its purest form.