But then the prosecution called to the stand the first of several victims whose testimony, the lead prosecutor promised, would remind the Court of the gravity of the crimes committed by the accused, the moral weight of the issues currently under consideration. Robert had already warned me that the victims’ testimony was almost always the most difficult to interpret, he confessed that earlier that year he had been obliged to excuse himself from the testimony of a young mother whose children had been brutally murdered, literally torn from her arms and slaughtered. I have nieces and nephews, he said, his voice shaking, I felt no compunction whatsoever about saying that I couldn’t do it.
When I arrived in the booth, Robert was already there. I couldn’t tell if he was more subdued than usual, or if it was merely the projection of my own tension, I had never before worked a victim’s testimony. He nodded to the booth across from us and I raised my hand in greeting to the visiting interpreters, who raised their hands in return; the witness would be speaking Dyula, which the pair in the opposite booth would interpret into French, and which we in turn would interpret into English. I sat down, I saw that they had drawn the curtains on the windows of the public gallery. Facial distortion software would be used on the video link, the voice would also be altered, utmost caution would be taken so that the witness’s identity would not be publicly revealed. Almost all the victims would have family back home, they were taking considerable risk in choosing to appear, risk that might even and without warning be converted into concrete sacrifice, violence or death to their loved ones.
The moral weight of the situation was therefore already evident in the courtroom, and as people began to enter, I thought their expressions were also more than usually somber. There were no smiles, no visible demonstrations of humor, nor was there the frenetic urgency that had sometimes earlier been apparent. Instead, there was a kind of muffled seriousness, one that was not even particularly self-conscious; for once, nobody seemed to be performing, either for themselves or for the benefit of others. Even Kees, when he came in, running his hands through his hair, appeared restrained, he merely sat down and began reviewing the text on the monitor before him.
When the former president was brought into the courtroom, I saw at once that he had no intention of submitting to the prevailing mood, that he perceived such tamping down of emotion as a concession to the magnitude of the victim’s loss, and thus the severity of the crimes he stood accused of having committed. Or perhaps it was simply that he was unaccustomed to the room’s attention being focused elsewhere. I observed the defiance that seemed to roll off him in waves, as he lifted his chin and surveyed the courtroom, his gaze resting without hesitation on the witness stand before moving smoothly on, as if to show he had nothing to fear, no cause for trepidation. I felt a jolt of disgust so strong I could taste it in my mouth.
The judges entered. Within moments, or so it seemed to me, the presiding judge had asked for the witness to be brought in. The side door opened and a slender young woman entered. She was obliged to walk past the former president as she made her approach to the witness stand, and did so stiffly and without looking in his direction. He leaned forward, folding his hands on the desk and watching her carefully. She looked no older than twenty. The court usher poured her a glass of water, adjusted the microphone. The witness barely seemed to respond, her face was empty of expression. It was obvious the entire thing was an ordeal for her, she sat rigid in her chair and stared straight ahead, as if afraid to move.
Thank you for joining us today, the presiding judge said. It seemed to me that her voice was softer than usual, as though wary of startling the witness. You have a card on the table with the oath. If you could please read this out.
The young woman wet her lips, then leaned forward and spoke into the microphone. As she spoke, I saw that I had misapprehended her character, what I had interpreted as nerves was instead the extremity of her focus, she had come here to perform a monumental task and it followed that she was a person of no small courage. Her voice, as she read the oath of the Court and swore to speak the truth, was low and strong and supple and it sent a ripple through the room. I saw that I was not alone in recalibrating my sense of this young woman, the former president himself looked up at the sound of her voice and for the first time I saw something akin to fear in his eyes.
The presiding judge was exceedingly solicitous, asking the witness how she was feeling, thanking her for appearing before the Court, and assuring her of the value of her testimony. The young woman nodded, but even as the judge extended to her the sympathies of the Court I could see that she had little use for it, she understood all too clearly its limitations, she had not come all this way for the Court’s sympathy but for its promise of justice. The Court already had the witness’s statement in the record, the judge said, detailing how her brothers and her father had been killed. She would now be made available for examination by both parties. The judge paused and then said that she was very sorry to be asking her to revisit the events of that terrible day, events that she knew were profoundly upsetting. The trial by its nature demands more from the victims than it does from the accused, the judge said, which is in and of itself another injustice, and for which I can only express my profound regret. The young woman nodded. The judge then said that she would give the floor to the prosecution.