“So what did I do about it? Did I try to understand what their needs were? Why they were doing what they were doing? Did I establish a relationship with the village elders? Did I reason with them? Did I try to work for a compromise? Did I reach out to anyone from my team for advice? No. None of those things. I was arrogant. I knew right from wrong: what I was doing was right, and what they were doing was wrong. So I set up camera traps, filmed them poaching, collected my evidence, and turned it over to the authorities.”

“It’s what anyone would have done.”

“No, Kamran. It’s what I did. Many people would have gone another way. Many people would have had different strategies. I had them all arrested. Dragged off to be beaten, tortured.”

“It isn’t you who is guilty of those things—the beatings and the torture. It is the authorities.”

“No, it is me. I am the one who had them hauled off by authorities I knew would abuse them. I didn’t even consider that. I didn’t care: They were threatening my cuttlefish. They were my enemies. They were wrong, and they were in the way. That’s all I could see. I couldn’t see the villagers. I couldn’t see their desperation, how much they needed to fish. And I couldn’t see that I needed help. That I needed to find compromise. All I could see was right and wrong. And what the local fishermen did in revenge is what I drove them to.”

“How can you say this? How can that be your fault?”

“A barrel of neurotoxin dumped from a motorboat in the middle of the night. That’s what I caused. That is what my decisions led to. The death of everything I cared about. Every cuttlefish, all of their eggs. A whole population. And then I went and hid in Istanbul, with you, writing my book. Retreated into the world I made there, with you. Thinking I may never be able to do field research again.”

“Our time in Istanbul—”

“Was what I needed,” Ha interrupted. “At the time. But then I get this opportunity. What seems like a dream assignment. So I don’t look too closely. Why? Because I keep lying to myself. Making the pieces fit the way I want them to, not the way they are. That is what got me trapped here: Lying to myself. Staying in my own head, making decisions alone. And now I am in trouble again, and I have no one I can trust. Why? Because I haven’t worked hard enough to build that trust. I have to break this pattern, or the same thing will happen again. I need to stop running away from the people I need support from. I need help.”

“I can call someone.”

Ha paused. “Can you?”

“What do you mean? Of course I can.”