The Great Divide (39 page)

“Yes.”

“How far were you from this window, Miss Hao?”

“Five machines.”

“So that would be no more than fifty feet, is that correct?”

There was a swift discourse, then, “Less.”

“So they took Gloria into the room. What was she doing?”

“Crying. Everybody cried.”

“Did you see what happened in there?”

“Yes. All must watch.”

“Please tell the court what you saw, Miss Hao.”

“They brought in a camera and made a tape.”

“A videotape?”

“Yes. They make her read off a sheet of paper. I watched carefully because I had not seen anything like this.”

“Was General Zhao taking part?”

“No. The general had not been to the factory in over a month. Longer.”

“So his son made the tape.” Marcus turned toward his table. He had to at least try and show the Halls what this cost him. Both parents looked stricken to the point of numbness, which was not altogether a bad thing. He asked quietly, “What happened then, Miss Hao?”

“They took the American girl down the stairs.”

“Where did the stairs lead, Miss Hao?”

She had the decency to stare sadly at the parents and say nothing.

Marcus waited a long moment. The air itself held a choking breath. “Miss Hao, where did the stairs lead?”

“Nobody knows.” The woman’s voice blew through the court like breath of the final winter. “Nobody ever came back.”

“No!”
It was not Alma who shrieked, but Austin. The man toppled from his chair and would have collapsed in his attempt to rise had Charlie and Alma not been there to catch him.
“No!”

Judge Nicols was on her feet as well. “Court is recessed until one o’clock.”

Y
OUR WITNESS, Mr. Logan.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Logan was slow in rising, not out of fear, but rather from caution. He faced a new opponent. He sought to strike the killing blow. “Let me understand what you told the plaintiff’s lawyer, Miss Hao. That
is
your real name?”

“Hao Lin. Yes.”

Marcus struggled to concentrate fully. But it was difficult. His mind felt clawed by the morning’s testimony and Austin’s collapse. Not to mention the news that Kirsten had given him during the break.

Charlie was off comforting Austin the best he could. Marcus sat with Alma, who had insisted on returning to the courtroom. One of them had to be there, she said over and over, not for themselves but for Gloria. Marcus had sent Kirsten off on another assignment, one that could not wait. Not after he had received the information she carried.

Marcus remained caught not only by the news, but by the way Kirsten had delivered it. Alma and Austin had been broken by the morning, and the scars were fresh upon Alma’s drawn features. Kirsten, however, had neither wept nor withdrawn. She had kept her gaze fastened upon him, as though his example was what kept her intact. She had delivered her news in a steady voice, turning so that she could not see Gloria’s parents huddled with Charlie. She had watched him digest the news, and accepted his instructions with the silent steadiness of a pro.

Marcus willed himself to turn away from the memory of that beautifully intent gaze, and watched Logan begin his stalking dance.
“All right, Miss Hao. What you want the jury to believe is that you just happened to be held in this factory in China. Then you escaped. Then you got on a boat. Then you crossed the ocean—wait, excuse me, you crossed
two
oceans. Because you would have first passed over the Pacific, then somehow gotten over here to the Atlantic. And then you wound up in little old Raleigh, North Carolina. Now is that right, Miss Hao? Have I stated that correctly?”

“I was released. Not escaped. But all else is correct.”

“You were released.”

“Yes. I served the full six years, then they let me go.”

“Then you just happened to find a boat heading to America.”

“No. The boat master found me. They like to take
lao gai
prisoners. They know we will pay anything to leave China.”

Logan kept his distance from the witness stand. He did not approach, did not threaten. He moved cautiously, lightly. His tone was mild, almost a singsong. “But you didn’t have any money, did you?”

“No.”

“So if you couldn’t pay anything, you would
do
anything to get away from China.”

“Yes. Anything.”

She was so diminutive, so frail and weary and tragic, that Logan did not dare turn the jury against him by striking hard. He paced, but far away. He asked his questions in a voice almost as soft as her own. “You got into this country by not telling the truth, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You had to lie to get in.”

