—

When court resumed in the afternoon, Karla’s lips were pressed tight, deepening a dimple that was in no way cheerful. As she listened to Steyn question Hana’s mother, I watched her shift slightly forward. She could do nothing. No one had anticipated the mother’s unearthly cry.

Steyn needed Jasmina to speak, not to publicly mourn. And so he pressed on. When did she last see her child? Where? Who took her from the bus when they were leaving town? Was she ever found? He needed the mother to describe how her wisp of a child’s body had been made a battlefield on which large, uniformed, armed and brutal men fought.

After Jasmina’s testimony, I called Edina.

Kosmos answered, We’re having a joint.

I said to Edina, Did you know Jasmina’s daughter?

Hana, she said. She was the flower girl at our wedding.

She was at Karaman’s house with you?

Yes.

I heard Kosmos stand and walk across the room and say, Forgive us all.

Edina? I said.

She said quietly, They wanted to hurt us like it was their job. Hana stopped screaming. She was so small. What did they see when they looked at her? They hurt us because they could. Night after night they performed for each other. Animals. They brought young men and forced them. We were furniture. She was a little girl. How could they? I am two people, the person before and the person after. Better to be dead.

—

I got a toothache while I was in The Hague and when the dentist came in, my knuckles were white from grasping the chair and he said, We must postpone to another day. I think you are not well.

I went to the cinema and sat alone and when someone tried to go past me I refused and waved them to a different row. It was intolerable to be near a stranger in the dark.

I bought small Delft night lights in the shapes of canal houses and tulips for my apartment. I saved the largest, a cheery blue teapot, to illuminate my bedroom.

But darkness seeped through. History is not scattered ashes. History is now. The women were made less than human because of being in a particular moment of history. Through no fault of their own. People claimed not to know. The women’s stories were denied. You don’t want to listen? Listen anyhow.

—

Over the months of the trial, Karla and Andro and William developed an affectionate relationship, enjoyed opera together. I saw them once in Amsterdam at Lucia di Lammermoor. After the trial Karla told me about a turning point in their reasoning that may have come during one of their social times. She said that William had learned to appreciate her relationship with the women witnesses, and had told her that she provoked him to think in new ways. She said, He was not only collegial but sought friendship too which I liked. He shared my ambition in this case.