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.