I slept poorly and when I woke the following morning, it was no longer the weekend and it was later than usual. There was no question of returning to my apartment to change, I showered and then put on the same clothes, for the third day now. On a whim, I opened the door to one of the wardrobes in the bedroom, inside was a vast array of pressed shirts and suits, more than one man could reasonably wear. They were a revelation to me in their excess, so many shirts and so carefully arranged. I knew that a cleaner regularly attended to the house, not a cleaner but a housekeeper, who did the shopping and restocked the cupboards when they were bare, who no doubt fetched the dry cleaning and placed the shirts in the wardrobe after removing their plastic covers. I had run into this woman once, outside the apartment, and from the way she had both ignored and scrutinized me, I knew that she was someone who had been in the family’s employ long before Gaby’s departure.
I left the apartment without tidying up—what days did the housekeeper come to the apartment? Adriaan did not say in his note—locked the door behind me, and carefully placed the keys inside my bag. I boarded the bus around the corner, which quickly reached the shore, and then proceeded parallel to the rolling dunes, in the direction of the Court. Perhaps ten minutes later the bus passed the Detention Center where I had been three nights earlier. In all the months that I had worked at the Court I had only been aware of the Detention Center in principle, I had never imagined it within the context or geography of the city. It had remained as abstract as the photographs displayed on the information boards in the lobby of the Court, photographs that failed to communicate the brutal reality of the place I had seen only the other night—a dark enclosure, standing in utter contrast to the light-filled transparency of the Court itself, a building defined by its density.
By daylight, the Detention Center was less sinister than it had appeared by night, and there was something almost matter-of-fact about its presence on the side of the road. The bus did not stop outside the Detention Center and I saw the wall and outline of the building only fleetingly through the window, it was simply another one of those buildings that exist in the landscape in which you live, of which you never take real notice and whose purpose you never know. There are prisons and far worse all around us, in New York there was a black site above a bustling food court, the windows darkened and the rooms soundproofed so that the screaming never reached the people sitting below. People eating their sandwiches and sipping their cappuccinos, who had no idea of what was taking place directly above them, no idea of the world in which they were living.
But none of us are able to really see the world we are living in—this world, occupying as it does the contradiction between its banality (the squat wall of the Detention Center, the bus running along its ordinary route) and its extremity (the cell and the man inside the cell), is something that we see only briefly and then do not see again for a long time, if ever. It is surprisingly easy to forget what you have witnessed, the horrifying image or the voice speaking the unspeakable, in order to exist in the world we must and we do forget, we live in a state of I know but I do not know.
This is why I was able to see the Detention Center again by daylight and then, moments later, disembark the bus and enter the Court, greeting the security guards as I always did, exactly as if nothing had changed. It was easy to slip into the crowd of bodies moving through the security checkpoints, swiping their badges and passing through the metal detectors, easy to walk across the courtyard and into the building itself.
But then, as I reached the entrance to the building, I saw Amina standing by the door, she gestured to me and almost before I had reached her, as if she had only been waiting until I was within earshot, she said, They’re moving you to Chamber I. I looked at her in surprise. You’re going to be my replacement, when I go on leave. She took my arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. This is good, isn’t it? I asked her. She nodded, Yes, it’s a very good sign, and I squeezed her hand in return. Come, she said. And together we entered the building.
8.
Inside the elevator, Amina leaned against the wall and recovered her breath. She was now easily winded, the baby inside pushing hard against her lungs. She looked at me and then said her mother was due to arrive from Senegal soon, she would be going on leave in a few weeks. As we exited the elevator and made our way to the booth, she asked me if I was familiar with the case and I nodded, the details were well-known throughout the Court. The trial had been running for several months and was of great significance, it was the first time a former head of state had been brought to trial at the Court and proceedings had caused considerable furor in the international press.
And then of course there was the matter of the protesters who had for months been gathering at the Court on behalf of the accused, handing out those flyers and holding up signs. As we sat down, Amina told me that I’d be working in the booth with her for the week, in order to familiarize myself with the situation. She handed me a file. There shouldn’t be any issue of comprehension, she said, the language thus far has been perfectly straightforward. She nodded to the file, which now sat on the desk before me, and I opened it. According to the case summary, circumstances had developed very rapidly, during a relatively narrow time frame of four to five months, in the wake of a disputed election. The national electoral commission and outside observers called the election in favor of the accused’s opposition. The accused refused to cede power, despite the fact that there was also a constitutional limit of ten years for any presidency, a term the accused had already served. He then indulged in some creative accounting, nullifying the votes in districts where his opponent polled strongly, ordered the army to close the borders, and barred all foreign media.
