Most of the time, I manage to forget the more horrific things that I know, or have heard, or have seen.  I make myself forget that there are horrors in the world that people just can't understand.  Charlie, for instance, has experienced a lot of tragedy in his relatively few years, and yet he has never before tonight been confronted with something so repugnant, so...

Yeah, there's a reason I'm not the one writing the President's speeches.  I'm not Toby; I don't have the words.

After today, I don't have the energy to try to come up with words.  My plan is to go home to the warm embrace of my empty apartment.  Maybe pour myself a drink.

The bullpen is dark, a different flavor of dark than normal.  Or perhaps I just want my surroundings to match my mood.  And then it occurs to me that there's still a light shining in CJ's office.  Dim light, but not flickering, which means her desk lamp and no TVs.  This is a rare combination.  For CJ to have turned her TVs off, she must be in a state that resembles mine.

She's so amazing in the press room, so damn impressive that it's easy to forget that her true reaction to such horror is hidden.  Private.  She only takes it out and examines it in the dark.

And so I drop my backpack next to my desk and head for the small fridge instead of the door.  When I reach CJ's office, she's got her chair turned sideways, her shoes kicked off and her feet on the desk.  Her long, slim neck arches backwards, her head resting against the chair, her eyes closed.  But there's a tiny flicker of a smile on her lips that tells me my approach has not gone unnoticed.

"You know," I say, leaning against her door frame, twin bottles of beer dangling from my hands, "I liked this place better when it was masquerading as a brothel."

She almost laughs, but it transforms itself into a sigh as her eyes open.  "Me, too."  Rolling her head sideways, she fixes her sharp gaze on me.  "You brought me beer?"

"I did."  I accept her invitation and enter, ceremoniously placing the beers on her desk with a solid thud.  The office is so chaotic, so loud during the day, that I still have a hard time believing just how quiet it can get late at night.

While I wipe the condensation off my palms, CJ produces a bottle opener from the depths of her drawer and pops off the tops.  One bottle top skitters to the floor, making small metallic noises until it comes to rest somewhere out of sight.

"Oops," CJ says.  She doesn't sound concerned.  After taking a long pull from the bottle, she gently places it on her desk.  Her clasped hands come to rest on her stomach.  "Bad day?"

"Yeah." I flop onto her couch, sinking down until I'm a boneless puddle of Josh.  Every time I sit on CJ's or Toby's or Leo's couch, I consider getting rid of what Donna calls my Hulking Hutch of Doom in favor of something a little more comfortable to sit on.  Then I remember how much stuff I have crammed into that hutch and I get past it.  With a contented sigh, I tilt sideways a bit to avoid spilling and take a sip of beer from the cool glass bottle.

CJ's giving me her eyebrows-up amused-and-annoyed-at-the-same-time look.  "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I confirm, tugging at my tie until it's no longer strangling me.  "Bad day."

"Okay.  So you're just going to sit there in silence and drink beer."

"I'm not silent," I point out.  "I answered your question."

CJ turns her head away, staring in the direction of her window.  Her pose is one of relaxation, but her body is still tense, shoulders hunched up defensively.

"CJ?"

"What?" she asks quietly.

"Bad day?"

Her chuckle is bitter.  "Yeah," she says, giving me my non-answer back.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," I suggest.  "Though ten gets you twenty our bad days share a root cause."

She's looking at me again, which is a good sign.  "Ten gets you twenty?" she repeats, a note of amusement in her voice.

"It's an expression."

"Do you even know what it means?"

"Uh..."  Come to think of it, I really don't.  "It's a gambling thing."

"No kidding, Josh."  She shifts in her chair, rolling her shoulders, arching her neck to ease the tension.  "You don't understand gambling."

"I understand gambling," I argue, even though I recognize the diversionary tactic for what it is.  She's not ready to talk about Kundu yet.  Never one to disrespect a good diversionary tactic, I oblige her and take the bait.  "I can gamble with the best of 'em."

She rolls her eyes.  "You've never, ever beaten me at any game involving strategy, which is a little disturbing, actually, considering that you're the president's top domestic strategist."

"I'm not good with math."  Sad, but true.  I can figure out fourteen different ways to get to 51 or to 217, but budget allocation sessions are a waking nightmare.

CJ grins outright.  "And finally, the real reason why you always only boast about your verbal SAT scores."

