Twenty years late, I finally translated this correctly

A sentence I botched in the booth in 1998 — the French delegate said 'nous sommes à la merci du silence' and I gave them 'we are at the mercy of silence,' which is fine, literal, safe. But what he meant was that the silence itself had become the negotiator, and the whole room knew it. I woke up at five this morning and the right English finally landed: 'we are hostage to the quiet.' Twenty-six years. I wrote it in the margins of this morning's paper like it could still be undone.