Intimacies

While a metropolis dedicated to world justice and peacekeeping might arguably be considered a utopia, The Hague is in reality a cold, impersonal city in which everyone feels like an outsider in a transit station: a traveler with no sense of stability. The Hague also represents a concerted attempt to address global challenges, seek justice for war crimes, and maintain international peace by resolving conflicts that transcend national borders. Still, the narrator finds the place incomprehensible and perceives an unspeakable danger beneath its meticulously maintained façade. She explains the disquieting feeling by stating that “the city’s veneer of civility was constantly giving way, in places it was barely there at all” (11). Her experiences as an interpreter for the Court expose her to the moral complications of carrying out international justice, and she sees firsthand that what The Hague aims to achieve is effectively impossible. Moving to The Hague and working in the Court causes the narrator to confront the ethical challenges that arise when pursuing international justice. These moral quandaries permeate her personal life, and The Hague becomes a location that calls into question the narrator's belief in moral absolutes. The institutional nature of The Hague, as well as the formality of the global bodies inside it, add to her growing sense of distance and impersonality. This frigid formality pervades the narrator's interactions as she attempts to establish personal connections and intimacies in a city that does not feel like home.

On a grand scale, the Court is concerned with the difficulties of international relations and diplomatic endeavors to resolve global issues. However, living in The Hague makes the narrator feel small, and despite the city’s peaceful appearance, she finds living there to be physically and emotionally exhausting. With its international institutions, the city’s powerful presence threatens to subsume the narrator’s quest for self-discovery. The city serves as an intersection for people from all around the world to discuss global concerns such as war crimes and human rights violations. It represents the convergence of politics, law, and diplomacy on a massive scale, yet the narrator craves the intimacy of smaller interactions and the contentment of creating fulfilling relationships. Inside and outside the court, the city becomes a stage where the narrator confronts concerns of morality and accountability, and stepping away from the grandiosity of the Court into the personal lives of others brings the narrator into the complexities of people’s choices and the consequences that such choices can bring. While living and working in The Hague brings her a chance to study and judge others, the narrator’s personal experiences also push her to examine the delicate balance between personal and professional responsibilities, and she must ultimately confront the ways in which her interpretive work might compromise her values. At the moral climax of the story, the narrator, feeling overwhelmed by the demands of her life in The Hague, flees the claustrophobic Court and escapes to the dunes near the ocean. This is the farthest she can go without leaving, and her flight represents her desire to be free from the weight of the city. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator says, “[L]iving in The Hague inures you. It can be easy to forget what being in a real city is like” (6). Thus, running to the dunes is the narrator’s attempt to wake herself up from the hypnotic trance of The Hague and to feel alive again. For the narrator, The Hague becomes an emblem of power and global politics that is at odds with her desire to feel safe, connected, and rooted in something authentic.