And, yes, a lot of Serbs had also made their way to the capital, because the Serbs had been migrating there since the nineteenth century, and the Habsburg Empire had once encompassed both Bosnians and Serbs. But the city also had a large Muslim population that had been in place for longer than the Serbs, dating back to the fifteenth century, when Vienna first became an object of imperial desire to the Ottomans. The Ottoman Empire failed to take the city, but a more gradual, gentler Muslim influx had followed, and Muslims now formed about one-eighth of Vienna’s population, even if the memory of the Turkish assault on Vienna had never quite been permitted to fade from the Austrian collective memory, or from Austrian history books and school texts.

In Vienna, Nahid had rented a small apartment in the Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus area, where more than half of residents had a foreign background. With money borrowed and money saved, he set up a small laundry and dry cleaning business in the 13th District. The 13th was among the most desirable residential areas in the city, although not as expensive as some, with easy access to parks and gardens on one hand and the city center on the other. Those who lived in the grand Biedermeier and Jugendstil villas had no great desire to do their own laundry, and Nahid’s collection service meant they didn’t even have to leave their homes to drop it off. He soon expanded into repair work and tailoring, and now owned three satellite laundries along with a large central facility, but when possible he still preferred to operate out of Hietzing, where he kept an office and a couch on which to nap. He enjoyed the beauty of the area, and the fresh air. He liked the zoo in the grounds of the Schönbrunn Palace, to the extent that he retained an annual membership. He loved the smell of roses and freshly cut grass.

In all that he did, he was trying to forget, yet Nahid could never truly forget. He had watched two of his cousins being taken away while he hid in an outhouse. He had held one of his brothers, Adin, in his arms after he was shot by a Serb sniper while trying to flee Bostahovina, their village in the Srebrenica municipality, and could remember attempting to push a fragment of Adin’s skull back into place because his brains were leaking from the cavity. He had stood with his wife as a United Nations digging team showed them the remains of their niece, her schoolbooks preserved in the pink satchel that lay beside her in the hole, her name stitched clearly above the buckle.

Nahid did not hate all Serbs. Nahid tried not to hate anyone at all.

But sometimes, it was very hard.