Edina nodded.

Karla said, You know this trial will not be easy for the witnesses.

I know.

Edina pointed to the file cabinets and said, I will not endanger even one woman. They have been through enough. At the beginning I myself struggled over whether to stay silent or to speak. But I could not accept the morality of staying silent.

She fleetingly covered her face with her hands.

It is not good, she said, to close yourself up and to lock things inside. But with this trial there will be much pain.

She came around from behind her desk and sat across from Lise.

Karla said, There will be emotional needs. We can make arrangements for counselling and childcare and time away from work. The women can travel with someone to support them. This case depends on the women.

Edina answered slowly, Some women’s families do not know. Women ask me if I know what it is like to have sex with a husband when you don’t want it? When he does not know what happened to you? When you feel only pain?

She straightened some files and said, Do not think you are different because you have not been in this war. You can imagine. You know the feeling of sex when you do not want it. Maybe you even know the physical torment. If you ask the women to tell their stories you must not barricade yourselves off as if you do not know.

Our only wisdom is our humility, I thought.

Edina said to Lise, When you interpret you must become the voice of the other.

Lise said, My best work is invisible.

Edina answered, But to me, you are not invisible.

There was a tap at the door and a woman came in with a tray of coffee. Edina said, I will need a photocopier, paper, ink.

She picked up the six files on her desk, handed them to Lise and said, Read these and I will come back in a little while. If the women tell these stories in court they will have to relive that time. It was terrible and many of them have spent years trying to forget.

Lise took the first file on her lap, and Sue and Karla shifted forward to take notes.

Outside her office Edina and I settled on a small couch in the sitting area.

I asked, What do you think?

She said, I have enough files for a thousand trials. Last night I did not sleep.

Without awareness she reached for my hand and held it. She said, At first I did not want to be involved in anything like this. I wanted to be hidden, alone.

I nodded.

She said, In the war, the hardest time was at the beginning when I understood that no one was coming. I have never lost that feeling. This is the first time anyone has come.

She looked down at her hand over mine, took it away as if she had not known it was there.