"I do not boast--"

"Oh, please, Josh!  Anytime you use a multi-syllabic word, you follow it up with, '760 verbal, bay-bee!'"

"I think you have me confused with the President."

"The President got a 790 verbal," she points out with a devilish grin.

"You're a cruel, cruel woman, CJ."

She shrugs, utterly unconcerned, and turns her attention to the beer bottle.  Her long fingers encircle the throat, then she uses her fingernails to pick at the edge of the label.  I'm about to make an inappropriate comment about sexual frustration and beer labels when she clears her throat in that tentative way I only ever hear outside of the press room.  It's a small sound, nearly inaudible some days, but it usually signals something important.

"You know, Carol showed me something earlier that--"  She shakes her head, her eyes narrowing.  "I was enraged, Josh.  There's a website -- I think it's genocide.org -- and it's a collection of links to information on genocide.  Do you know what three names were listed under 'organizations promoting genocide?' "

"You're kidding." I shift a little on the couch, half-sitting.  "Promoting genocide?  They really didn't."

"They really did," CJ answers, ticking the names off with her fingers, "The Nazi Party, the National Alliance, and the U.S. government."

I have the sudden urge to hit something, to throw my beer bottle just to hear it shatter.  "That is incredibly..."  Frustrated, I shrug.

"I know," she says.  "I was going to ask Toby for a word to describe such a hideous, you know, thing, but I didn't want him to get sidetracked.  He's having enough trouble with the foreign policy section."

"Yeah," I answer, rubbing at my tired eyes.  "What'd that page link to?"

CJ's smile is heartbreaking.  "Us."

"The White House?"  My voice is louder than I expected, but God that makes me furious.  I very, very carefully put my bottle down on the floor.

"Yeah, you'd think Congress, if they wanted to point fingers," CJ says.

I'm sitting up, suddenly, leaning forward, my forearms on my knees.  "The U.N. passed the genocide convention in 1948; it took the United States Congress thirty-eight years to get around to passing it here, but it's suddenly the White House at fault?"

CJ lets the question hang in the air, her gaze catching on her bottle.  After a moment, she turns the bottle around once and then takes another healthy swig.

"CJ?"

"What?"

"You can't seriously think--"

"We're not promoting genocide," CJ interrupts fiercely.  "But we're not stopping it, either."

The truth of it makes me flinch.  I buy some time, taking a sip, letting the beer soothe my throat.  "I know," I admit finally.  "But it just started.  It's only been two days."

"Two days and 25,000 lives lost," she corrects me.

Nothing I could say would make that more palatable, but she's still looking at me like I can make it better.  I hate letting her down.  "I know."  My words come out on a world-weary sigh.

She nods slowly.  "I talked to Sam earlier."

I'm a bit startled by the subject change, and it takes me a moment to remember what day it is.  "Is he with the AFL-CIO today?"

"Yup."  CJ's slowly turning her beer bottle in circles on her desk.

"Speech and a meet-and-greet, right?"

"Right.  He sounds good.  Tired, but good.  Or he did until I asked him to explain the legal ramifications of the United States government recognizing what's going on in Kundu as a genocide."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"What'd he say?"

She makes an impressive attempt to smile.  "I thought you had a law degree, Josh."

"I have a J.D. from Yale, yes, thank you very much.  I could figure it out if I wanted to."

"But?"

"You already asked Sam," I answer.  "Seems silly to do the work twice if you know the answer."

She nods, her amusement dissipating.  "Did you hear my briefing?"

My smile fades.  "The church?"  There's no footage of the massacre yet, not even stills of the aftermath, but the Arkutu used machetes to murder hundreds of people in a church.  On holy ground.  I have my own, horrible mental pictures of what it must have been like, mixed up with images of emaciated Jews during the Holocaust, but haunting all the same.

CJ shakes her head, a pained expression on her face.  "No, the part where Mark asked if I was purposefully avoiding using the word 'genocide.'"

"Oh."  This, right here.  This is the part that I hate about being the party in power.  When there's something so horrible and so clearly wrong, if you're on the outside, you can make the case.  You can say, "This is a perversion of humanity, and it is our moral duty, not as Americans, but as humans to do everything in our power to stop it."  But when you're the one looking at polling data that confirms the cynical view that the American electorate doesn't want to send their sons and daughters into battle to save Kundunese lives and you're talking to the U.N. ambassador who's telling you the French will veto anything at the Security Council, it's a lot harder to say, "This is what's right and we should do it."  It shouldn't be, but it is.

