Intimacies(23)
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 me 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.