Borderlines

by Michela Wrong

  ‘Consequently,’ Judge Mautner seemed to be enunciating with special care, his mind on the final transcript that would record his words for posterity, ‘the commission finds it has jurisdiction over the government of Darrar’s jus ad bellum claim, pursuant to Article Six of the Tunis Agreement.’ I heard the rasp of heavy breathing next to me and looked at Winston. His chin was almost resting on his collar-bone, his mouth was slightly open and the bags beneath his eyes, which were fixed upon Judge Mautner, had formed aubergine portmanteaux of fatigue.

  ‘Having dealt with the question of mandate, let me address the merits of the respective cases,’ continued Judge Mautner. We hadn’t put our case, but there was no stopping him. Like a builder who smears dollops of mortar into the gaps in a wall after running short of bricks, he simply used the explanatory statements our side had made to the UN back when initial peace negotiations were under way to build a case on our behalf, then went on to demolish that wobbly structure with the pounding blows provided by Henry Alexander’s relentless complaints.

  ‘This commission accordingly finds that North Darrar violated Article Two, paragraph four, of the Charter of the United Nations. This article requires that all members refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.’

  Jurisdiction, merit, findings. Judge Mautner looked up with the air of someone expecting applause for executing some remarkable counter-intuitive manoeuvre. As, indeed, he had.

  Winston lurched to his feet. ‘I’d like it on record, Mr Chairman, that my client rejects this interpretation and that this ruling, by short-cutting agreed procedure, denies North Darrar a key opportunity to present the facts of the matter.’

  Judge Mautner simply ignored him. ‘That winds up this commission. I understand that the two governments have arranged a press conference this afternoon. The commission itself does not plan to make any comment, but copies of the award will be made available. May I take this opportunity to thank the two delegations and their legal representatives for their diligence and professionalism. Working with you has been a pleasure and an honour. With that, I declare these proceedings formally adjourned.’

  The crack of the gavel, the scream of scraping chairs, the shuffling of papers, a low murmur of excited voices. Kennedy and the ambassador had disappeared, gone, presumably, to consult their master. Winston and I sat immobile in our chairs, staring straight ahead. Only a few pages. It had taken Judge Mautner less than ten minutes to read out the commissioners’ last, idiosyncratic, finding but it had changed everything. With one hand the tribunal had given, with the other they had slapped us across the face. A smart-alec line ran through my mind, best not uttered: ‘So much for the red socks, eh, Winston?’ Judge Mautner had turned out to be more closet reactionary than secret revolutionary.

  I felt Abraham leaning over us, seeking guidance, worried by this sudden uncharacteristic passivity. ‘So, we take all the equipment back to the hotel, yes? I pack up and load the car?’

  Winston cleared his throat. ‘Yes. That’s right, Abraham. Please excuse me for just one moment.’ He jerked back his chair and marched briskly out of the room, his exit followed by thirty pairs of eyes.

  Raising myself to my feet seemed to involve a superhuman effort. I made a half-hearted attempt to help Abraham, as he quietly unplugged the laptops and started stacking documents, but my hands were shaking so violently he caught them in two calming palms. ‘I will do this, Paula. You are putting these in the wrong order. Go, go and have a cigarette. I will see you in the parking lot. Twenty minutes.’

  I punched the door leading onto the fire escape, like a boxer. And there, in the winter chill, stood the man I wanted to see at that moment more than anyone else: Brett Harris. He whirled around, surveying me with an expression of wary speculation.

  ‘So what the fuck just happened?’ I spat at him.

  He looked down, turning his two polished brogues the better to admire them. ‘Well … The commission delivered its award, and everyone won a bit and lost a bit. Seems pretty even-handed to me.’

  ‘Lost a bit? A bit? We’ve just been labelled mindless warmongers by a supposedly neutral commission.’

  ‘You got Sanasa, which I seem to recall mattered rather a lot to your side. Treat it as a fair trade.’ His jaw, mottled with the blue-black sheen of rising stubble, seemed suddenly very square. His voice was high and nasal, his face devoid of sympathy. So this was the real Brett Harris.

  ‘I’m not sure it was worth it, if it meant being anointed the Antichrist in the eyes of the world.’

