He spoke with quickened breath and his skin coloured under his cheeks and his hand constantly worried his eye. I listened to his unbelievable fantasy about Edina. Dragić could not make me believe in even a few minutes of his life. Because storytellers believe in their dragons and glass slippers, they can make their listeners believe. But Dragić did not believe in his own lies and he could not make any of us believe either.

Judge Banda asked, Is it your position PW-71 seduced you?

He answered, I had sexual intercourse with her against my will. I did not want to, you know how it is.

Judge Banda interrupted him, That’s enough. Questions, please.

Steyn said, The court has heard PW-71’s testimony. Beatings, starvation, humiliation, fear for her life. The accused is trying to tell us that the victim raped him. No, Your Honour, I have no questions.

—

In his closing statement, Steyn spoke to the honesty of the women and to the sincerity of their emotions. They had travelled to the court and they had told about the things that happened to them for which there are no easy words. He reminded the judges that though they had been incarcerated and starved and beaten and assaulted, they also mentioned in their testimonies small kindnesses from certain people, a bit of offered food, a moment of protection. He said that this showed how the women did not come for revenge but to tell their full experience, to truthfully bear witness.

Behind the glass I listened and watched. Each woman had told things they wanted to forget and each suffered shame. Each woman had reached inside for strength to speak. But strength does not sweep away anguish and fear.

The women were not human to Dragić. He claimed that he was only doing what everyone did. There were thousands of men like him. What is the absence of empathy for another? I do not know but I do know that violence and cruelty step into this absence. It can happen anywhere. Some of the women felt that the trial was like washing a mortal wound—it did neither good nor harm. The wound would still be mortal. And yet still they spoke.

—

I went home at the end of November to wait for the judgment. I did not easily fit back into my old life in Toronto. The city felt grey, dull. People felt dull. I walked by the grey lake. I visited Jacques Payac who was finishing an edit on green technologies and he did not have time to talk and told me to come back in a few days. I was an outsider at home. I made myself fit into Mam’s and Biddy’s peaceful routines. Biddy asked if I had seen her father and when would she meet him.

I said, Soon now. This summer.

She asked again for stories about him and what he was like and if he had changed and where did he live and what did he do and when she would go. She said, Will I have grandparents there? Cousins? I had to tell her that the war had created great loss in his life. She thought this over and I saw her put a few more of her hopes aside. She seemed very alone.