A Neverending Affair

by Kopen Hagen

  Rome, April 2013

  The meeting with their local chapter went smoothly. They related their meeting with the representatives of Padania and the five members present were shocked. They knew that things were bad in Padania, but each week the situation seemed to deteriorate. One of the group members asked about the informants. Sandra said they would use the same person in their group that originally lead them to the informants to contact them about the danger and that it needed to be done in person as telephones could not be trusted. Andrea was actually present in the room, but Olaf or Sandra didn’t disclose that. In contrast, they discouraged him from mentioning it by saying that it was the policy of the organization to operate on a “need to know” basis.

  “Of course, we would love to be fully transparent, but as long as our informants could be at risk, it is better that fewer people know. This has nothing to do with if we trust you or not, It is just a matter of risk-reducing policy. We were shocked to realize that the Padanian authorities were on the track of the informants,” Olaf said. They didn’t look so convinced.

  Diana, the President, was a beauty, sharp and pleasant to boot. She was of Greek origin, Olaf guessed, a bit earth-lier than the sophisticated Italian women. She was the wife of a successful businessman and wanted to use her time in a way that would benefit humanity. The group had become very active, and it also had good finances, which Olaf welcomed. As the Secretary General, he was in charge of the organization’s finances. Most of their chapters were driven by enthusiasm and idealism, but very few of them knew how to raise and even fewer how to manage money. They thought they could request money from the HRI, but the truth was that HRI itself was dependent on the money raised from the local chapters.

  Even if they didn’t send any money to HRI, they were part of a co-financing mechanism. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry matched all resources they could raise with nine times as much. So the central division of HRI reported the total finances of the chapters and the central organization and the Norse chipped in a lot. This construction was no scam. The Norse knew it and the local chapters knew it, at least in theory. Olaf saw it as his duty to run the finances to enable them to do what they needed to do, and he was always keen to have their meetings focus on the issues instead of the money. So in the end, it was really him, the financial manager, the President of the Board and one or two more Board members that really knew anything about the finances.

  Olaf was very interested to learn more about how the Rome chapter had gone from constant deficits despite shoestring budgets, to a budget that made the London chapter envious, in less than two years. Olaf suggested that he and Diana meet after the press conference to discuss it, perhaps taking some food together. Diana said she needed to check her schedule with her husband before committing.

  The chapter of HRI in Rome had three main things on their work program. Like all chapters, it was supposed to monitor the human rights situation in their own country. In the Seventies and Eighties there had been quite a lot to do there, linked to the Red Brigades and the Fascist terrorist. Both the behavior of those organizations as well as how society responded to it. Linked with the “American war on terror,” which basically petered out when the financial crisis hit, there were also a number of high level cases of violations of human rights, some made by the Italian authorities, some by the CIA on Italian territory, with the silent consent of the Italian government, including some kidnapping, or “extraordinary renditions” as they were euphemistically called.

  Lately, it was mainly the situation in Padania that was of concern. In addition, the chapter had a special focus on Bosnia, and they were the coordinators of a thematic working group on the treatment of illegal immigrants. It was in particular on the last issue that the chapter had made a lot of progress, a work that somewhat bothered Olaf. They had proposed that HRI should initiate a campaign for a universal declaration on migration that was more radical than most people dared to even think. Its starting sentence was:

  All humans have the right to live where they want.

  A stronger—and simpler—statement couldn’t be made. The proposal was still a draft and would be presented to the HRI Assembly in half a year. Olaf officially, and mostly also in reality, took a rather low profile on the ideological content of his work. He thought that the chapters, the board and the assembly were the ones to shape ideology, and his was the role of giving them the tools to accomplish what they wanted. Once policy was set, his job was to implement it. At least, that was the theory. In practice, he had been instrumental in shaping the organization to what it was today, in expanding the concept of human rights to also include economic rights, such as right to work, right to food, etc. And this free migration standpoint fit a hundred percent into that. For a long time, he himself had had this opinion.

  As the head of HRI, he was, however, a bit uneasy that they were aiming too high, that it could undermine their support from large groups and governments, not the least the Norwegian government, who despite its global solidarity, was perhaps not too keen on welcoming five million Bangladeshis, or Somalis, as citizens. Not that that would ever be the effect of such a policy—most people want to stay where they are, in any case, regardless of rights or not to move. Most of the discussion with the chapter members was about that initiative and what needed to be done before the Assembly. They sought Olaf’s support, and he said that he supported it in principle; and that he was a bit afraid of the consequences and that he generally tried to keep a low profile, but that he and his staff could assure them that all consequences would be well explained to the Assembly.

  He was briefly introduced to the rest of their work plans. He saw that they ran some bazaars and asked if they really generated a lot of income. His experiences from other places were largely negative. He was told that the bazaars were mainly organized by one member who was also in charge of the contacts with Bosnia. A particular feature at those bazaars was a stock of drawings by Bosnian children that this member had in her possession. They were drawings from a center for traumatized children that had been operating in Italy from 1997 to 2007. Each painting contained a written story about the conditions that inspired the drawing, and they were auctioned for high prices.

