Intimacies

by Katie Kitamura

  The men and women in the public gallery began to cheer, their voices loud enough to permeate the glass barrier. A woman pumped her fist in the air and clapped her hands, soon that entire section of gallery was following suit. I could see the journalists’ attention pivot toward the former president’s supporters, the scene would make for a good story. The guards positioned in the aisles of the gallery seemed powerless to stop or even contain the pandemonium. Down below, the former president was smiling, as he raised a hand to his supporters.

  Quiet. I must ask for quiet.

  The presiding judge shook her head.

  Please control your supporters.

  The former president’s gaze remained fixed on the public gallery. For the first time since entering the courtroom, his face was wide-open, almost vulnerable—there was no hint of triumph, or subterfuge, or strategy in it. He was clearly emotional in the face of his enduring popularity. I must insist that you control your supporters, or they will be barred from the gallery. Again, I am insisting. Slowly, reluctantly, he raised both hands and motioned for his supporters to be seated. They quieted immediately, dropping obediently into their seats, their eyes on the former president. He nodded, almost to himself.

  The judge peered at him through her spectacles, her expression stern. May I remind you that there are certain standards of decorum that are expected of visitors to the Court. Should they fail to adhere to those standards, they will immediately be expelled from the Court and denied any further access to these premises. The former president stared at her unblinkingly. After a moment, she continued, now addressing the witness. As for you, sir. I must ask that you confine yourself to responding to questions from the prosecution. We are already running behind schedule. The witness nodded, and as the prosecution began their questioning, the energy seemed to drain from the courtroom.

  For the next ninety minutes the prosecution questioned the witness over matters that were at once meandering and technical in the extreme, during which time both the prosecution and the witness seemed to grow frustrated and weary. The judges interrupted at various points, largely to urge the witness and the prosecution alike to be more succinct in their words and lines of questioning, evidently they were serious about being behind schedule. In the second half of the session I began to interpret. I was more than usually nervous, not only because this was a trial of consequence and an error in interpretation could have considerable effect, but because I was afraid that Kees might somehow recognize my voice, unlikely as that might be—we had, I reminded myself, met only once and spoken barely at all.

  Still, when I leaned forward and spoke into the microphone, my voice gave an audible wobble, so that several of the members of the Court looked up in surprise. I felt Amina tense beside me. I found my composure soon enough, to everyone’s relief, or at least Amina’s, who reached out and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. Kees did not respond to the sound of my voice, not even the tremor at the start. Nevertheless I was relieved when the session came to an end and the presiding judge rose to her feet.

  Almost immediately, the room crawled with movement. The attention, which until that moment had been focused on the witness and the prosecutor, now atomized, scattering across the courtroom. Even before the three judges had exited, people were bending to gather their papers and leaning their heads together to converse. The former president remained at the edge of the room with a security guard at his side, he stood as if he were waiting for something, for someone to come and speak to him perhaps. I looked for Kees, to my surprise he and his colleagues were rapidly making their way toward the exit.

  I turned back to the former president. His face, as he watched his counsel disappear through the doors, was thoroughly perplexed. His gaze moved to the public gallery, which was also emptying. His expression tightened. The guard leaned toward him and he nodded. His shoulders slumped and he suddenly appeared much older, I realized it must have taken him great effort to appear before the Court with his posture so erect, his bearing still presidential, to marshal what charisma remained, because contrary to popular belief, charisma was not inherent but had to be constantly reinforced. The former president’s performance—for that was what it had been—had left him depleted and now he shuffled toward the exit, head bowed.

  Amina looked at me. Well done, she said. She smiled warmly at me. I’m going to the cafeteria to get a cup of tea. As she rose to her feet she placed her hands at the small of her back and grimaced. I asked if she was okay, then said that I would accompany her, I was also in need of a coffee. That was relatively easy, she continued as we made our way downstairs, even with that display in the gallery. There’s always something. The lobby was full of school groups and visitors and as we made our way across, I said to Amina that I had once met the new defense counsel. She turned to look at me, puzzled. Where? Here? As we joined the line at the cafeteria, I said, No. At a party, by chance. Ah, she said. So it’s not as if you are in the same social circle. Would that be a problem? I asked. She paused. No, I don’t think so. But be careful. They say he is very good at his job. We had reached the front of the line, and she said, Let me get this. What would you like?

  9.

  Several days later, I was called into a meeting with the defense. It was a Friday, one of the days when the Court was not in session. I was in the office with Amina when Bettina’s assistant rushed over, she wore an expression of consternation, and I asked if something had happened. Nothing serious, she said, don’t worry. It’s only that the defense requires an interpreter, and you have been specifically requested. I was startled. Why? I asked. Why me? She shook her head, she didn’t know, but Bettina had told her to accommodate the request. When? I asked. Now, she said, you need to go immediately.

