The interpreters never interrupted the women witnesses or asked them to slow down. The rhythm of emotion is uneven. Rage and indignation can be told from a tightened throat or in open sobbing. Some of the interpreters unconsciously mirrored the women’s rhythms.

Breath, like the eyes, cannot be rendered emotionless.

—

Finally. The day of the last prosecution witness.

Jasmina Begović, PW-52.

The blind was up for her because she was the mother of a girl who was never found. She wanted to testify in open court. She wanted her daughter’s name not to be forgotten.

Karla had scheduled her last because her testimony was meant to linger in the judges’ minds. As she had earlier agreed, William Steyn was assigned to question her.

Jasmina had managed to hide her twelve-year-old daughter, Hana, from the soldiers by keeping her with very small children. After six dreadful weeks, on the day that group of mothers and babies and small children were being moved to Tuzla, their bus was stopped on the bridge on the way out of town. A soldier saw Hana and pulled her out of the bus. Jasmina was screaming and holding on to her child and the soldier knocked her out with the butt of his rifle. PW-31 and PW-97 verified the girl was taken from the bus, and Edina had earlier verified she was brought to Karaman’s house, where Edina often tried to hide her. One night the soldiers came in late and Edina hid the child under the bed and when they were gone, she found the little girl curled like a snail under an old potato bag. Hana used to bring in a bit of mint from outside to sniff. Later PW-199 saw her being sold to a soldier in the Ribarski restaurant.

The prosecution scheduled an afternoon session with Hana’s mother, hoping her cross-examination would take place in the morning, after she had rested. During the witness-proofing, Steyn told her he would show her a picture to verify her daughter’s identity. Then she would be asked to describe the child’s disappearance.

In court he handed Jasmina the photo of Hana.

She looked down at the familiar picture. Here, under the eyes of the judges, she saw it fresh. Look, her small girl was alive, there, oh, her trusting eyes shining, her sweet lips. She could smell Hana’s fresh skin after playing outside on the mountain. Look, the little front curl of hair slipping loose. Tonight she’ll kiss her goodnight and lie down beside her until she falls asleep.

Jasmina was wearing a bit of Hana’s hair in a locket a neighbour had found in the burned rubble of her house. Hana would have been twenty years old. Everyone in the court was waiting to begin after the simple identification.

Jasmina opened her mouth to say yes but a different sound was coming out, a crying moan like a half-alive creature in the mouth of a snake. Swallow, die more, swallow, die. She was a creature in hell, frozen on one side, burning on the other.