The Foreign Service Journal, January 2007

rather be somewhere else. The family was the reason we were here, taking sworn testimony in a run-down Balkan hotel. They were suing Brady’s insur- ance company, trying to make a case for presumptive death in order to col- lect on his life policy. Two local barris- ters represented the insurance compa- ny and the Brady family. Brady’s last message to his family was written in ballpoint pen in large, looping handwriting across the back of one of his company’s order forms. “I’m sorry,” the note said. “This is the only way. Please forgive me and try to be happy.” I wrote “Exhibit A” on a tag, and carefully embossed it with my seal. The security officer’s testimony done, I administered the oath to a police detective. His testimony lasted almost an hour and added up to very little. There was no forensic evidence to suggest a crime. Suicide was a pos- sibility, but there was no proof. Brady’s case file remained open. He was list- ed as a missing person. When the proceeding finally end- ed, I went outside to the walkway between the wall of the hotel and the river. Looking up, I realized Brady could not have jumped straight down into the river. He would almost cer- tainly have been splattered on the sidewalk. I walked back to the embassy past grimy drifts of snow piled in the gut- ters. The air reeked, as usual, of sul- phurous soft coal. Dispirited groups of refugees queued up by the Social Services Ministry, waiting for the daily distribution of ration tickets. Black marketeers slouched on the street cor- ners, selling flour with the USAID 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 7 Ann B. Sides is consul general in Athens. She served previously in Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Dublin, Dakar, Oran and Niamey, as well as Washington, D.C. Before joining the Foreign Service in 1983, she was a journalist.