  I gathered my things and pulled on my coat. It had been a week since Adriaan had gone, a week of staying in the apartment alone. Each night I returned to the house, climbing the stairs to the second floor, slipping the key into the lock, opening the door. And each time I entered and hung up my coat, I felt a throb of happiness so pronounced it frightened me. I had returned to my own apartment only once, to pack a bag of clothes that I ferried back to Adriaan’s. Dimly, I understood that I could be happy there, notwithstanding its complications, for example the photograph of Gaby that still rested on the shelf.

  As for Adriaan himself, he sent me a message one day after his departure, asking if I was in the apartment and if everything was okay. I texted back to say that I was there and very happy. He wrote back to say that he was pleased, and that it was hot in Lisbon. Immediately I imagined Adriaan, with the children and with Gaby, his phone vibrating as he received my text, I saw him checking the screen surreptitiously as they sat in an outdoor café. Gaby turning idly to ask, Who’s that? The idea made me somehow feel ashamed. But that feeling did not keep me from waiting for his messages, for the texts and emails that followed, detailing some event or another, or expressing the warmth of his feelings toward me. Those small missives anchored me to the apartment, although it is also true that I wondered why he never picked up the telephone and called.

  Nor had he made any reference to the date of his return, It will only be a week, or possibly a little longer. That week had now passed. I left the Court and walked in the rain to the nearest stop and took the bus to the Detention Center, where I relinquished my bag to the security guard and was taken to a conference room. I followed the attendant up a flight of stairs and down a corridor, she stopped at a metal door, nodding to the guard who sat posted outside. He rose to his feet and knocked. Come in, a voice said almost immediately, and then the guard opened the door and motioned for me to enter.

  I was greeted with a scene that had the formality of a Renaissance tableau. Several men sat at a conference table covered with papers, while the former president stood to one side. His gaze trained upon me as I stood in the doorway. The entire legal team appeared to be present, or a good proportion of them anyway, including Kees, who watched m
e as I came in and whose expression disclosed nothing, not a trace of recognition. A CCTV camera was suspended in the corner, the glossy eye recording everything. Behind me, the door swung shut.

  After a long moment, during which I wondered if I had been summoned accidentally, as it seemed clear that no one in this room had any real need of me, entrenched as they already were in the session, the former president spoke. Thank you for coming, he said in French. I saw one of the men sitting at the table look up at Kees, who stood across the room from the former president. One of the lawyers cleared his throat and asked me to sit down. He poured a glass of water, as I reached for it I realized that I was flushed. I took a sip. When I lowered the glass, I saw that Kees was still watching me. His expression was neutral and I quickly turned my face away.

  Slowly, the former president approached and sat down in the chair beside me. He was dressed in a polo shirt and slacks and had tied a maroon-colored sweater around his neck, as if he were at the country club. He leaned toward me conspiratorially, and nodding to Kees, said, His French is terrible, much worse than he thinks. I didn’t respond. He cleared his throat and said to the room at large, Let’s continue. One of the lawyers began. His speech was what the English called cut glass, and not too rapid, from that point of view the task of interpretation was easy. The thing to keep in mind is that the trial might continue for months, years. The narrative of a trial functions differently in a case like this. It is not as simple as telling a persuasive story. I sat beside the former president, directing my words into his ear, reaching for a legal pad and pen. He leaned back in his chair, his gaze resting on the lawyer whose words I spoke.

  Remember that the judges are themselves aware of how a story fluctuates over the course of years—the trial moves from one side to the other, the story changes, and memory is unreliable. It’s impossible to retain the pattern of these shifts. The advantage can all too easily go to the side that achieves momentum in the final hour. The lawyer paused. As a result, there are safeguards in place, which present both danger and opportunity. At the end of each day, a record is produced. Those records are collated and together are of utmost importance to the trial.

  He looked around the room. As much as it may be our instinct to create a persuasive narrative across the days and weeks and months of the trial, we will not win unless we keep our eye on what happens on a day-to-day level. Strategy and tactics are necessary. And so as much—and here he looked directly at the former president—as it is critical to focus on the big picture, as much as we may wish to focus on the story that is told outside the walls of the courtroom, we must proceed with this daily record in mind. Our victory or our loss is in that record. Not in the—performance, shall we say, of our most recent witness, which, however gratifying it may have been on a personal level, did nothing for our case.

  He cleared his throat and picked up a file as he waited for me to finish. Beside me, the former president was perfectly still. I was close enough to observe the texture of his skin, the particularities of his features, I could smell the scent of the soap he must have used that morning. He did not move as I spoke into his ear, as quickly and discreetly as possible, I was aware of the whole room waiting. I thought how different this mode of interpretation was to the work performed in the booth, where we were called upon to speak clearly and enunciate every word for the sake of the public, for the sake of the record. Here, I spoke in murmurs and whispers, there was something underhanded about the communication. I quickly finished and was silent.

