LUCIJA: I believe she worked from behind the scenes. You have to understand this. That’s why so many people are ignorant of the changes she helped bring about.

The question of how honourable it was to force through changes to a culture and society without that culture’s explicit knowledge and consent has come up repeatedly at the inquiry. These questions have not yet been satisfactorily answered—

STELLA: Nor have the majority of people ever explicitly consented to the patriarchal status quo.

—because they have no satisfactory answer.

LUCIJA: From that first time, I could see that there were many pressures in her life.

JUDGE: What were the pressures?

LUCIJA: Her sons, for example. They rang, one by one, that morning. I had gone for a walk in the garden. Mariam had cooked lunch, it was all ready and prepared. I came into the kitchen. Eva was at the table, her back to me, kneading bread. The phone rang, and she answered it on loudspeaker. That was always how she spoke to people. She just had to press a button, with her hands covered in bread dough, or soap suds. She never sat down, except in her study. I waited at the door, for the conversation to finish, but then the phone rang again, and then a third time.

– Mother, Sebastian tells me you have a Pakistani refugee living with you at the moment.

– Oh, hello, Henry, said Eva. Yes that’s right. And a nun, as of yesterday.

– A nun?

– Well, she stayed the night, she’s from the convent on Papa Astrid. But I’ve given her an open invitation to return. She’s from Bosnia.

– And the Pakistani?

– Yes?

– Is she a Muslim?

– I should think so, very likely.

– Mother! What are they all doing there all of a sudden? The Pakistani might be an illegal. The Bosnian might be.

– I don’t think so. Almost every Bosnian who came here between ’92 and ’95 was given ILR.

– ILR?

– Indefinite Leave to Remain. You must know that.

(You had to remember, when arguing with your son who was a lawyer, that half of his genes were yours. You were capable of answering in kind.)

– Not my area of law, Mother.

– Well, they had a war on. And I liked her the moment I saw her. Sometimes you can tell how a person is just by looking at them. You can tell how interesting and empathetic they are before they’ve even opened their mouth.

– Can you? Useful when you don’t share a mother tongue.

– Something about the eyes. You know what I’m talking about, Henry. You can smell it.

– But what is she doing in the house? Why here? Why Harcourt? Where’s the Pakistani sleeping?

– Mariam? In the attic room.

– Sebastian’s room?

– He hasn’t slept there since he was a teenager, Henry.

– And the Bosnian? Are they both Muslim?

– You’re being silly, Henry. Lucija’s a nun.