"Which, of course," CJ continues, "I am.  I can't say 'genocide,' Josh, because then we might have to do something about it under the Convention."  CJ turns her anguished gaze to me.  "How can we not call this a genocide?  How can I stand up and say that the Arkutu are killing Induya, and just pretend that's not the classic definition of genocide?  This isn't sketchy, there's no confusion here.  This is as black and white as it gets."

I have no answers.  "I don't know.  Leo talked to Graham Gourevitch--"

"The U.N.'s not going to do anything," CJ snaps.

"They might, CJ.  The Security Council's been in emergency meetings all day.  Plus the Convention says any nation can suggest action."

"They're discussing a resolution urging the Kundunese government to stop the violence, which is ridiculous since the Kundunese government is, you know, inciting the violence.  And the Convention says 'such action as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide.'"

"Exactly," I say.  "You don't think the U.N. will send troops?"

"France has veto power.  The Prime Minister said today he favors a diplomatic solution."

"If we tell Gourevitch to make the strongest possible case to the Security Council -- Hell, we could send somebody else to show we're serious.  We could send Hutchinson."

"Hutchinson wouldn't go."

"He would if the President ordered him to," I point out.

"And he would do a horrible job because he doesn't think we should interfere in foreign affairs," CJ argues tiredly.

"This isn't electoral fraud or a rebel insurgence," I counter, my voice rising, "this is the government directing some of its citizens to murder the others on the basis of their race.  This is a genocide, and the genocidaires can't be protected by sovereignty."

CJ nods slowly.  "Who are you trying to convince?"

"So we send the President," I suggest.  "You think Jed Bartlet couldn't hit it out of the park on this subject?  How could France veto it after that?"

"They'd say what the PM said today: the reports are sketchy, second- and third-hand or worse, and that their own post-colonial intelligence network gives them a clearer picture of what they'd insist is merely a civil war between ethnic groups.  They'd say the U.S. was doing its typical, morally superior, cultural imperialism thing."  CJ dips her chin, and her hair obscures her face.  After a long moment of silence, broken only by my heavy, frustrated breathing, she says softly, "Some days I really do miss Hollywood."

"Me too," I agree, letting the frustration abate on a long, slow exhale.  I have the urge to stand with my back against the wall to ease the tension in my back, but, really, the couch is too comfortable.

She looks up at me, half-smiling.  "You never worked in Hollywood."

"I watch movies," I answer defensively.

Her smile grows, and then she's laughing, and I'm laughing with her, and it's a relief, even one small moment of levity in an awful, oppressive day.

"What's the last movie you saw?" she asks.

I'm shaking my head.  "I honestly couldn't say."

Her gaze goes out of focus for a moment as she tries to remember.  "I think mine was To Sir, With Love."

Fighting against the angry echo of Donna's words, I try to stay on subject.  "When the President screened it?"

CJ nods.  "Yeah, and recited Sidney Poitier's résumé."

"CJ?  I swear to God, that was before he announced for re-election."

"No," she argues, aghast.  "It can't be.  It was... No, you're right.  Bruno was there, complaining about the... the bunting, I think."  CJ inhales.  "God, I need to get out more."

I should say something here, make a joke about dating, about getting a life.  But Simon was the last guy as far as I know, except Danny, who's chasing the Shareef story, and I can't think of joke that wouldn't have an undercurrent of... something too dark for this moment.  Not even something about my own lack of a social life, because I don't get out much either, but Donna does.

"Josh?"

"Nothing," I answer absently.  I'm staring down at the beer bottle near my left shoe, amazed that I didn't knock it over when I sat up earlier.  Because it's there, I reach for it and take another sip, a long swallow.

CJ gives me an odd look.  "I didn't ask you a question."

I'm avoiding her gaze.  "Pre-emptive answer."

"Josh--"

"Donna's pissed at me."

I know from her expression that she understands the seriousness in my tone, but she gives me an out anyway, because that's what we do.  "Isn't that the normal state of affairs?"

I shrug, slumping back into the couch, slouching down.  "I may have accidentally suggested that Jack Reese might have requested a transfer."

CJ winces.  "Ouch."

"Yeah."

