The Price of Silence Read online

  “Are you a painter?” I asked.

  “For many years, before Mao,women have no history.We work hard like men but no one see us. My mother teach me I must make people always remember me. It is my duty to all my woman ancestors.”

  “There are many ways of being remembered.”

  “I paint peony blossom on your blouse.That is my way.”

  Her expression was sweet, soft. I wondered how old she was.

  Students were calling to each other.Feet bounced over the steps like so many dropped balls. It was the time between classes.The lecture would have been well underway.

  I stood up, held out my hand.“Goodbye,An-ling.Be well.”She turned my hand to look at my palm.“I tell your fortune?” The movement revealed the inside of her naked wrist.The skin looked bleached where the bracelet had kept it hidden.A light purple line, thin as a blade, extended across the band of white skin. I couldn’t see the other wrist, but I knew, without a doubt, that it too had a scar.A wave of pity and nausea overwhelmed me, followed by what I can only describe as intense grief.

  “Your life like a mountain. High, low. Soon very high.”

  She looked up, joyful with the good news. She didn’t realize her secret was out.

  “That’s great, thank you.” I retrieved my hand. “I have to go.”

  “I am sorry I paint on your blouse.”

  “It’s okay. Good-bye now.”

  She bobbed her head, a pinched, sad look now on her face.“Bye, Lady Teacher.”

  I walked quickly down the steps and crossed the central aisle of the campus. I had the sensation that she was following me with her eyes. I turned around to wave, but she had offered her face back to the sun.

  Guzman stands behind the podium placed next to the jury stand. “When you arrived at the crime scene,” he asks the medical examiner, “where was the body of An-ling Huang?”

  “Behind a painted screen.” Doctor Malin Patashi, originally from Pakistan, is a plump, mustached man in a tight blue suit and a yellow silk tie. “She was naked, laid out on a futon, her arms crossed over her chest. Her body was covered by a sheet.”

  “In your expert opinion, Doctor Patashi, is that position consistent with death by suicide?”

  “No.”

  “Why is that?”

  “As I stated a few minutes ago, the young lady died of asphyxiation caused by the expansion of insulation foam in her throat, a process that takes from thirty to fifty seconds. A short time, but painful nonetheless. Under those circumstances, the victim would not have stayed motionless under a sheet with her arms crossed over her chest.”

  Fishkin stands up. “Objection to the use of the word ‘victim.’ ”

  “Sustained,” says Judge Sanders. She turns to the witness.

  “Please refer to An-ling Huang by her name.”

  Patashi strokes his tie. “Had An-ling Huang been conscious when her air supply was cut off with insulation foam, she would have writhed and not lain motionless under a sheet.”

  “During your examination of Miss Huang’s body in the lab, what were you able to establish about her physical condition?”

  “The young lady was healthy, with good muscle tone. She had no scarring or lesions in or around her genitalia and anus, which signifies that she was not sexually molested. There was also no trace of semen in or on her body. We checked for possible pregnancy, as that could involve motive.”

  “What was the result?”

  “She was not pregnant.”

  “Were you able to make a determination as to the time of death?”

  “I was indeed able to. After taking into consideration body temperature, the degree of rigor mortis, also livor mortis, and the chemical changes in the eyes, I determined that the estimated time of death was between the hours of two o’clock p.m. and five o’clock p.m. of that day, April nineteenth.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Patashi. No further—”

  The next day, after my classes were over, I came back uptown and went directly to the School of the Arts at Columbia.The painting division was on the fourth floor of Dodge Hall. I wandered through the various studios, filled with the apricot light of the setting sun.There were only a few students around, chatting, cleaning up their palettes, critiquing each other’s work. A tall, reed-thin African American in a tattered bathrobe walked past me, her head bound in turquoise silk. Her likeness was painted with varying degrees of talent on the canvases perched on easels thoughout the room.

  I asked a girl standing in front of a row of sinks if she knew An-ling Huang.

  “I don’t know everyone’s name.”

  “She’s Chinese.”

  She raised a ringed eyebrow.“Yeah, with that name.We’ve got a lot of Asian students.” Above her head a large sign announced SEXUAL HARASSMENT MUST STOP!

  “She’s quite tall, five-foot-seven or -eight, hair to her shoulders, wide forehead, pointed chin. A lovely . . .” smile, I was going to add, but the student turned away.

  “Maybe you could check with the Dean’s office,” the ringed eyebrow suggested as she soaped her paintbrushes.

  “It’s one floor down.”

  What would I say when I got there? “Dear Dean, I am looking for one of your students. Her name is An-ling Huang and once she tried to kill herself.”

  I suddenly felt foolish.What if the knife had slipped while she was helping her mother in the kitchen, or she’d fallen while carrying a glass bowl? Maybe it was only a shallow cut, a teenage cry for attention now forgotten. An-ling was not my responsibility; she didn’t need or want my help.

  I didn’t go to the Dean’s office. Later, I threw the blouse away, went back to Saks to get one just like it for Tom’s and Josh’s sake, and put An-ling Huang out of my mind.

  Arnold Fishkin approaches the podium to cross-examine the witness. He consults a notepad before speaking.