The accused then—I began to scan the file more hurriedly, one eye on the officials who were filing into the courtroom below, the session would begin soon—formed an army of mercenaries and began a process of ethnic cleansing, leading to death squads and mass graves. The UN sent peacekeeping troops, the African Union demanded that the accused step down from power, he was entirely unrepentant. His opponent retaliated, civil war ensued. Eventually, in the wake of French and United Nations air strikes, the opposition forces and the UN captured the accused and placed him under house arrest. This was approximately five months after the disputed election. If peacekeeping troops had not been present, it was assumed that the accused would have been executed, but the UN argued with some force that he should be tried in an international court, and now here he was, and had been for some years awaiting trial.
I closed the dossier and placed it to one side. Beneath it was a large photograph of the former president. He was looking into the distance, one arm raised and his mouth open as if he were delivering oratory. There were people visible behind him, their shapes blurred so that they were accumulations of color rather than distinct figures, he might have been speaking at a rally in the final days before the disputed election. He was wearing an expensive suit and tie and even in the photograph his body was rigid with energy and tension. In the background, I could make out large placards and banners.
Amina gestured to the public gallery, which was also in the mezzanine, adjacent to the interpreters’ booths. Inside, there were numerous attendees. The former president’s supporters, Amina said. In the second row I saw the man who had given me the flyer outside the Court. He was talking with several other supporters, his face as vulnerable as before, it was a pulpy mess of emotion and I remembered the former president’s message to these supporters, as he boarded the plane bound for The Hague. Don’t cry, be strong—a slogan that was subsequently emblazoned across newspaper headlines, that perhaps even now was being whispered by his supporters in the public gallery.
There’s some press today, she continued, new counsel for the defense will appear and the addition is apparently of some significance. She nodded to the group occupying one section of the public gallery. This trial is quite a spectacle, she whispered, more than usual, I would say.
From the vantage point of the booth we could observe the courtroom below, the prosecution to one side and the defense to the other, the judges at the front and the witness stand at the back. Nearly every person on the floor seemed to be engaged in urgent activity, clustered around computer monitors, or flipping through large binders. I glanced at Amina but her attention was now fixed on her notes, she had told me in the elevator that she would do the bulk of the interpreting today, to give me a chance to acclimate.
I looked back down, there was some movement on the floor and I saw that the counsel for the defense had arrived, claiming the left side of the courtroom. They were dressed in robes, their manner somewhat circumspect as they nodded to their junior associates. I observed the three men, something in the sight of them was troubling, I watched as they set their papers down, conversed with the assistants who fluttered around them. It was only after some contemplation that I realized, with horror, that one of the three men was Kees, the man from the party, Gaby’s friend.
I quickly leaned back in my chair, afraid that he might see me in the booth, although such a thing was unlikely. For a moment, I wondered if I was mistaken; although I remembered Adriaan saying that he was a defense lawyer, one of the best in the country, his appearance seemed too implausible. I looked back down, at the man’s lustrous head of hair, no less coiffed here in the courtroom than it had been at the party. On the one hand it was impossible to reconcile the man in robes with the man I had met that night, on the other hand it was undoubtedly the same person, it was not the person but the context that made his presence so incomprehensible. He himself remained exactly the same, as I watched he made the same ridiculous movements, the hand to the hair, those assorted and imperious gestures.
However, in this context they mysteriously acquired gravitas, the junior associates and also the other lawyers nodded in response to the flamboyant flapping of his hands without a trace of irony or derision. When Adriaan had told me he was a defense lawyer I had imagined that he defended white-collar criminals, perpetrators of tax fraud or corporate malfeasance, simply because he seemed so petty a man. Of course, I’d known it was equally possible he represented people accused of manslaughter or robbery, the person who had assaulted Anton de Rijk, for example—crimes of a more serious nature, crimes that, even as they remained individual, could not be described as trivial.
But that he should be a defense lawyer for crimes of this scale, crimes of historical significance, that he should appear here in this courtroom—this was entirely too incongruous, he did not seem as if he would have the gravity of mind to discuss such matters, much less the concentration to make the necessary arguments. It was not that I thought a man could not be superficial and cunning and also a brilliant lawyer or politician—there were many men and women of considerable social repute who were nothing less than reprehensible in their private lives—it was more that I couldn’t believe the men and women in the Court would take him seriously, it seemed extraordinary that they would trust this man, a man of the flimsiest construction, in this most critical of matters.
And yet, as I observed the scene below, I saw that he was in a position of no small authority within the team, as he gave his directives they listened with care and even enthusiasm, they seemed to hang on his words, it was obvious that he was not simply respected but admired and even feared. Across the room, the prosecution was observing him warily, I could imagine that he had a reputation for ruthlessness and deviousness, and I wondered if that was another reason why Adriaan had greeted him with such suspicion, because of his professional capacity for deception.
I thought it odd that Adriaan had not mentioned that Kees was likely or even qualified to appear at the Court, and it occurred to me that Adriaan knew very little of the work that I did, and that he had not fully imagined the parts of my life in which he did not share. In fact Kees would have a far greater understanding of my daily life; if at that party I had happened to say that I worked at the Court, it was possible that we would have had an entirely different conversation, that he would have then seemed to me an intelligent and informed man, who knew a great deal about a world I was only just entering. I might then have been more open to his advances, I might have taken his number or even gone home with him that night, rather than Adriaan.
