The Quiet Librarian

by Allen Eskens

in Kapija Square, where young civilians had gathered to enjoy a break from bad weather. The shelling—which came to be known as the Tuzla Massacre—killed 71 people and wounded 240 more, most of them between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.

In July of that same summer, the Serbian army entered the Bosnian-held city of Srebrenica, where men and boys as young as twelve years old were rounded up and killed, a genocide that ended more than eight thousand lives.

“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.

“My father once told me that what is right and what is wrong is written on our hearts—that we need only pay heed. Still, I have come to believe that the world is overpopulated by men who will take

the path of cruelty far too easily.”

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.

“A wise person once told me that we have both light and dark within us—written on our hearts—and to do what is right, we need only pay heed. Well… I did just that. Iblis is where he belongs.”