Jacques leaned forward and said, I search for connections and I do not always find any. I tell you, war is the common thread. This is not hopeful but it is a fact which I cannot ignore. We know what is happening everywhere, but we do not know what to do. The women came to a cold courtroom in a place on the sea and they spoke. There were many languages and many histories in those rooms and people found ways to listen to each other.

Is that all? I said.

He poured another glass.

He said, What else is there?

I said, The women found words to speak.

He rubbed his stump. Yes, he said.

The women’s stories are inscribed inside me, I said. And now they are inscribed inside you.

In order to expose the crime, you violate the witness.

—Jadranka Cigelj

The public and the private worlds are inseparably connected;…the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other.

—Virginia Woolf

This work of fiction is drawn from events at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The official transcripts of the Foča trial, Kunarac et al. (IT-96-23 & 23/1), are in the public record and available for anyone to read.

All characters and episodes are invented. All names and identifying numbers of individuals have been changed. The women who testified deserve their privacy and our admiration.

I am especially indebted to the thought of Jean Améry in At the Mind’s Limits, and to his lived experience and writing about memory, history, torture, resentments and the responsibility to know. On this page, I cite from Améry directly: You don’t want to listen. Listen anyhow. You don’t want to know to where your indifference can again lead you and me at any time? I’ll tell you.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Bakira Hasečić at the Association of Women Victims of War (Udruzenje Žene-Žrtve Rata) for generous discussions with me and for your courageous work of documentation and legal action; thank you to Diana Dicklich (formerly ICTY) and Iain Reid (formerly ICTY) for your expertise, guidance, reading, friendship and laughter over many years; thank you to Salam Hatibović and Skender Hatibović (Sarajevo Funky Tours: Breaking Prejudice) for sharing your stories; thank you to Milica Kostic (formerly Sites of Conscience), Dita Agoli (formerly ICTY), Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff (formerly ICTY) for discussion of international activism and law; to Alma Agic (formerly ICTY) and Azra Kovačević (formerly ICTY) and Maxine Marcus (International prosecutor, Human Rights Watch) for expertise; to Janice Blackburn for law questions; to Alison Harvison Young, Jane Springer, Janet Stewart (formerly ICTY), Ken Gass for reading; to Veronica Van Dam for language questions; to Ellen Elias-Bursac for language and interpretation questions; to Sasha Kulic for chess instruction and reading; to Kate Trotter for expertise; to Alketa Xhafa Mripa for your art installations and listening; thank you to Roxana Spicer for a place to work; to Julia Bennett who first told me the story. Thank you to Shaun Oakey for superb editing, Scott Sellers for finding a place in the world for this book. To Hana El Niwairi for your work and enthusiasm. A profound thank you to Nicole Winstanley for your creativity and loyalty, for your love of words and unwavering dedication to what matters. To my family, Ross, Olivia and Sara, thank you for lively discussion and for always being there.