  ‘If your side doesn’t like it, try to appeal. But you don’t need me to tell you that you’d better have some pretty hefty technical justification. And it won’t win your employers any friends. “Final and binding”, remember?’ His lips curled into something very much like a sneer. ‘No one likes a sore loser.’

  ‘The commissioners’ decision to appoint themselves judge and jury on an issue totally outside their jurisdiction strikes me as a pretty hefty justification. Talk about straying off the reservation. They set up their own fucking independent republic.’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, it’s your call. In your shoes, I’d be feeling content today. Not happy, but content. You got a lot more territory than I expected, to be frank. It could have been much worse.’

  He was anxious to go back inside. But the fire escape was too narrow to allow two people to pass without touching and the last thing he wanted was physical contact. I wasn’t about to make things easier for him by flattening myself against the wall. I registered his gathering irritation with sadistic satisfaction.

  ‘So, was this the neat little formula your boss, Judge Mautner, Eddie Connors and Henry Alexander cooked up in Chez Bertrand over that dinner I stumbled on six months ago? It was, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Why was it all so furtive, if there was nothing underhand going on?’

  Even as I spoke I realised his expression of surprise wasn’t fake. He hadn’t been briefed about that particular meeting.

  ‘You’re getting paranoid in your old age, Paula. Are you honestly suggesting my country leaned on an independent commission to produce an award that suits our strategic interests?’

  I cocked my head and looked at him. It was something about his use of the words ‘my country’ and ‘strategic interests’. We stared at one another as a silent acknowledgement took tangible shape between us, almost as visible as his breath, caught in the damp air. I knew, with absolute certainty, that he had just inadvertently spelled out exactly what had happened. He flushed.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am … And why did you, actually, Brett? I’d really love to know. You’re the one who delivered the lecture about the delights of international arbitration. How neat and tidy everything was going to be once the law was allowed to take its course. Does that apply only when the outcome goes the way Washington wants?’

  Turning his back on me, he took hold of the iron banister with both hands, hunching his shoulders for a moment, relieving some tightness. Then he straightened, gazed meditatively out over the gardens and spoke from the heart. Perhaps, I thought, for the last time in what would no doubt be a stellar career at the Agency.

  ‘I don’t expect your sympathy, Paula, but as it happens, this hasn’t been that easy for me, either. I guess when we had lunch in Lira that day I was still a rather inexperienced diplomat. What I told you was certainly US policy. It still is US policy. But there are nuances. You can’t blindly apply abstract principles to complex, shifting scenarios. Compromises have to be made.’

  ‘Is that what your bosses tell you?’

  ‘If we suspend for a moment the tactful euphemisms, your guys lost the war, right? It was a rout. You weren’t here. I was. Soldiers were commandeering civilian buses to get as far from the border as they could, ministers were packing their bags, aides were shredding documents, the presidential jet was rev
ving its engines on the tarmac, ready to whisk the first lady off to Qatar. So you take that set-up, and then you say to a government whose army could have walked into Lira unopposed, looted, raped and burned at will, but which magnanimously decided to hold back – in part, if I may say so, at Washington’s urging – and you say, “Hey, funny thing, it turns out you got it wrong on the border all along. Sanasa doesn’t belong to you. Terrible shame about the hundred thousand dead soldiers, but you’ll have to withdraw.” You think that’s going to hold? They desperately wanted control of that port, you know, and they didn’t get it.’

  ‘Well, maybe they shouldn’t have put a congenital liar on the stand.’

  He rolled his eyes as though he was dealing with a tiresome child. ‘Look, the grim truth is that peace deals that don’t match up with realities on the ground never stick. History shows that time and time again. OK, so the other side fucked up in their choice of lawyers and they came a cropper with a Walter Mitty fantasist. But they had to leave the table with something. A sweetener to help the medicine go down.’

  I smacked my hand to my forehead. ‘But this isn’t a peace treaty, it’s a border commission! That’s what they signed up for! If “Anything to keep you happy” is the only acceptable answer from the get-go, then it’s not a “neutral and independent” arbitration process, is it?’

