T. Bunn - The Great Divide

“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.”

The 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.

The 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.”

“All 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.”

When they were in close, Marcus said, “I move that the video be admitted as evidence, Your Honor.”

Logan retaliated with the swiftness of hard preparation. “Objection. The witness Hao Lin clearly stated she could not hear what was being said. It might be the one time Miss Hao, or whatever her name really is, told us the full truth the entire time she was on the stand.”