  Olaf asked if there were any ownership issues around the drawings. He meant, would the income not belong to the children? Diana said, yes in principle, but Marie, the member organizing the sales had gotten permission from the children themselves, as well as from those who ran the institute before.

  He shared a bite with Sandra in a restaurant close to the hotel and said he needed to prepare for the next day, and took an early evening. He was experienced and didn’t need an awful lot of preparation, so he finished what he needed to do in half an hour. His daughter Rebecka contacted him on Dashboard chat, and they discussed what they could do for his wife Monika’s birthday, which was on Monday. He spoke briefly with Monika and told her about the weird interrogation with the Padanians. Monika worried and said that she was afraid that something could happen to him. That it had happened before and could happen again; that HRI should get him bodyguards. He reassured her that everything was fine and that he had very little to fear compared to the rights of those he was defending.

  Which of course was true. But he had never told her about the strange phone calls he got some years earlier, when their focus was Belarus. He had had to warn her that their phone might be tapped. He was 100 percent sure about it, but not so sure about who was actually behind it. But the unmistakable fact that their local office in Libya blew up one night could not be denied. So there was a certain threat.

  He also spoke with Monika about his parents. They were getting old. His father was somewhat demented and his mother was just weak in general. They lived in his native Linköping. He wanted them to move to a service apartment, before things got out of hand.

  “Could you try to influence them?” He asked his wife, since Monika had a good relationship with his parents.

  “Sure, I’ll try, but you know h
ow old people are. Even your very decent and reasonable parents don't listen to me when it comes to moving from their place. If we can make them sell the holiday place, that’s a first step.”

  “Well, there’s logic in that, Monika, but I think it is better that they keep it and move to another permanent solution. Of course, they don’t use the place much, but I think it plays a big role emotionally, to know it’s still there for them—and also for us.”

  After hanging up, he thought about his family. Despite some people’s perception, his background was solid middle class. Mother was a primary school teacher engaged in community work, children’s theater, etc. Father was an engineer, with fishing and other outdoor things as his specialty. A devoted rose-grower in their summer house next to Lake Sommen. Their marriage had been stable as far as he could understand. It was on its fifty-second year. He didn’t think his parents loved each other in the way he had loved Ronia, not even like he loved Monika.

  Their relation seemed to be a working arrangement somewhat. He could hardly remember them touching each other. Of course, they did in bed. Mustn’t they have done it? Olaf didn’t really know for sure. They were not very physical people. They didn’t sing or dance. Perhaps they only made love seldomly with the lights off. Only once could he remember hearing love-making noises from his parents’ bedroom. He remembered them kissing once in the water when they were swimming. Olaf had been for a walk and his sister somewhere else, so they probably thought they were alone. If they would have kissed more often, he wouldn’t remember that one time, would he?

  Olaf had one sister, Magda, an assistant professor in sociology at the University of Örebro. She was divorced from a marriage of fifteen years. Olaf always suspected that her husband had abused her physically, but never had the courage to ask. They had not been very close, but lately, as a result of the increased attention to their parents, they had come closer. Magda had no child. Monika and Magda didn’t exactly get along together, and Monika would have preferred that Magda was a less enthusiastic aunt for Rebecka. Somewhere in the outskirts of the family were Monika’s parents and siblings. They were all very normal. Secretly Olaf found them boring. He never told Monika, but she seemed to suspect it. Of course, living in Dover now meant that the contact with the families weren’t very intense. Now and then a distant relative visited, some just to get a cheap place to stay for their shopping visits or cultural visits to London. Some said it openly, which he respected more. Some said they were dying to visit him and Monika and to see “little” Rebecka, but once they arrived, they dumped their luggage, had some food and off they went.

  Looking more critically into himself and Monika, he wondered if that is perhaps the inevitable end to any relationship, that passion inevitably burns out? At least he and Monika still made love regularly. Sometimes it was a quiet business. There was nothing wrong with that, at least not for Olaf. He thought that quiet, slow love making had its own beauty. Sometimes they did it with real vigor and collapsed together afterward, but it was there, immediately after, that something was missing.

  Olaf always felt a bit uncomfortable and didn’t want to stay in bed after making love. To some extent, that is a male trait, they say, but in his case, he also could compare it with how he had lingered in bed with Ronia and enjoyed whispering sweet nothings in her ear, long after making love. With Liv again, it was rather her that broke the spell, normally for washing. Olaf was slightly offended by the rush Liv wanted to wash away the traces of their love making, especially from her own body. At least with increasing age, he had the excuse of having to let water as a reason for rising from bed. And then he could always make Monika a coffee if it was in the morning or a little drink if it was at night. Those were initially acts of care and consideration, but to be honest, today they were more routine. All in all, he and Monika had a nice, cozy and good life. They rarely had an argument.

