Page 255 - James Caan - The Real Deal

25 · Kosovo

from nowhere was how he explained it – and the Kosovans had
been persecuted by the Serbians.
On our way to the villages we stopped in a town where we saw a
Muslim girl come out of a tower block; she was being attacked by a
gang of boys. They were spitting at her, pushing her and throwing
cans at her. We got talking to her, and through the interpreter she
explained that the boys who had targeted her had once been her
friends: they had all grown up in the same tower block.
I asked her why she didn’t just take her headscarf off. She
wouldn’t stand out then.
‘I thought about it, but then I thought, ‘‘Why should I?’’ ’
I admired her so much for that. I was genuinely touched by her
conviction and just wanted to write her a cheque there and then.
She continued to tell us of the daily assaults her mother, herself
and her sister had had to endure since their father had been killed.
I looked to Yusuf for a solution.
‘What can we do?’ I asked.
‘It’s up to you.’
So I asked the girl how I could help her.
‘Take me out of this hell hole. Me, my sister, our mother, we
have no money so we cannot move.’
‘How much would it cost you to buy a house? What’s the
process?’
She explained that there were no houses to buy: they had been
destroyed. First she would have to find some land and then they
would have to build a house.
‘Do you know how much that would cost?’
It was the equivalent of about £30,000, so I told her to go and
look for some land.
‘When you’ve found it, send me a picture of it and I will send
you the money.’
We agreed that she would then send me a sketch of the house
they wanted to build and I would send the next tranche of money.

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