Karla asked Merima, What happened after?

The next day they took me back to Partizan.

What did you do there?

I hid under my grandmother.

Judge Banda interrupted, Counsel, break.

—

A woman can disappear, like the girls in old fairy tales who disappear into forests. She leaves home behind and goes to a new place. She becomes a creature who escapes a curse or a demon or a wicked stepmother. She hides and is tricked into revealing herself. Glass slippers. Coats of fur. Riddles.

In the old fairy tales girls escape from one kingdom only to end up in a different and not necessarily better kingdom. A girl gets absorbed into other people’s stories. She doesn’t go home. She carries her home inside her. A woman must make her home wherever she is. This must be her happily-ever-after. Esma and Merima would never go home. The homes they carried inside were now in a foreign place.

In the gallery, I used coloured tabs in my notebooks to help me remember the details of each woman’s testimony: Who was yellow. What, red. Where, green. When, blue. There was no Why.

—

Mataruga rose to cross-examine Merima. He asked about places and dates. Over and over she said she did not know.

The lawyer said, You remember only for the prosecution.

He opened his hands toward the judges, as if he were helpless and wronged.

Karla stood for the last time with Merima and asked, Witness, for identification purposes, is there anything characteristic about Mr. Dragić to make clear to the court who he is?

Yes.

Karla hoped she would say the scar on his cheek.

Tell us what that was.

The eyes. Never will I forget his eyes.

—

Fifty-one more court days from March to November, thirteen more women witnesses for the prosecution, to be followed by expert witnesses for both sides. Military witnesses spoke to the hierarchies of command and to more history. The judges asked witnesses to refrain from beginning with the Ottomans. There were no female military or expert witnesses. The case dragged on. Intricacies of law were combed out, like untangling strand by strand the fine horsehair for the bow of the violin. Which story exactly matched definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity, enslavement?

I often watched the Dutch guard, Lieven, in court beside Dragić. We had met in a café near the courts and he said he had seen me every day in the gallery. One night we went to my apartment. Expat life is lonely. He was the sort of man who loves a woman’s pleasure as much as his own. I did not analyze it much. Everyone who worked in the courts was transient. Desire is as ungovernable as air. I did not want to spoil my nights with Lieven by thinking too much about them. Lieven guarded the accused, watched him pick his cuticles, was alert to his tiniest physical movements, and that was all.

In court, Lieven’s face was still, professional. If the blind was up, he sometimes glanced at me and I noticed a delicate flush on his jawline.