Testimony

by Scott Turow

  “Once fucking is part of a news story, Boom, there’s not much room for nuance. You know that. They’ll throw you under the bus at the Court, I imagine. Fire you. I know I got you into this. And you meant to do the right thing. Instead, you’re going to go home in disgrace. I’m really sorry, Boom. I mean it.”

  Esma had played serpent and I’d bitten the apple. It would get worse when the reporters caught wind of the fact that she was actually playing make-believe. They’d give me the trophy as World’s Biggest Idiot.

  You always think you don’t care what people say about you, until it’s something like this. Attila had told me that about Merriwell. I finally uttered a deep sigh.

  “It doesn’t sound like there’s much I can do,” I said, “except warn the press people at the Court and then hand Badu my resignation.”

  Roger let his fingers come off the hat.

  “Well, wait. Wait. What are the chances that I could go back to these guys and say, ‘You don’t need to do anything. The Court’s going to announce this week that it’s closed its investigation, acknowledging that there was no massacre.’ Is there any chance of that?”

  I considered a second.

  “We can’t say there was no massacre,” I told Roger.

  He made a face. “You know there was no massacre. I’ve told you from the git-go there was no massacre.”

  “I still don’t know for certain there wasn’t a massacre. All I know is that the allegation about four hundred people being buried in that coal mine is completely unfounded.”

  “And there is no evidence of a massacre.”

  I weighed that one. Four hundred people gone overnight, but last seen being loaded into trucks by the US Army, didn’t quite qualify in my mind as ‘no evidence.’

  “We’d have to massage that a little,” I said.

  “Well, let’s get the client on the table and do the massage right now and give him a happy ending. I’ve got to get back to these guys with something definitive. Or they’re going to strip you naked in public, Boom, and laugh at your pecker.”

  I grimaced a bit but managed a laugh. Roger was always colorful. I tried to get out the lawyer’s toolkit to think about how we could lay our scalpel on the words. Roger was waiting with his lips rumpled. Looking at him, not changed all that much by the years, I recalled our last conversation, when he was furious at me and I had recognized that our friendship, durable as it had been, was marooned for a while on neutral ground while we both had jobs to do.

  But with that memory there was abruptly a dawning of some kind, accompanied by a small bloodrush as thought labored toward solid form. And then I saw it, the way you suddenly make out a form in the dark: Roger wasn’t here to protect me, no matter how clever the posturing or how blunt the appeal to my self-interest. He was here to kill the case.

  But what did that mean? Were the Roma in a trench somewhere else with American rounds in their heads? Or was there another secret my government wanted to keep? I went with instinct.

  “So our press release would say nothing about the arms we found?”

  We hadn’t spoken a word yet about the weapons. I wanted to see if Roger would bother feigning surprise.

  “I don’t know exactly what the fuck you found, but it’s beside the point, isn’t it? There aren’t any bodies. No?”

  “No bodies,” I said. “But whoever was watching us, Rog”—and I realized that his source was almost certainly within NATO—“had to have told you we found a large arms cache there.”

  “What’s the diff, Boom?”

  “Well, Rog, those guns we found, they all had NATO markings. Was that a surprise to you? That we found weapons in the Cave?”

  “It was a big surprise.”

  “And no idea how they got there?”

  “Nothing definitive. And I couldn’t care less at this point. I just need DoD off my back.”

  I had it now. It was what Kajevic had said. Of all the people in the world, we’d gotten the truth from Laza fucking Kajevic.

  “Well, Rog, here’s the thing. I have the feeling those weapons are of great concern to you. And if it’s not how they got there that bothers you, then it has to be where they came from. So I’m wondering—actually I’m suddenly pretty sure: They were part of five hundred thousand arms that were supposed to be shipped in April 2004 from Bosnia to Iraq.”

  Roger, my friend, always had a very short fuse. His nostrils flared and his color changed.

  “Where did you hear about that? From Attila, that blabbermouth? I’ll tell you right now, she’s not going to have a security clearance by the end of the day.” He used a nasty word about her.

  “It wasn’t Attila,” I said. “I’ve gotten nothing from her but the company line.”

  “Then who?”

  “Then what? What’s such a big deal about five hundred thousand guns, Rog, that it has to remain classified eleven years later? That you’re ready to fly all night to keep me from finding out?”

  He stared, with that screwed-up intense face Merry had imitated the first time I met him.

  “You’re playing mumbly-peg with a two-foot sword,” Roger said.

  “Any press release about what we didn’t find in the Cave that also includes what we did find—those small arms—that’s a disaster for you, isn’t it? Because some intrepid reporter will ask how those weapons fell into Roma hands and then—this is the big one—what happened to the five hundred thousand or so other guns headed for Iraq. The investigation you don’t want us to do gets done by the New York Times instead. And I’ll be curious about the answers.” I looked across the table. “You’re bluffing, Rog.”

  “The hell I am.”