“I came without papers.”

“But the ends justified the means, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“So you feel there are times when lying is justified, is that not true, Miss Hao?”

“Yes.”

“You took an oath at the beginning of your testimony. Do you know what an oath is?”

“A promise.”

“Exactly. A promise to tell the truth. But you have just said that you would do anything,
say
anything, to stay out of China. Even perjure yourself.”

“I have told the truth.”

“All right. Tell us a little more about your life back there. Are your parents still alive?”

“My mother only. She is a village doctor.”

“What did you do before you were arrested, Miss Hao?”

“I was studying at Guangzhou University.”

“What was your major, your field of study?”

She cast a bitter look over to where Logan stood on the courtroom’s far side, the only real sign of life she had given since he had risen to his feet. “I studied law.”

He hid his wince well. “How long were you at university?”

“Three and one-half years.”

“Over three years at university,” Logan said, moving gently back in her direction. “And yet you never studied English?” He caught her momentary hesitation, and moved in closer still. “Wasn’t English a required part of the university curriculum, Miss Hao?”

She spoke for herself then, the accent very strong. “Understand little. No speak.”

“So you
do
speak English. Did you not say you understood the oath to tell the truth?”

Hao Lin resumed speaking through the interpreter. “I never said I did not speak any English.”

“Of course not.” His smirk was for the jury. “You merely insisted upon the court’s paying the expense of flying down an interpreter for you, when in truth what you really wanted was to give yourself a bit more time to think over the questions and frame your answers more carefully. Is that not correct?”

Marcus rose. “Objection. Belaboring the witness.”

Judge Nicols hesitated, then shook her head. “Overruled. Witness is required to answer.”

“No. I needed help understanding and speaking.”

“One of the many great things about this country, Miss Hao, is how you are required to tell the truth up on the witness stand.” Logan moved to where he could lean upon the railing of the jury box. “Tell us the truth, Ms. Hao. Did you not always want to come live in this country?”

“Yes. Some. Not like now.”

“Isn’t it also true that the Great Wall of China may have been built to keep foreigners out, but now it serves to keep its own citizens in?”

“I don’t understand.”

Logan asked his softest question yet. “What would happen if you were sent back to China, Miss Hao?”

She showed electric terror. “I must not go back. I can’t.”

“So you would do
anything
to stay.”

“Yes. I said that.”

“Sell your brother?”

“Yes. But I have none.”

Soft as a velvet lash, he asked, “Sell your body?”

For the first time, she bowed her head. And did not respond.

Marcus readied for an objection if Logan pressed further, but he divorced himself from the question and her silent answer by crossing back to the courtroom’s other side. From that distance Logan continued, “No matter how genuine your motives are, Miss Hao, no matter how badly you want to stay in this country, nothing justifies lying under oath in a court of law.
American
law. It is a serious matter.” He turned back toward the stand. “So I ask you once again, Miss Hao, under oath: Would you not do or say anything to stay in this country?”

A voice like wind through broken reeds sighed, which the translator rendered as, “Yes. But I am telling the truth here.”

Logan took a single step toward the witness. “Is it not true that this video is essential to your own case?”

“I don’t understand.”

Another step. “In order to remain in this country, you must show the INS that you face severe persecution in your home country. You claim to have been held for years in this so-called factory prison. Isn’t this video the only evidence to uphold your claim?”

A tighter note entered her voice. “I have told the truth.”

Logan took a third step. His prey was in sight. He moved in for the kill. “Isn’t it true, Miss Hao, that you know how the game is played? Are you not aware that if you tell the jury everything the plaintiff’s lawyer wants them to hear, he will then help you stay in this country?” He walked over and rested one hand upon the witness stand. “Hasn’t he already offered to represent your own petition for asylum?”

The interpreter did not have time to catch up before Hao Lin begged in English of her own, “I tell truth.”

Logan turned away. “No further questions.”