"Wait," she says, watching me closely.  "Jack Reese has been transferred?"

"Today, I guess," I answer.  "Aviano Air Force Base."

CJ frowns, puzzled.  "Isn't he a submarine commander?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure I follow the logic of sending him to an Italian Air Force Base, but then, the military often leaves me befuddled."

She ducks her head, smiling a little, and I can almost hear her teasing remark about the word "befuddled" even though she doesn't say it.  "Josh, why did you suggest--"

"I don't know."  It's my turn to gaze, unfocused, in the direction of CJ's windows.  While my windows overlook the employee parking lot, CJ's got a great view of Lafayette Park.  "Donna thinks Jack did the President a favor and Miles Hutchinson gave him a little payback."

"A favor?  What kind of -- Oh," she says.  "Something Nancy would've done if she weren't in Slovenia."

"Right."

"Something about Kundu," CJ surmises.

We just can't escape the subject tonight.  "I don't know, CJ.  But I think so."

"What did Donna want you to do about it?"

"Ideally, make the Secretary of Defense change his mind about ordering his troops around, but that's not really in my job description."

"Yeah," CJ says.  "Still, that was a really boneheaded thing to say to her, Josh."

"I know."

"Really, Josh, you can't--"

"I know."

She holds my gaze for a long moment, studying me.  "Okay."

We sit, silent, for a while.  I don't know what she's thinking about, but I have a feeling the administration's secrets are weighing on her.  Shareef.  Kundu.  My thoughts are filled with those appalling images of hundreds of dead bodies, lying under the harsh African sun, their brightly colored clothes stained with dark red blood and covered by a layer of dust.

"Did you know," I say after a while, "that the entire Dutch government resigned in April?"

CJ blinks.  "What?"

"The Dutch government resigned in April."

Nodding, she says, "I remember reading something about it."

"Do you remember why they resigned?"

"No."

"They resigned because they'd failed to prevent the Bosnian Serbs from capturing Srebrenica in 1995 and the, you know, resulting atrocities.  Can you believe that?"

CJ's expression is shadowed.  "You think we'll be resigning in a year for failing to prevent the Arkutu--"

"CJ."

"Because we might as well just resign now--"

"CJ."

"Why do you suppose I remembered the resignation and not the reasoning?" she asks quietly.

I'm not sure I understand what she's asking me.  "I don't know."

"Shouldn't I have remembered that it had something to do with genocide?"

"CJ--"

"Why is it so hard to convince people that it's true?"

The eternal question.  "Because," I answer slowly, "no one wants to believe that humans could do this to one another."

CJ inhales sharply, one hand momentarily covering her face.  She struggles for control, and then fixes her piercing gaze on me.  "I've seen it, Josh, the cruelty of humans, but never on such a massive scale.  How can humans do this?  How can they do this, Josh?"

I'm shaking my head.  "They think the people they're killing aren't human.  The Arkutu have been calling the Induya cockroaches for a year in public broadcasts.  The Nazis called Jews rats.  It's not as hard to kill a bunch of animals."

CJ slams her palm down onto the desktop; her beer bottle jumps but doesn't tip over.  "They're not animals."

"I know."  I remember my grandfather, his lined face, his smell, his warmth.  And I remember his tattoo, though I was too young to have memorized the numbers, I knew from the way he kept it hidden that it was something of importance, something he didn't want to talk about.

"I'm sorry, Josh."

"What?"  I try to focus on CJ, but she's a little blurry.  I blink a few times to clear my vision.

"I didn't mean to bring up painful--"

"It's okay.  It's fine.  My family survived it.  Most of them.  Did you know that I'm named for my uncle?"

Her eyes are so soft, so caring.  "I didn't know that."

"He and my aunt -- Jonika -- they died at Birkenau.  My great-grandmother understood why they were separating the healthy adults from the elderly and the children, and she--"  I have to stop, swallow hard.  "She took the kids from my grandmother, who didn't understand what the significance was.  She couldn't comprehend such sadistic motives.  My great-grandmother, Joshua, and Jonika were killed that same day."

"Josh."  Just my name.  CJ knows she can't say anything to make it better, so she rises, circles her desk, and settles next to me on the couch.  She's not touching me, just offering her closeness as comfort.