  I could not tell what the former president was feeling, whether he had accepted or even understood the lawyer’s somewhat technical and certainly counterintuitive advice, the Court appeared at first and even second glance as a venue designed for narrative persuasion. The former president gave no indication either way, and after a moment, the lawyer continued. There followed another highly technical discussion, the content of which was obscure at best and as the minutes stretched onward, I began to lose track of what was actually under discussion.

  This was not aided by the fact that interpretation can be profoundly disorienting, you can be so caught up in the minutiae of the act, in trying to maintain utmost fidelity to the words being spoken first by the subject and then by yourself, that you do not necessarily apprehend the sense of the sentences themselves: you literally do not know what you are saying. Language loses its meaning. This was happening to me now, in the conference room. I was absorbed by the task at hand, of decoding the legalese in which the content of the discussion was encased, so securely that nothing seemed to penetrate and nothing escaped. And yet—as I stared down at the pad of paper in front of me, covered in shorthand—something did seep out. I saw the words I had been saying, for nearly twenty minutes now, cross-border raid, mass grave, armed youth.

  I reached for the glass of water. One of the junior associates was speaking now—a solid wall of language that barreled toward me as I drank all the water in the glass, poured another, and then drank that. I set the glass down, I had lost my place, I looked down at the notepad again, as if I would find a clue there. The associate came to an abrupt stop, the former president turned to look at me. Is everything okay, the associate asked sharply. I just need a moment, I said. Could we go back—the associate answered impatiently, Yes, yes, of course. How far? He exchanged glances with Kees, who was watching me, one arm folded over the other. He had been silent the entire time, now he suddenly spoke. Let’s take a break. Five minutes? And the others immediately rose to their feet as if they too had only been waiting for an excuse to pause.

  To my surprise, the former president also rose and headed out of the room with the others, he seemed entirely at liberty. I watched him go. I remained seated, although I could have used some air, perhaps even more than the others. The room was nearly empty when I realized that Kees was still in the room, he alone had stayed behind. He approached and stood before me. I know you came here on short notice and I’m grateful, he said. I nodded, I was wary, his tone was indeterminate, stubbornly ambiguous, it was true that his manner was familiar, but there was no concrete sign of recognition in his manner or in any of the words he said. I might have asked him any number of questions or even brought up the issue myself, but the situation was far from neutral. Kees was in a position of considerable power, all it would take was one complaint and my contract would be, if not terminated, then surely not extended.

  He likes you, Kees said suddenly. It’s almost as if he finds your presence soothing. I tried not to flinch, I was aware that Kees was observing me closely. Various words flashed into my mind again—perpetrator, ride-through, ethnic cleansing. But that’s not the only reason why it’s useful for us to have you here, Kees continued. He folded his arms and stared at the floor. Your reaction helps us understand what the emotional effect of the evidence and the testimony is likely to be. To some extent we are too inured. He gestured to the papers spread across the table with one hand. Even as we must concern ourselves with technicalities, it is important to remember the emotional component. Your response is a good reminder of how volatile the feelings around a case like this are.

  He pronounced the word feelings with light but definite contempt. Kees looked at me. You know, he continued, and now there was a faint smile on his lips, you look very familiar, have we met? I was silent as he came closer. He sat down on the edge of the conference table, his legs angled toward me, his body mere inches away. I wondered how many times he had performed these exact moves, the effect was at once brazen and impersonal. I was increasingly certain that he did not remember me, and that he had made the same approach to many hundreds of women, Have we met? I heard a noise outside in the corridor and turned to look, voices approached and then faded again, it was only some people walking by.

  But it had been enough, Kees abruptly rose to his feet and walked back to the other side of the conference table. His manner had changed, he flipped through his papers with a frown. I was about to get up when he looked ac
ross the table and suddenly said, Do you see much of Adriaan? There was nothing particular in the words themselves or the way he pronounced them, although perhaps the casual manner was overdone. But even before I looked up I knew I would find some small sliver of malice in his gaze, and when our eyes met it was there, it must have always been there. At that moment, the others filed in and before I could respond, Kees snapped his head back down to his papers. He made a sound of mild irritation, then looked up and said sharply, Come in, please. We’re running behind. Let’s not waste any more time.

  The former president sat down beside me. He nodded to me and I nodded back. The former president sighed, then rubbed his face with one hand. He turned to me and asked in his calm and euphonious French, Are you okay with all this? He gestured to the table, perhaps to the room at large, his eyes fell on my legal pad and the words scribbled on its pages, words that he couldn’t possibly have made out given their script and shorthand, but whose contents he knew all too well. He winced, as if embarrassed, and then made an oddly pleading gesture with his hands. It’s a lot, I know. It looks much worse than it really is, the language has no nuance. He frowned, his eyes still on the legal pad. One word—perpetrator—for such a range of acts, performed for such a range of reasons.