T
HE MORNING was formed by all the treasures of autumn, yet Marcus took no comfort in the viewing. He stared out the Jeep’s side window as Darren drove him into town, seeing the magnificent fall cloak unfolding beneath a sky as deep as heaven’s well. But his heart still ached from the night tremors, and his mind was busy with what lay ahead. It was a bilious mixture, and ridiculed the day’s bequest. The air was so cold as to lift a silver-white veil from the fields and the forests, one that clung close and low to the earth. Trees rose from the mist as they would from a lowland of dragons and myths, some still green, others flaming beacons to the season’s wonder. Marcus felt an overpowering urge to shut his eyes, either that or tell Darren to drive faster. His inability to drink nature’s elixir shamed his grandmother’s memory.

The nightmare had clenched him tight as a jealous woman’s embrace, refusing to let him go, holding him under until he was sure he would drown, or perhaps merely wishing for a swifter demise. It whispered to him even now. Worse still was how it had occurred today of all days, when the world was waiting. Today, when the trial hung upon a silver thread, ready to be sent spinning like a mirrored top.

He realized he had to do something, just as they passed a trio of lakes bordering the highway. “See that picnic area up ahead. Pull in there for a second, will you?”

Darren either thought it was natural enough a request not to require comment, or not bearing enough importance. He slowed and turned, then turned again, finally coming to a halt with the Jeep’s
snout pointing back toward the highway, ready for any trouble and a quick departure. Marcus pried open his door and walked away.

The mist was heavier here, rising to his thighs and drifting in cold swaths as he moved. The graveled road was not hard to hold to, as pines and sycamores and wild fruit trees accompanied him to either side. Marcus walked out to where the loudest sound came from unseen ducks. They rested upon the mist-clad waters and chattered softly about this baffling day.

As he looked out over low-lying fog, the sun’s lip cleared the horizon. The vista was instantly transformed from one world to the next, rising to a province of glory and gold. The trees’ eastern faces shone a greeting of blondest adoration. The strengthening light must have reached to the lake’s surface, for a few dozen mallards burst from the golden froth. The instant they cleared the fog, they metamorphosed from feathered beasts to miniature seraphim with flame-touched wings.

Marcus followed their flight eastward, wishing he felt something more than empty. He knew now why the nightmares were becoming steadily fiercer. He sought to take a turning in his battered and wounded life. But the wisdom brought no consolation, only hazards.

Marcus stared at the sky, empty now of celestial spirits and signs, and wished he knew how to pray. It would be good to have someone from whom he might either seek strength or at least beg a way forward.

T
HE REAR
of the federal courthouse had a pillared alcove in one corner, a space set aside for the deputies standing courthouse duty. As Marcus exited the Jeep, a lone figure took the brick steps down from the alcove and started toward them. Marcus angled his approach to meet the retired patrolman.

Jim Bell said in greeting, “Feels cold enough this morning to make you think maybe summer’s been done in for good.” The bearded receptionist granted Darren a friendly nod. “How you doing, son.”

“Pretty g-good, Mr. B-Bell.”

Bell waited until Darren moved ahead a few paces, then said quietly, “A man in my position, he hears some things if he has the notion.”

“I’m listening.”

The voice dropped another notch. “The judge and Jenny both got calls yesterday. Asking no-account questions about their possible appointments.”

“Leaving no room for doubt that the calls are tied together,” Marcus filled in for him. “And tied to this trial.”

“The question is, what is so all-fired important that they’d both get this heads-up yesterday?”

“They’ll find that out this morning,” Marcus said. “The whole world will.”

“A
LL RIGHT
, Mr. Glenwood.” Judge Nicols had dispensed with the morning’s formalities in record time. “You may call your next witness.”

“Your Honor,” Marcus announced, “I feel it is time the jury had an opportunity to meet Miss Gloria Hall, and let her speak for herself.”

“Objection!” Logan had risen well before Marcus finished speaking. “Permission to approach the bench, Your Honor.”

“Very well.”