It's surprisingly effective.  "My point," I say, my voice steadier, "is that it's never understandable.  People never want to believe it.  There were plenty of reports in the early forties, but the Nazis disputed them, and, really, who wants to believe that their fellow humans are capable of such cruelty on such a large scale?"

"I really don't want to believe it," CJ confesses softly.

"Neither do I," I admit, touching her knee briefly.

"And yet I can't help but believe it.  The proof's on CNN."

"I know."

"You know, Justice Frankfurter, he once told a Polish spy who'd snuck into the Warsaw ghetto and one of the camps that he didn't believe him.  The spy insisted that he was telling the truth, and Frankfurter said, 'I do not mean that you are lying; I simply said I cannot believe you.'"

CJ nods slowly.  "That's it exactly."

"Yes."  I'm staring up at her ceiling, at the square fluorescent lights that are resting for the night.  "Did you ever meet Senator Proxmire?"

CJ frowns a little, trying to place the name.  "Democrat out of Wisconsin, right?  No, I never did."

"He retired in 1998.  But in 1967, he pledged to give a speech a day on the floor until Congress passed the Genocide Convention."

CJ raises her eyebrows.  "How many speeches did it take?"

"Over 3,000.  A different one every day."

"Wow."

"Yeah."  I lean down and capture the cool glass bottle for another swig of beer.  CJ holds out her hand, having left hers on her desk, and I hand it over.  "He was a really great man," I say softly.  "He's the real thing too."

"Did he die?" she asks carefully.

"No," I say, giving myself a mental slap for bringing up William Proxmire.  "No, he's still alive.  He's-- he's at a facility in Baltimore."

CJ's sharp gaze bores into me.  "A facility?"

Why can I not even once think before I speak?  "Alzheimer's," I say quietly.  "I'm sorry--"

"No, it's fine."  CJ takes another swig of beer, then sets the bottle down on the floor.

"How's your father?"

"He's fine."

Why don't I believe her?  "CJ--"

"He's forgetting things, Josh," she interrupts, despair in her voice.  "He's refusing help.  He's a stubborn old goat, and he won't let me take care of him."

I nod quietly.  It's my turn to offer silent support instead of platitudes.  After a few long minutes of quiet, I say, "We should go home, get some rest."

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight, Josh."

"I don't think I will either, but we should try."

She looks over at me, watching me curiously.  "Why?"

"We're going to have a long day ahead of us, making reluctant people believe that this thing is happening and that we have a responsibility to stop it."

There's a smile playing about CJ's lips.  "You think you can single-handedly change the foreign policy of this government?"

"Nah," I admit.  "Leo doesn't like to let me touch foreign policy.  But from what I've heard today, we've got an ally in Will Bailey.  And he's Tom Bailey's son, so he knows whereof he speaks."

CJ agrees with a brisk nod.  "Yes, but Toby's not convinced."

"Sure, he is.  He just thinks that the President isn't.  Did you see a copy of--"

"The floor speech on El Salvador?" CJ finishes for me.  "Yes.  It was..."

"Old school," I supply.

She nods.  "That's the guy I went to New Hampshire for."

"Yeah," I agree.  "And Leo's on board, too.  He's just worried about Hutchinson and his boys."

"Well," CJ says with an unconcerned shrug.  "Hutchinson and his boys work for Jed Bartlet."

"Right."

"And Jed Bartlet will step up to the plate."

The silence spools out between us, both a little less anguished now that we have some semblance of a plan, some action we can take.

"Josh, it's daytime in Kundu right now," CJ observes quietly.  "There are Induya being slaughtered--"

"I know." I push myself up, swallowing a groan as the muscles in my chest spasm in protest.  Gallantly, I hold out a hand to help CJ up.  "I'll walk you home."

CJ smiles, but slaps my hand aside, standing and padding over to her shoes.  "It's cold outside."

"I have my car, I could just drive you if you're gonna complain about the weather."

She grabs her jacket from her coat rack.  "Nah, let's walk."

I smile and push the phantom screams in my mind away.  "Tomorrow morning, first thing, we'll sit down with Leo and Toby and Will, and then we'll take it to the President."

"Good," she says, falling into step with me as we head for my office to get my jacket and my bag.  "Because I want to be able to say 'genocide' in my first briefing."

"Let's go," I tell her, one hand on her lower back as we head out into the cold night air.  Who knows if we'll succeed tomorrow, but at least we'll have done something.

THE END

02.11.03