  He stared at me. ‘These guys simply won’t accept public humiliation, Paula. They can’t. Our ambassador over there has told us the government believes it would be swept from power if the award went entirely against them. They’re already being torn to shreds by the opposition for having agreed to arbitration in the first place, rather than simply taking what the hardliners see as territory won in battle, rightfully theirs. They had to have something to throw to the jackals.’

  ‘Oh, come on. They would tell the ambassador that, wouldn’t they? Has it ever occurred to any of you that they might be playing you?’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘Look at it from Washington’s perspective. Is that what we want? To help topple one of the most progressive governments in the region? Not perfect, sure, not democratic in the sense you and I understand, but investment-friendly, pro-Western, and our closest ally when it comes to fighting Islamic extremism. You have no idea how worried the State Department and the Pentagon are about what’s happening on that front. Let’s not kid ourselves what life is going to be like in the Horn if the Islamists ever come to power. Women stoned for adultery, amputations, public floggings, and Al Qaeda firmly entrenched on the African continent. Would that be a good outcome for all concerned?’

  ‘But that’s not the point.’ I slammed my hand down on the iron banister. ‘You sound like a Congressman justifying support for the Shah of Iran. We’re supposed to have moved on from the Cold War. This wasn’t supposed to be about realpolitik, remember? It was supposed to be about justice, pure and simple. About the law.’

  He gave me a pitying smile. ‘Don’t be naïve, Paula. You’re all grown-up now.’

  A wave of fury washed over me, setting my face aglow. ‘Why bother with any of this charade if that was the plan all along? All these extraordinary minds brought into one room, all that knowledge and expertise,’ my voice was beginning to wobble, my hands were tracing cartwheels in the air, taking in the whole of the Peace Palace and everyone in it, ‘the commissioners, the legal best and brightest, the translators and drivers and fixers and witnesses and all those poor IDPs …’ All that fucking goodwill. The trust Winston and I had whipped up with our clearly ludicrous claim that there was order in the universe, a Right and a Wrong, and we would guide North Darrar and its citizens steadily towards the Ultimate Truth. How had Brett and his bosses dared, how could they bear, to turn it into one big joke?

  He shrugged again. ‘You got paid your salary, didn’t you? I gather it’s a fairly generous one, too. At the end of the day, don’t forget you’re just a hired gun.’

  So I was the one who turned on my heel and flounced off the fire escape.

  34

  Abraham was stowing boxes in the back of the hire car.

  ‘Where’s Winston?’

  ‘He said he preferred to walk. He wanted the fresh air. Don’t worry, I made him take his coat.’

  I got in, and we drove the long route back to the Royal Delft dictated by the one-way system, silent together until the first set of traffic lights, where we sat and waited. As the early darkness of the European winter closed around us, the rain began.

  ‘So, we got Sanasa.’ Abraham’s voice was tentative. He knew this was not the whole story. ‘But …’

  ‘But. They said we started the war. We are morally responsible for all the deaths.’

  Both his eyebrows shot up. ‘That is absurd. Everyone knows we were attacked first. Any Lira resident who was listening to his radio on the seventh of June can tell you.’

  ‘Unfortunately that doesn’t count as evidence.’

  A long pause. ‘Can we appeal?’

  ‘I’m not sure. My guess is it’s all over bar the shouting.’

  Fat drops of rain splattered noisily against the windscreen. A few degrees colder and the drops would have been snowflakes. I leaned my head on the window and savoured the pane’s cool moisture on my hot brow. A few cyclists cruised by us, model citizens heading back to orderly Dutch homes. I caught a potent, feral tang from my groin and armpits and wondered if I was stinking up the car. I felt as though I had been awake for weeks, for months.

  There was a silence as Abraham mulled things over. He stroked a sideburn meditatively. ‘So, perhaps it will be war again,’ he mused softly.

  ‘Christ, I hope not.’

  He gave a long, slow sigh. ‘Foreigners never understand this, but sometimes there are worse things. Humiliation is worse, most of my countrymen would say.’

  The lights changed, and we set off again, Abraham smoothly manoeuvring through the heavy traffic.

  ‘You’re always so calm, Abraham, I wish I could find your serenity.’