  “Doctor Patashi, you told the court that An-ling Huang had a contusion on the back of her head severe enough to have knocked her unconscious, which, in your opinion, allowed someone to insert the insulation can tube into Miss Huang’s throat without a struggle, is that right?”

  “That is what I told the court.”

  “And it is your opinion that the contusion was caused by someone hitting Miss Huang’s head hard against the floor?”

  “That is my opinion.”

  “I ask you if it is possible, in your expert opinion, that the contusion found on the back of Miss Huang’s head was the result of her falling backward on her own? Slipping on something, for instance, or suddenly fainting.”

  “That seems highly unlikely. The victim was in good health, and—”

  “I am asking if it is possible,”—Fishkin pauses—“possible that Miss Huang fell and hit the back of her head on her own.”

  Patashi looks down at his lap. “Possible.”

  Judge Sanders leans toward the witness. “Please speak up. The jury has to hear you.”

  Patashi raises his head. “It is possible.”

  “Is it not also possible that Miss Huang inserted the tube in her own throat and then pressed the nozzle because she wanted to end her life?”

  Patashi’s face seizes with indignation. “I have seen many suicides in my career. Two hundred, three hundred, maybe more.

  Never has anyone killed himself in such a way!”

  “Is there any physical reason which would have prevented Miss Huang from killing herself in just that way?”

  The witness sighs. “No.”

  “One more point.” Fishkin glances at the notebook in his hand. “Could An-ling Huang have been laid out on the futon in the manner you found her after her death? Before rigor mortis set in?”

  Patashi looks puzzled. “Of course, that is clearly what happened.”

  “How quickly after death does rigor mortis usually set in?”

  “Much has to be taken into consideration. Air temperature, humidity, the victim’s weight, how active she was before death.”

  “Give me an approximation
. Thirty minutes? An hour?”

  “Not so quickly. It begins after four hours. That is an approximation. Four hours is safe to say.”

  “Four hours. That’s a long time.” Fishkin takes time to rearrange his notes on the podium, then addresses the witness again. “Wouldn’t you agree, Doctor Patashi, that between An-ling Huang’s death and the setting in of rigor mortis there were four hours—no, let’s be conservative and say three hours in which the defendant could go to An-ling Huang’s loft and find her friend already dead and lay her body out on the futon? Wouldn’t you agree there was plenty of time for that to happen?”

  Patashi takes a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wipes his face. “Yes.” He refolds the handkerchief, keeps it in his hand.

  “Did you, during your examination of Miss Huang’s body, observe any old scars?”

  “I did observe.”

  “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “Please describe them to the court.”

  “The victim had two thin, clean, almost identical scars running across the inside of each wrist.”

  “What caused those scars, in your opinion?”

  “They appeared to be the result of cuts inflicted either with a very sharp knife or a razorblade.”

  “How long ago were those scars inflicted?”

  “At least three years. Maybe as long as five years.”

  “Could the scars be the result of an attempted suicide?”

  “The scars could be.”

  “Can you think of any other way Miss Huang could have gotten those scars?”

  Patashi looks up at Fishkin with a self-congratulatory smile.

  “Someone could have tried to kill her and make it look like a suicide.”

  Fishkin lets out a short laugh of disbelief. “Thank you. No further questions.”

  TWO

  Tom

  I HAVE,AS a teacher, as a father and husband, always preached that what we, as human beings, must strive for is the truth, that the knowledge of the truth—of cultures, religions, relationships, even mundane events—would shape us, would make up the essence of each of us.

  Before I opened the door of our apartment to An-ling Huang that one evening two years ago,before that day,I went about the business of living convinced that I knew my wife after twenty-four years of marriage,that I knew my then thirteen-year-old son, that I knew myself. I have lived an illusion.

  I want to say this: evidence, however damning, doesn’t necessarily represent the truth.

  Emma thinks we met on a movie line for Raging Bull, twenty-six years ago. She started talking to me because I was twirling my keys around my finger. She heard some kind of music in it. I do that when I’m mulling something over; it’s an unconscious gesture. I was deciding what to do, because I’d noticed Emma looking at me—straight through me, to be more accurate. She obviously didn’t recognize me.We’d met maybe a year before, at a party where we happened to be sitting next to each other on the floor, eating pasta salad. Emma had raised her fork to show me a green sliver of something.

  “Pasta with pickles, can you believe?” She laughed so hard she began to choke. I slapped her back, offered her a handkerchief to wipe her eyes and we started talking.She’d just gotten a job teaching third grade at a Manhattan private school, which she was happy about, although she didn’t think there was enough diversity among the students and the pay was too low. I went on too long about my dissertation,how it had become the most important concern of my life. She didn’t seem to be bored.

  “I admire how focused you are,” she said. “I’d be scared to be that intent about anything. What if it doesn’t work out? What if you lose it?”

  “Then I’ll rewrite.”

  “The only time I’m that intent is in church. God isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Religion was the earliest mental therapy,” I said, which I could see didn’t win me any points.

