Dislocation
There is literally and figurative a sense of dislocation at work in the novel from the very opening paragraphs. The narrator is dislocated from the familiar environs of her past when she decides to uproot herself and take on a new job in a completely unfamiliar city. This literal sense almost but not quite being stable pervades the text thematically as it consistently builds upon the concrete descriptions of her existence:
“The Hague bore a family resemblance to the European cities in which I had spent long stretches of my life, and perhaps for this reason I was surprised by how easily and frequently I lost my bearings. In those moments, when the familiarity of the streets gave way to confusion, I would wonder if I could be more than a visitor here.”
The Interpreter
The job of a high-level interpreter working for what is familiarly referred to as the World Court in The Hague at which trials are held for war criminals is revealed through imagery that conveys the daily work requirements well enough but goes far beyond that. Rather than a mere presentation of job requirements on display, the imagery interprets the emotional toll that is placed upon the person who usually viewed as simply a go-between by external observers. The truth is far different:
“He never looked at her again. However, she found that her voice had shifted, despite herself she had been cowed. The next time she was required to recite a litany of the horrific acts perpetrated by the accused, her voice took on a pleading tone, in response to which the accused gave a thin smile. Somehow, she had become uncomfortable with the idea of confronting the man with his crimes, these heinous accusations that she was not herself making but was simply interpreting on behalf of the Court. Don’t shoot the messenger, she almost added, before remembering that this was precisely the kind of thing the accused did, it might even have been on the list of crimes, actually shooting the messenger.”
Relationships
Every aspect of the narrator’s life is tumultuous to a certain degree. The dislocation of being in a new country in a new job is matched by the uncertainty of new friends and their own relational position to old friends. Or, more precisely in this case, to current lovers. A bizarre little triangle forms that isn’t quite about love in the same way that nothing in the narrator’s life is quite about stability:
“The food looked delicious and Jana was quick to compliment Adriaan on his choices, I never could have ordered so well, she said. It was a strange and slightly inane compliment and one that was almost certainly a lie, Jana loved to cook and eat out and at any rate it wasn’t a particularly stellar achievement, ordering a takeout meal. Jana lifted her glass of wine and said, Well, here we all are. She was still smiling and her voice was vibrating with tension. Adriaan nodded as he raised his glass, he thanked Jana for inviting him into her home, of the three of us he was the only one who seemed truly at ease.”
The Accused
The accused facing trial before the World Court are not your typical criminals. Far from bank robbers or kidnappers, they are even well above the level of those few infamous serial killers who actually stand trial after police stumble their way into actually stopping their reign of terror thanks to a timely speeding ticket or brake light not working. These are the criminals who make even the most famous criminals look like merely petty thieves by comparison. And yet, they are just as human:
“She sat in the mezzanine-level booth, the accused positioned directly below her in the courtroom. He was still a young man, a former militia leader, wearing an expensive suit and slouched in an ergonomically designed office chair. He was on trial for hideous crimes and yet he simply looked, as he sat, sullen and perhaps a little bored.”