  He gave a light laugh. ‘Maybe it’s my time at the front. It used to get a bit crazy with all the bombing. There was nothing we could do. We just had to sit there, waiting to die. It was important to find some peace inside you at those times. I tell myself that if someone doesn’t actually get killed in front of me, then it’s not so bad.’

  Another set of traffic lights. He switched on the fan heater, then adjusted it to its quietest setting. ‘And also …’ He paused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, please do not misunderstand, Paula, but your kind has different expectations. I’ve learned this over the years, working alongside you. Americans, Westerners, the human-rights people, the NGOs, you all have this quality. You really believe you can change things.’ There was incredulity in his voice. ‘It is the great strength of your culture. This is why we need you. But sometimes you remind me of big, noisy children who want to have everything. And children are often disappointed.’

  ‘Hey, you and your comrades fought for decades for what looked like a doomed cause. Surely you only did that because you thought you could make a difference.’

  ‘It wasn’t the same.’ He shook his head, thinking aloud: ‘We fought because … because the Struggle was who we were. It was our father, it was our mother. All my friends were fighters, my brothers, my cousins. But I don’t know how many of us ever thought we would live to see Liberation. The Struggle was the thing, to be there together. It was a terrible time, but also a very happy time. The result was not so important, in a way.’ He shrugged. ‘No, your kind are different. Sometimes I feel very sorry for you. Hope is a terrible thing.’

  He had not meant it to come out that way, I knew, but I winced. I wasn’t used to being patronised.

  I found Winston back at the hotel. For a moment, scanning the frenzied mess of files and documents, laptops and extension cables, uncollected mugs and mustard-smeared plates, I assumed the room was empty. Then I realised that what I had taken to be a crumpled blanket thrown into an armchair was my
boss. He sat with his eyes closed, head resting on his chest, hands limp in his lap. It wasn’t clear whether he was sleeping or gathering his wits. He had taken off his tie, which streaked across the floor, and the top of his shirt was unbuttoned. It was shocking to see a man so rigidly self-contained in a state of virtual undress. I noted the sunken chest, the folds around his collar-bone, the way his sallow skin sagged around his cheekbones. Then I felt a spasm of guilt at witnessing this moment of nakedness.

  I started moving around the room, installing a modicum of order. The clink of cups stirred him. After a moment, he opened his eyes, yellow and rheumy. He saw me, but for a brief moment I could tell that he had absolutely no idea who I was. He gestured vaguely towards the bathroom and I fetched his pills, handing them over silently with a glass of water. I watched, fascinated, as he returned to himself, a scrunched-up sponge soaking up substance. He straightened in his armchair, rolled his shoulders and reached in one fluid motion for the TV remote.

  We always kept the screen permanently tuned to BBC World. Together, we watched the ribbon of headlines unspooling below a soccer match … ‘BLAIR HINTS BRITISH TROOPS COULD PULL OUT OF IRAQ’ … ‘BIRD FLU RESISTANT TO ANTI-VIRAL DRUG’ and then, finally, there we were: ‘NORTH DARRAR STARTED WAR, HAGUE COMMISSION RULES’. No mention of Sanasa. The focus of every news story since the war, the port had been related to fourth-paragraph status, a virtual irrelevance.

  ‘Well,’ said Winston, ‘that’s one decision the international community is going to live to regret.’

  ‘Are they? I bumped into Brett at the Peace Palace and he seemed to think it meant peace in our time. Darrar gets moral vindication, our side keeps Sanasa, regional stability assured. It may not be legal, was the message, but it keeps everyone happy.’

  Winston looked at me in astonishment. ‘Is that what they really think? Good God, I wouldn’t have thought such naïvety possible. That award’s a perfect recipe for a new war. The other side is never going to withdraw its troops from occupied areas now that it’s been anointed innocent victim. Their troops will remain in situ, harassing and bullying the population, and in two years’ time or ten, there’ll be another trigger incident and the fighting will break out again. And when that bust-up ends, you can rest assured that no one will call in the lawyers. They’ll have learned their lesson. The only advice someone like me will be able to offer a government will be “Fight to the death. Throw your sons and daughters into the fray. Shed as much blood as you want, because if you don’t win on the battlefield you’ll see your fate being decided in cynical deals struck by white men who can barely locate your country on a map.”’