address on the envelope proved this, and also that someone had sent the photos to him, perhaps as blackmail, or to remind him of something.
The ringing of the phone made her jump. She cleared her throat before lifting the receiver. It was him. She could barely grasp half of what he said. He was sorry but he would be late.
“Something has happened,” she said.
“Really?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone.”
“I can tell that from your voice. Why don’t you take a short walk? It’s a nice city. I’ll be there at five o’clock.”
She did what he said. Outside, her fears eased and seemed less plausible. Her feet carried her down an attractive street. All her earlier suspicions seemed crazy. Her nerves must be shattered. For the second time she thought she heard someone talking Albanian. She had heard that nervous breakdowns often started like this, with imaginary voices.
Standing in front of a shop window, she heard the voices again. She stood rooted to the spot as the voices moved away. Only then did she turn her head to look. A small group of men were moving away, talking noisily. She had never imagined that there could be so many Albanians in The Hague. Perhaps this was why Besfort so insisted on secrecy.
She entered the first cafe she saw. From behind the window, the street looked even prettier. She was no longer surprised at hearing Albanians talking, in loud voices as usual. They were smoking. She heard the words “today’s session”, the insult “arsehole” and then the name of Milosevic. Everything was clear. The great courtroom building must be nearby.
She sipped her coffee without turning her head. Suddenly she recognised a familiar face. The man was sitting alone at his table, listening to the foreigners’ noisy conversation with unconcealed curiosity. Surely she had seen this man before. Then she remembered. He was a distinguished writer. At any other time it would have been natural to strike up a conversation with him. She was studying in Austria, which was the writer’s own country, but she remembered his pro-Serbian views and the desire to speak to him melted away.
Besfort was no doubt at the Tribunal. This explained the nightmare about the summons, the shouting in his sleep and the secrecy.
She imagined him lost in the labyrinthine corridors of the court building. Time passed slowly. More noisy customers sat down at the table next to the Austrian, who had ordered a second coffee and seemed to be paying particular attention to what his neighbours were talking about.
Rovena preferred to think about the hotel bed. Like in the train, she felt the tattoos on her body move as if they were living creatures. In the train, the thought of the tattoo on her rear had momentarily made her head reel. She was sure he would like it, especially as they did not often make love in that position.
In a stupor of desire she ordered another tea. The photos of the children were now far from her mind. The clock hands hurried forward, as if shaken from sleep. She had a feeling she was late.
In bed in the hotel one hour later, the same feeling persisted. They had made love, without saying any of the things she had imagined.
“You told me that something had happened.”
“That’s right. But it’s hard to talk about it.”
“I understand. A lot of things are hard to talk about at first. Then…”
“What then?”
“There is nothing in the world that can’t be talked about.”
“I think there is.”
“Perhaps that’s because you are a woman.”
“Maybe.”
“What have you been doing all this time?”
“You mean since we last saw each other?” She wanted to scream: “What have I been doing? Nothing, I mean everything.” But all she said was, “Why do you want to know?”
“Then don’t tell me if you don’t want to,” he said calmly. “We put all this behind us a long time ago.”
Quickly, and secretly hoping that he might understand only half of what she said, she told him how frightened she had been when, after arriving at the hotel, she thought she had been given the wrong room, because his bags had looked unfamiliar, though the aftershave was the same.
She lowered her voice and explained that, to make sure that it was really him by recognising at least one of his possessions, she had for the first time ever opened one of his suitcases.
She had the impression that he was not paying any attention. So much the better, she thought. But she did not dare say anything more.
“Shall we sleep a bit?” he said. “I’ve had a very tiring day. So have you, I think.”
After his breathing settled into sleep, she was able to think clearly again. Mentally, she told him about what happened after she opened the bag, the macabre photographs, her terror. She calmly asked him if he was really frightened of a summons of the kind that he saw in his dreams. What connected him to these murdered children? And why had they come to The Hague secretly, skulking like criminals?
Slightly relieved, she managed to doze for a few moments. She tried to imagine how he would reply. In the worst case, his face would cloud over and his gaze become stony. Who are you to ask questions like that? You’re just a call girl, a classy hooker and no more than that.
Before they went down to dinner, she sat in front of the mirror longer than usual.
He stared at her with amazement over the restaurant table. “You’ve become more beautiful,” he said softly.
Rovena could not keep her eyes off him.
“You say that with a certain regret, I think.”
“Regret? Why?”
Rovena became flustered.
“Well… now… now that we’re different… In fact, I wanted to say… Do you want me ugly now…?”
“No, no. I would ask for anything but that.”
“In fact, that’s not exactly what I wanted to say… what I really wanted to ask was… In the hotel, when you fell asleep, I couldn’t put these questions out of my mind…”
Hurriedly, as if fearful that her courage would desert her, she blurted out all of her suspicions. He looked stern, and she thought her worst fears were realised. Who are you to interrogate me like this? You’re a call girl, that’s all.
You’ve no right to call me that. Yes, you’ve turned me into a high-class whore, but once you were my husband.
These words went unspoken, but she caught her breath in shock.
She was frightened as always, but less of him than of the truth.
He thought carefully before replying. “Yes, those were photographs of murdered children. But not what you might have imagined. They were Serbian children, victims of the NATO bombing.”
Rovena listened, nonplussed. She bit her lips and repeated twice or three times, “I’m sorry.”
She had nothing to apologise for. It would be terrible to find photographs like that in any bag. She had every right to think what she liked. She could even suspect that he, Besfort, was a murderer of children. In fact, the photographs had been sent to him for that very purpose, to mark him as a murderer.
Fearfully, she clasped his hand. His fingers looked longer and thinner. He talked as if she were not there. What was happening was difficult to describe. It was a macabre photograph competition: pictures of Serbian children torn apart by bombs and of Albanian children ripped open by knives were distributed by each side to departments, commissions and committees. Grotesque slanging matches followed. Was there or was there not a scale of horror in death? Some insisted that every child’s death was a tragedy that could not be compared to any other, and they could not be ranked in order. Others took a different view: the death of a child in a road accident was not the same as the death of a child in an air raid, and both were quite different from the murder of a baby, slit open by a knife wielded by a human hand. Eight hundred Albanian infants butchered like lambs, often before their mothers’ eyes. It could drive you insane. It was apocalyptic.
The candles on the table danced gently in the breath of his speech. She hoped they would distract his
