I RETURNED TO the hotel, and Myriam listened attentively to my explanations, and my plan for Josué. She smiled as I struggled to think it through.
“Is he likeable? Were you moved by him? Did you ask him what he wanted? Do you want to adopt him?”
“Myriam, I want to free the parents of a child soldier, not open an adoption agency!”
She sat up in the bed. Her diamond gaze could slice through glass. “What did you come here for?” I avoided her shining eyes, and looked away from her naked body. Feelings make for untrustworthy counsel—so says the wisdom of the ages. I lay down and tried to ignore her graceful body that moved close to mine. She slipped a leg between my legs and wrapped one arm around my shoulder.
How was I going to organize the operation to free Josué’s parents? In my initial wave of anger and shame when the Court betrayed justice in the name of legal procedure, I thought I would move to Bunia as a sort of spy for justice, real justice, and observe the tragic consequences of Kabanga being freed. I would make a report the way I used to in my former job as analyst, I would alert the NGOs and my ex-colleagues from the Court, and maybe my report would heap shame on men obsessed with procedure and idealized law. Now I had to act, I needed a plan. I am not a man of action; I understood that much during my few youthful adventures as a militant. When life takes hold of me in its concrete grasp, I lose all strength, my power of analysis deserts me, and I become the emotional adolescent I do not want to be. I have to be wary of emotion. And Myriam is an emotion. At the same time, I feel that my body and other repressed flaws and hollows within me are drawn to her by threads I can’t name. I feel them sticking to my skin like spider webs. I tried, gently, to pull away from her warmth as she pressed against me.
Tomorrow, Josué will join us at the hotel, and we will plan our stay in Bunia. Myriam is breathing softly on my neck. Making love now would seal a covenant that would be definitive, or almost. I needed to reflect, step back from life and its emotions. When I have accomplished my work, whose nature I don’t even know, then I can let myself explore the misty, mysterious territory that lies beyond reason. But not before.