  Geneva, June 1996

  Ronia passed through the doors of La Belle and looked around. She asked reception for Olaf and was told he was out of his room. Oh well, she thought. He is perhaps out for a bite or seeing friends. She really didn’t know much about him. But then he heard his voice from the restaurant and felt a surge of joy. She walked there. When entering, she saw him and Selma engaged in deep conversation, and halted. She felt that she shouldn’t interfere and disturb them. Perhaps this guy is charming all the women he meets, she thought. Selma is a good catch. She retreated rapidly.

  She took an early evening and watched some silly reality TV show. She had no TV at home so there was a certain excitement to watch it for a while. Some nuts from the minibar, a sip of wine and a sandwich with goat’s cheese from the farm kept her satisfied. She read the Nouvel Observateur. Ronia rarely read the daily news or listened to news broadcasts. In general, she kept away from politics. She was, however, very interested in the big developments in society, but maintained that you don’t see them if you get too involved in all those day-to-day politics.

  She pondered which forces really shape human society, the effects of technology, the economic system and long-term cultural changes. So when some claimed the fall of the Berlin wall as the final victory for capitalism, she saw almost the opposite. True, the Soviets were defeated, and communism and socialism were thrown in the dustbin of history. But that was the short view. The long view was that when the threat of communism was gone, when the ghost had disappeared, critique of the capitalist project could no longer so easily be dismissed or discredited. What she feared was that when the threat of communism disappeared, the military industrial complex would find new threats to motivate continued spending on useless armaments, and if there were no new threats to be found, they would manufacture them.

  Ronia believed that there was more to learn from history than what to expect from the future and today. Instead of daily news, Ronia read serious magazines and books on politics and history. She usually skipped articles about how new technologies would change the world. She had read once that for each generation, all technologies that would shape the lives of that generation would already have existed when they were born. And that certainly had been true up to her parents. But she was less sure about her own generation. And for a change, this evening she read an article predicting that the “internet” could become a forceful tool for revitalizing democracy. Or for manipulating people, she thought cynically, just like the radio and TV. They also had great democratic potential, but look what happened to them.

  She found it hard to fall asleep. She thought about Olaf and Selma, that she probably had misunderstood his signals. And what signals had he actually sent anyway? And even if he had sent signals did they mean anything? The guy is married, in the first place. Thoughts like that came, went and came back.

  She woke up early, feeling restless and went for an early walk. Coming back to the hotel around seven, she passed by the breakfast room and found him there.

  “Hi,” she greeted him as she approached his table. “Can I join you?”

  “Of course, you are most welcome,” he said, folding his newspaper, the International Herald Tribune.

  “Please go ahead reading if you want; you can tell me what has happened in the world. I rarely read any newspapers.”

  “How is it possible to be without the lifeblood of a daily news injection?”

  “I see it more like death blood,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of the news is about deaths, torture, rape, war, and natural disasters, just to mention a few.”

  “I see your point. Let’s test the theory, and I will see how much positive news I can find in this issue.”

  He initiated a stream of words in a speed you normally associate with sports reports on the radio.

  “Ah, here is the first one: There is a cease-fire in Chechnya, but honestly who cares, most people don’t even know where Chechnya is, and would you mind trying to spell to Chechnya and Grozny or Oshogoshtjuktjikstan? Next: Peace talks begin in Northern Ireland without Sinn Féin. Is it good that they talk or bad that Sinn F�
�in is not at the table? Depends on their table manners, I guess. And then the killer one: Steffi Graf defeats Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the longest ever women's final at the French Open, to win her 19th Grand Slam title. So good for sweet Steffi and so cruel for poor Arantxa—but what can you expect with parents naming you thornbush, which is the meaning of her name. I don’t know what to say about the weather report. Warm in Geneva, but far too cold in Scandinavia and blasting hot in Saudi Arabia, tornadoes in the States. And how to judge the rising property prices in London? It depends on whether you are a buyer, a real estate tycoon or if you just sit there in your ever more valuable flat and feel good about it. It gets really tricky to judge the review of the latest thriller by John Grisham. It seems to be on the critical side. But hell, the guy will sell millions anyway, so why bother about a critical review in IHT. The only news piece I can find from Sweden is that the female party leader of the former communist party goes public, on TV, about her alcoholism. Is that good or bad? Admitting the problem is the first step to recovery. It is almost like a cease-fire with Chechnyan rebels.” At this point the people at the neighboring tables had started to stare at him. “And, listen to this one: a woman, an American woman—who else would even dream about it—has sued her therapist because of her divorce. The couple had been to marriage consulting five times trying to fix their broken marriage, but in the end the guy still wants a divorce, and now she sues the therapist. She wants him to pay damages of 20 million dollars. Is that not good news?” He panted, catching his breath.

  She burst out laughing, not so much for what he said but how he said it and the speed at which he spoke. “Enough, enough, I give up. I can’t eat breakfast and listen to this mesmerizing account of the beauty of this world.”

  He folded the newspaper and looked her sternly into the eyes: “There is a nasty world out there, ma’am” (trying, not so successfully, to sound like Clint Eastwood or perhaps John Wayne. He wasn't so sure of which) and then with a rapid shift of expression,