The thought was disquieting—that our identities should be so mutable, and therefore the course of our lives. As I stared down at him through the glass, that alternative version of events seemed to manifest, filling the air between us. Suddenly, Kees straightened up and turned toward the side door of the courtroom, his face broadening into the same wolfish grin I remembered so well from the party. He spread his arms in greeting, I craned my neck and I saw that the former president had entered. He appeared well rested and groomed, he was dressed in a navy suit, of the kind he would have worn while he was still president, of the kind he wore in the photograph. I briefly wondered how he had obtained it, if it was something his legal team organized, if it was off the rack or if they had arranged for a tailor to visit the Detention Center in the middle of the night, as I had several nights ago. His manner was calm and even subdued, and yet I was certain he was aware of how the energy of the Court bent in his direction, toward the black hole of his personality.
Kees was still standing before him with his arms spread wide, although the pose was beginning to wilt, the former president had left him hanging. Uncertainty crossed his face, and I felt suddenly sympathetic. The former president nodded, his manner formal and distant. At this, Kees seemed to recover some of his bluster and he embraced the man enthusiastically, as if they were old friends. The former president withstood this assault of affection. Encouraged, Kees guided him to his seat, keeping one hand on his shoulder. I saw that he was making a point of maintaining physical contact with the former president, and I thought that beyond his own egotism, the gesture was calculated to declare that the accused was a man like any other, a man who could exist within a civil society, who had both friends and a family, and from whom we did not need protection.
As if to demonstrate that he was not afraid. I wondered if that was, if that could possibly be, the case. Kees had seemed to me an outlandish but fundamentally ordinary person, with an ordinary person’s prejudices and presuppositions. But if it was true that Kees was not at least a little afraid of the former president, especially given his presumed familiarity with the crimes of which he stood accused, then he would have been an unusual man, either a man of considerable courage or a man subject to cognitive dissonance. As I watched, the former president nodded and Kees continued to speak, producing what must have been a logorrheic stream of language. I tried to imagine what he might have been saying, some technical explanation perhaps. But then I thought probably it did not matter what he was saying, the entire point was the pantomime, the theater, through this little performance Kees was normalizing the accused, before the eyes of the Court and the cameras, before the eyes of the world.
That’s the new counsel, Amina said, her voice low. Below, the former president suddenly raised his hands, as if to say enough. Kees immediately stepped back. It was clear that he had been dismissed. He was in the employ of the former president, as a vast number of people once had been. Now that circle had dwindled to the individuals gathered around the accused in the courtroom, Kees was among the last. I thought he would be wise to maintain his caution, in the brief exchange between the two men I had seen the powerful volatility at the core of the former president, no doubt the source of his ability to dominate and intimidate. The former president adjusted his tie, his expression at once pompous and disgruntled. Kees returned to his place behind the table, a moment later the door at the front of the courtroom opened and the judges entered.
Will the Court please rise. Chamber I is now in session. Kees rose alongside the others, he lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes, once again his chest seemed to puff outward beneath his robes. Beside me, Amina had begun to interpret, her hands placed on the desk i
n front of her, a pen woven between her fingers. She seemed very calm, almost placid in manner. You may be seated. Carefully, Amina removed a piece of lint from the sleeve of her blouse and spoke the words of the presiding judge. I immediately give the floor to the witness.
A portly, middle-aged man entered the courtroom and went to the witness stand. He lowered himself into the chair with caution, a furtive and hangdog expression on his face. If you could stand. Please. Yes—if you could please stand and give your date of birth and your current occupation. The man clambered to his feet. The former president adjusted his tie again, I wondered then if this was a nervous tic, rather than a gesture of intimidation, I thought I detected a flicker of apprehension in his eyes. Or perhaps it was anticipation. Thank you. Please be seated. Yes, thank you. Go ahead. Amina paused. The witness leaned toward the microphone and looked at the judge.
Good afternoon, Madame. Amina spoke slowly, enunciating each syllable. I could see that she was listening to the witness, adjusting to the patterns of his speech. Thank you for giving me the floor. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability, I would like to be of help. Amina had quickened her pace, and now she spoke rapidly, occasionally stopping to exhale. Before we return to the questioning by the prosecution, may I add a few words of my own? Amina’s forehead wrinkled. At the front, the presiding judge nodded wearily. There is no need for all this theater. It has been nearly five years since my colleague and friend was removed from our country and brought here under entirely false pretenses. Such games of hide-and-seek are not good for the reputation of the Court. Back home, this case has been seen as nothing less than a political kidnapping. He shook his head. Back home, they are saying why do they not arrest the current president, this illegitimate president?
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