More damaging was the accusation that the tribunal judges were actively conspiring to delay the trials of big-ticket mass murderers because of fears that hearings in open court would reveal the complicity of U.N. personnel in the genocide.
From the safety of her office in Dublin, a tribunal registrar named Maria Robertson responded by scolding the survivors for their “incendiary language” and cautioned against “instigating a cycle of violence.” Speaking in Lagos, consultant Professor Albin Larsen stressed the complexity of the situation and advised patience.
The nineteenth hit also emanated from the Nigerian capital, and it gave me pause: description of a program called Sentries for Justice, aimed at helping steer young African men away from lives of crime.
The group, staffed by European volunteers, functioned by “offering synergistic alternatives to prison that engender efficacious rehabilitation and attitudinal shifting through a holistic emphasis upon the interplay between socially altruistic behavior and communal social norms set into place during the pre-Colonial era but disrupted by colonialism.” Services offered included parenting education, jobs skills training, drug and alcohol counseling, crisis intervention, and something called “cultural demarginalization.” Synergy was illustrated by the use of Sentries buses, driven by Sentries alumni, for transporting criminal detainees to court. Most of the volunteers had Scandinavian names, and Albin Larsen was listed as a senior consultant.
I printed the citation, and moved to the last few hits. More speeches by Larsen, then the final reference, posted three weeks ago: calendar of events at a Santa Monica bookstore named The Pen Is Mightier. A Harvard professor named George Issa Qumdis was scheduled to deliver a speech on the Middle East, and Albin Larsen would be there to introduce him.
The speech was tonight, in four hours. Professor Larsen was a busy man.
I scanned the Sentries for Justice citation for buzzwords and keyed them into several search engines. “Syngerstic alternatives,” “efficacious rehabilitation,” “attitudinal shifting” “demarginalization” and the like pulled up lots of academic verbiage but nothing useful.
It was 5:30 P.M. when I pushed away from the computer, and I had nothing much to show.
I made some coffee, munched on a bagel, and drank, thinking and looking out my kitchen window at a graying sky. I realized I’d been seduced by the cheap trick that was cyberresearch and decided to do it the old-fashioned way.
*
Olivia Brickerman and I had worked together at Western Pediatric Hospital, she as a supervising social worker, I as a fledgling psychologist. Twenty years my senior, she’d seen herself as my surrogate mother. I hadn’t minded one bit because she’d been a benevolent mother, down to home cooking and a cheerfully nosy interest in my love life.
Her husband, an international chess grand master, had written the Final Moves column for the Times. He’d since passed on, and Olivia had dealt with her loss by plunging herself back into work, taking a series of short-lived, well-paying state consultantships, then easing into a position at the genteel old school across town where I was nominally a med school professor.
Olivia knew more about grantsmanship and the way government operated than anyone else I’d ever met.
At five-forty, she was still at her desk. “Alex, darling.”
“Olivia, darling.”
“So nice to hear from you. How’s life?”
“Life is good,” I said. “How about you?”
“Still kicking. So, how’s the new one working out?”
“She’s working out great.”
“Makes sense,” she said. “Both of you in the same profession, lots of common ground. Which isn’t to say I have anything against Robin. I love her, she’s lovely. So’s the new one—that hair, those eyes. No surprise there, a good-looking guy like you. Get yourself a new dog?”
“Not yet.”
“A dog is good,” she said. “I love my Rudy.”
Rudy was a walleyed, shaggy mutt with a lust for deli meat. “Rudy rocks,” I said.
“He’s smarter than most people.”
Last time I’d spoken to her—three or four months ago—she’d sprained an ankle.
“How’s the leg?” I said. “Back to jogging yet?”
“Hah! Can’t get back to a place you’ve never been. Truthfully, the leg’s still a little gammy; I should take off weight. But thank God. The latest thing is, I’m on blood thinners.”