  “You’re bluffing. And you’re pretty close to lying. Let me think.” I did that, right in front of him, as another gust blew a small aluminum spoon off the table. I reached down to retrieve it. “So it’s been the guns all along, right? You always knew that Kajevic killed those American soldiers with stolen guns the Roma had sold him. But it’s the arms that didn’t get stolen you really don’t want to talk about. Right? Because you guys—you and Merry and Attila and the Army—you’ve been playing rope-a-dope: Accuse us of a crime we didn’t commit, massacring four hundred Roma at the Cave in Barupra. Maybe we’ll even provide some evidence that tends to support that. Because it helps to conceal our actual crime.”

  “A crime?” Roger sat back. He was trying to look outraged, but he was clearly alarmed. “What crime?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Rog. Not yet. But generally speaking, people don’t tolerate getting accused of atrocities in front of the world unless they’re hiding something else. And the secret they’re keeping usually isn’t that they have bad table manners. It’s something that would get you guys in real trouble.”

  “Nobody committed a crime,” Roger said. “And unless you just got reappointed as the United States Attorney, it’s none of your fucking business anyway.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Just tell that to the Times. But it’s bad juju, isn’t it, Rog? Did the weapons actually get to Iraq? You were part of it, right? You were the intelligence liaison on that deal, whatever it was. You’re hanging out somehow. You and Merry, too. I think you and Merry, you’re the guys who are going to be naked in public, you and your peckers, once people start asking about those guns.”

  He didn’t answer, just stared. He needed a haircut. The wind was pushing around the scruff of gray hair that had grown over his ears.

  “You took the wrong approach, Rog,” I said. “You should have told me you needed a huge favor.”

  Calculation quickened his light eyes now that he’d been exposed.

  “I need a huge favor,” he said.

  “Too late,” I answered. “Chips fall where they may. Burn me up, if you have to. But I’m going to point the reporters straight at the rest of the story if you do. Your best chance is that we finish our investigation about what happened to those people, say whatever we should say in public, and leave the rest of the details in the
file. If I have any discretion, Rog, I’ll exercise it the way you were sure I would when you recruited me for this gig. You knew if I had any choice I’d protect you. And, believe it or not, I still will. Because you used to be a really good friend.”

  I walked away and turned back with a parting thought over my shoulder.

  “Enjoy your holiday.”

  While I was in Bosnia, Nara had gone to Belgrade to meet with Bozic. She didn’t return until Friday night. I lit up like a rocket when I saw her, and we were in bed as soon as she dropped her suitcase. It rained Saturday, but we were content inside.

  Often, as Nara dozed beside me throughout the weekend, I thought about my case. I’d been surprised often in the last several months, but if we ended up closing the investigation, I had to figure out what would come next for me professionally. My appointment at the Court was nominally permanent, but the gallant thing would be to offer to resign, since I wasn’t sure anyone envisioned me staying on if the Barupra situation didn’t culminate in charges. I thought I’d made a good impression at the Court and could probably sign on to one of the trial teams, if that was what I really wanted to do. Alternatively, I could return to the US, which didn’t feel right at the moment, or I could take off for my endless summer. But after a gut check, none of these ideas about leaving held any appeal for one principal reason: Narawanda could not come with me, given her commitment to the Kajevic case. So that meant I was staying in The Hague, at the Court or with another organization.

  If I’d had a chalkboard four or five years ago on which I listed the qualities of the person I thought I’d end up with, Nara would never have matched. I pictured myself, for example, with someone more socially graceful than I am and with greater natural warmth, someone who’d be able to supplement shortcomings I rued in myself. But I had accepted the glory of the future, which is that it is unknown, and had never bothered with a list. The truth was that for reasons that surpassed understanding, I was at home with Nara, not only in love, but also at peace. God only knew if it would last. But I couldn’t leave until I found out.

  On Sunday, it turned beautiful once more and we took the day by the sea. Returning to the apartment in the late afternoon, we were full of summer ardor, that sensation when the sun seems to bring all your nerves to the surface of your skin and desire becomes more urgent after the long touch of the light winds. We ended up in her bed for the first time, a location that seemed somewhat symbolic.

  Afterward, as the light leaked from the room, I put a question to her that had long lingered unspoken.

  “Do you want to have children?” My tone was neutral and curious, as if it was just one more thing I needed to ask to know her better.

  “Lewis is against it now. He says it is too dark a world to bring children into.”

  “And where will the light come from?”

  “It is an excuse, I know. He is reluctant to distract himself from his career and what is important to him.”

  I noticed that Lew still occupied the present tense.

  “And are you willing to accept that?” I asked.

  “Unclear. I have not come to the moment of not accepting it. Yet I have never agreed. It has been something—like too many other things—that we put off. My mother keeps hinting, naturally.”

  I finally asked how old Nara was and she became cutely evasive.

  “Guess,” she answered.

  “Be careful now, chérie,” I said, a phrase that had been spoken several times a week on the Trappers’ radio broadcasts when I was a boy, at moments when the opposing team was threatening to score.

  She giggled.

  “On looks?” I asked. “On looks you could pass for twenty-three.”

  “Brilliant,” she said, although I meant it.

  “But doing the arithmetic on your education and career, I thought you were about thirty-eight.”

  “Thirty-seven. I was ahead in school.”