  Emma shrugged. “God is my best friend. It’s what my grandmother left me, my inheritance: a love for God and her St. Christopher medal on a chain.” She stood up, handed back my handkerchief.“Thanks,” she said and wove herself into the crowd in the other room.

  Before leaving the party I went looking for her. I wanted to apologize for being patronizing, but she’d already gone.

  In the movie line I was trying to decide whether to say hello and remind her we’d met or simply ignore her.Then she spoke to me, something about the jingling keys making her think of her parents singing. We ended up sitting together during the movie and afterward we went out for coffee. I didn’t tell her we’d met before. I didn’t want her to remember our discussion and walk away.

  We started dating, cautiously in the beginning. Emma was quiet, guarded, a woman who didn’t seem comfortable in her skin.There were times when she would aim her dark Italian eyes at me with an expectant expression that made me feel that I had the answer, that I could solve the world’s problems. It made me preen like a peacock, and sometimes made me doubt that I’d measure up. She unsettled me, which kept me hooked.

  Once I challenged her interest in me. “I want you to know I’m an atheist,” I told her, “although I do believe in maintaining a standard of morality, behaving generously toward others,” etc., etc.

  “Generosity is the most important trait in a person,” she said.“That’s what a belief in God leads to, and if generosity comes without the belief, that’s your choice. I’m not trying to convert you.”

  She stroked my cheek with a smile, and I felt I’d caught the golden ring from the merry-go-round.

  Sometimes, in the middle of a date, Emma would shut down. I could say anything I wanted and she’d barely respond.“Am I boring you to numbness?” I asked her once after we’d been sitting in Central Park for half an hour without saying a word.

  She took my hand, held it to her face. “I’m sorry. Sometimes my emotions are so strong, they zap all my energy and I have to shut down for awhile.”

  “You’ve told me before that you only feel intensely in church.”

  “That’s just a line. Strong emotions scare people away.

  They scare me.”

  I kissed her forehead, her nose, the hand that still held mine.“Don’t be scared. Not when you’re with me.”That was the moment when I knew she mattered to me.

  As our relationship progressed, as we started to spend our weekends together, she stopped tuning out, and I came to realize that Emma craved steadiness, the security of a routine, which she hadn’t gotten growing up. Her shutdowns were dictated by fear that a change was about to take place in her life.They were her way of freezing a situation. I worked to take that fear away. I showed her that I was dependable, that life could be a steady accretion of emotional and material comforts. That is what we had in our marriage until the death of our daughter. I believe I’m not wrong in thinking that during those first years I made her happy.

  While we were sitting in the coffee shop after the movie that first night, I wanted to run my fingers over her face, her hair. She had thick black hair that covered her shoulders and the most beautiful pale skin I’d ever seen. Clean like soap, smooth, sweet-smelling, reassuringly lovely.

  Amy looked just like Emma.

  Her death was the pivotal event. It became the hub of our lives. Our every action from that point on, even An-ling’s death, radiates from that one grisly truth.

  Josh

  Mom loved An-ling more than she ever loved anyone else. Maybe even more than Amy.

  Amy was my sister. She died before I was born. I found that out from Grams—that’s my grandmother. She was Mom’s mom and the only grandparent I got to know. She died too.

  My parents have never talked about my sister.There are no photos of her.When I used to try to picture what my sister looked like, I’d think of Mom shrunk to baby size.

  My sister was two when she died. She got run over.

  Grams only told me after she found out cancer was going to kill her in a year.

  “Some
stupid drunk asshole killed your beautiful little sister,” she said. It was the first time I’d heard that word— “asshole”—and I laughed and suddenly felt like a man. I was seven and it was easier to think about the word than to think my sister would still be alive if that “asshole” didn’t run over her.

  Sometimes I got it into my head that my sister wasn’t dead because I could feel her with me, in the silence my parents kept about her. She was just there, following me.

  Sometimes I’d look down at my shadow and think it was her and that any minute, she’d sink into the ground and become a deep hole at my feet. She was waiting for me to fall in and keep her company. She had to be lonely. She was dead and I was alive and I was sure she was also very angry about that. I used to think those things when I was little.

  I didn’t find out what really happened to Amy until Mom got arrested. It’s been in all the newspapers and on TV too. Not in the trial, though.The two lawyers had a fight about it, and the judge sided with Mom’s lawyer. Bringing up Amy’s death in court would be “unduly prejudicial.”

  A lot makes sense now:Why they never told me about her.Why they have no friends.Why they never took me back to Mapleton, to the house where we lived the first two years of my life. Why Mom was always in another room in her head, even when she was standing right in front of me.

  I sit behind her in the courtroom, to the side so she can tell I’m here without having to turn all the way around. I watch her chest move as she breathes. It feels unreal, like I’m in an episode of Law and Order. I keep thinking that Sam Waterston is going to stand up and smash the prosecutor’s case to pieces.

  I want out of here, back to my basement room, just hitting the drums, or playing with Max on the guitar and Ben on his electronic keyboard.We call ourselves the 3Strikes, our lame tribute to the Strokes.

  Fishkin doesn’t look anything like Waterston, but he said he was going to get Mom off. He promised.

  Jim Craig, fingerprint expert, readjusts the glasses on his nose.