The Method by Juli Zeh

– Rosentreter. His lanky frame is slightly stooped, as if he were trying to make himself shorter. He runs his hand through his floppy hair for the hundredth time.
    ‘Happy now?’ asks Mia.
    ‘I’ve been admiring the view.’ Rosentreter scatters a few loose hairs and turns to face Mia.
    ‘I’m not interested in the view,’ she says. ‘I want to know if you
like
playing the torturer.’
    ‘Interesting you should mention torture. It may surprise you to learn that the introduction of torture was a milestone in the development of the modern criminal trial.’
    ‘Who does he take me for?’ says Mia to the ideal inamorata. ‘He’s as bad as the rest.’
    ‘I like him better than the other one,’ says the ideal inamorata. ‘There’s something about his eyes – like a small boy in a toyshop.’
    ‘This man,’ says Mia loudly, pointing at Rosentreter, ‘sabotaged my case.’
    ‘I know the business with torture sounds absurd,’ says Rosentreter, raising a hand to his chin as if he were giving a seminar on legal history, ‘but it’s absolutely true. It followed the abolition of trial by ordeal –
judicium Dei
. Thereafter man, not God, was supposed to sit in judgement over humankind. But how could ordinary humans without divine knowledge be relied upon to divine the truth? Confession was the only reliable indicator of guilt. Sadly, defendants couldn’t be counted upon to confess, so the system came up with a means of …’ Rosentreter smiles to himself ‘… probing their conscience.’
    ‘If you don’t mind,’ says Mia, ‘I’d like to get back to the workings of
my
case. That’s enough of a torture for me.’
    ‘The use of torture was a casualty of humanism,’ says Rosentreter, unabashed. ‘It left us with a problem, though. We’re still not really comfortable with punishing people who protest their innocence to the last.’
    ‘We don’t know each other,’ says Mia, taking a step towards him. ‘I have no idea who you are. Or whose cause you’re hoping to serve by putting on this pantomime.’
    ‘I’m the counsel for the defence, and you’re the defendant. If we follow the rules of semantics, that makes me the counsel for
your
defence.’
    ‘You promised to get me out of this mess,’ says Mia. She jabs her finger at him in a prosecutorial fashion. ‘And now, thanks to you, I’m in an even bigger hole. Perhaps you can offer me some advice, Herr Rosentreter. Can I sue you for what you’ve done?’
    ‘Of course. If you’re clever about it, you could have me disbarred for this morning’s performance.’
    ‘Marvellous,’ says Mia sarcastically. ‘In that case, I instruct you to sue yourself.’
    ‘You may wish to consider where your interests lie – and how you intend to defend them.’
    ‘Exactly what I’ve been saying,’ exclaims the ideal inamorata. ‘Which side are you on?’
    ‘Your brother was charged with sexually motivated homicide and sentenced to indefinite
vita minima
. Do you think he did it?’
    ‘I’m not prepared to discuss it with you.’
    ‘You think he was innocent, don’t you?’ Rosentreter closes the patio door. ‘You think he was innocent because you knew him.
Him
, in other words: his soul, his heart, his spirit. None of which play any role in human interaction, according to the Method.’
    Mia clutches her head, a battleground between her ragged nerves and the numbing effect of the pills. ‘Why does everyone on the planet see me as their political confessor?’
    ‘Because,’ the ideal inamorata says simply, ‘your time has come.’ She flings out her arms dramatically, just as Moritz would have done. ‘Warning, you are entering the real world. Small pieces represent a choking hazard.’
    ‘I wish you’d shut up,’ snaps Mia.
    ‘Good,’ says Rosentreter, satisfied. ‘It’s OK to get angry. After what happened this morning, we’re closer than you think.’
    ‘And what
did
happen exactly?’
    ‘It was a playground scrap.’ Rosentreter