  I repeated the number. “It might be time to think about whether you want to do this.”

  “Have children?”

  “Yes.”

  “I always thought I did, while I was growing up. Most of me probably still feels like that. What do you advise?”

  “About whether you should have children? I think I should have no views on a question like that. But if you ask me about my own life, it’s unimaginable without my sons. For me, becoming a parent completely changed my idea about what it means to walk on this planet. Most people would say the same thing. It’s as if the world has gone from flat to 3-D.”

  “So you would say I must.”

  “The one ‘must’ is for you to decide what is best for you. But as someone who cares for you deeply, I would wish for you the same profound connection my children brought to my life. I didn’t even completely know how badly my marriage was working until the boys were out of the house, because I had been so happy they were there.”

  “And would you have more children?” She asked that as lightly as I had about her desire to have kids.

  I had never thought about that issue in much depth. Instead I’d more or less answered by action. In my dating life, I’d been unattracted to women with young children, or those whose biological clock could be heard ticking.

  So now, in her bed, with Nara pasted to my side in the sweat we had generated, I shone the light on myself: Could I be a father again at fifty-five? That didn’t seem to be too late for movie stars and CEOs. I knew at least one man back home in Kindle County, the Prosecuting Attorney, Tommy Molto, who’d married at fifty-two and then had a family, and he seemed like a tulip blooming midwinter in a greenhouse, even though he’d once told me that with his worn looks, he was often mistaken for his sons’ grandfather.

  But Tommy did not have grown children who would be completely disoriented by this decision, especially Pete, who was not all that far from starting a family of his own. Nor had Tommy, in the crudest terms, been there and done that. At first blush, having kids at my age seemed to be one of those acts like Icarus’s as he flew too close to the sun. It felt as if I’d be trying to live twice.

  “I need to think,” I said. “We both do.”

  “We do,” she answered and pulled herself even closer.

  On Monday morning, Goos and I worked together on a joint report about the exhumation of the Cave. In Bosnia, we had felt merely befuddled, because we still had no idea where the people who’d lived in Barupra had gone. But here we had to confront our institutional responsibilities. The plain fact was that we had consumed a lot of the Court’s resources on allegations that were unfounded. At this stage, it was a blessing that Ferko’s testimony had been presented in public and that three judges had voted to authorize the investigation. But now what? Our conclusion, after noodling together for a while, was that because we still did not know if a war crime had been perpetrated, we were obliged to do some limited follow-up, even if continuing meant conducting what amounted to a four-hundred-head missing persons investigation.

  A few hours later, in the waning hours of the afternoon, Goos entered my office and closed the door, a standard sign that something was up. The jolly air that he generally brought with him, and which had been much in evidence this morning after bringing Fien back to The Hague, had evaporated. He appeared, if anything, upset.

  My first thought was that Roger had carried through on his threat.

  “Is my name in print?” I hadn’t told Goos yet about my meeting with Roger, which had seemed embarrassing to me for many reasons, particularly because Goos knew I counted Rog as a friend.

  “How’s that?” he said.

  “I didn’t tell you I nearly resigned on Friday.”

  As I related what happened, Goos tilted his head like the RCA dog looking into the bell of the Victrola. He didn’t get it.

  “You know, Goos, I probably need to think about quitting anyway. Sooner or later that story about Esma and me is going to come out around here. And people will say that’s why we believed Ferko and got into this whole investigat
ion. I’ll be the scapegoat.”

  “No, you won’t. The Pre-Trial Chamber approved the investigation. And that story about Esma and you? No one will even follow up.” He took the other chair in front of my desk and looked up at my blank walls as if there was actually something there. His lips were bunched and his mouth moved a couple of times on the verge of words.

  “Just say it, Goos.”

  “Well, if you believe the wags, you weren’t the first person at the Court to root her.”

  By now, with Esma, nothing surprised me.

  “And who was before me?”

  “Akemi. Last fall. Suspect that’s why the investigation got approved, even with the Americans braying and carrying on.”

  “Akemi?”

  “So they say. I don’t have color photos. Quite the furphy hereabouts, but one never knows. Didn’t bother me ever. Investigation should have been approved a long time ago.”

  Despite Esma’s denials, I would never have bet much that I wasn’t part of a parade—and the fact that women were also marching along had been reported in my readings about her divorce. The part that bothered me most was seeing ever more clearly that I—and poor Akemi—had been a means to an end.

  “And what became of the happy couple?” I asked.

  “Story is Esma called it quits and broke Akemi’s heart. Suspect that’s her way.”

  That would explain why Esma was upset when I pulled the plug. She regarded it as her imperial right to exit the stage first.

  Goos was still hunched, watching me with evident unease. My instinct was to to ask why he hadn’t said something before, but I recognized that was stupid. Half the people on earth had probably told someone they cared about, ‘She isn’t going to be good for you,’ and the number of times those warnings hadn’t backfired was a lot smaller.

  “And no drum from your mate about what happened to those five hundred thousand weapons?” Goos asked about Roger.

  “No info,” I said. “I’d love to find out.”

  “Not our business to investigate that, though, is it?”