The Submission - Amy Waldman [136]
“Respect for her precludes invoking her as a reason for asking or not asking anything, Mrs. Burwell. Ask because you need—or want—to know.”
“But it’s not just me,” Claire protested, fighting her own chagrin. “I have a lot of families to answer to.”
“Then we’d better get to your questions,” he said.
“Let’s start with the hearing, what Betsy Stanton said, about the buildings using Islamic visual language. Does that mean your garden—at least the motif for the names—does, too?”
“The names were patterned on the exterior of the buildings themselves, just as I said in my submission essay. But I was as surprised as you, as everyone, to learn there might have been Islamic antecedents to those buildings. Intrigued, but surprised. It does seem fairly speculative.”
“But the architect who designed the towers had spent time in Islamic countries, right?”
“I believe so, but I don’t know his career well.”
“And have you?”
“Have I what?” One side of his mouth smiled, as if he sensed her trying to trap him.
“Spent time in Islamic countries.”
“Only briefly,” he said.
“Which ones?”
“Afghanistan. Dubai, if five hours in the airport counts as spending time.”
“What were you doing in Afghanistan?”
He shifted his chair back from the table so he could cross his leg and, perhaps, get a better look at her. “Representing my firm in the competition to design a new American embassy in Kabul,” he said, “although I’m not sure what bearing that has on the memorial. We didn’t win.”
Her brain was idling; she wasn’t sure where to go next.
“Where did your idea come from—for the Garden?” she asked.
“From my imagination.” The line was a wall: she couldn’t see around it.
“Of course,” she said after a beat. “Of course. But you must have to feed your imagination.”
“Constantly,” he said evenly. She couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“So at the hearing, you mentioned—before you were interrupted, and I want to say I’m sorry about that, too. It was very disturbing to watch; I can’t imagine what it was like to experience.”
He didn’t respond, so she plunged ahead. “You said you fed it, your imagination, in the case of your design, with Islamic gardens. That’s what you said at the hearing.”
“I said the gardens we now call Islamic were one influence. Architects—at least the good ones—don’t plagiarize. They quote.”
“So what were you quoting? Gardens you saw in Afghanistan?”
“I did see a garden there, yes.”
“And what was it for—what’s its purpose? I mean—Afghanistan must be full of martyrs.” Clumsy, but she had to know.
“So that’s why we’re here,” he said. He looked strangely sad.
“You’ve never answered that question,” she said, “about whether it’s a martyrs’ paradise, or a paradise at all. Since the question was raised by the Times. You’ve never said.”
“The question, as I recall, of it being a ‘martyrs’ paradise’”—he mimed quotes around the phrase—“was first raised by Fox.”
The same embarrassment came over her as when Wilner, the governor’s man, now the Garden’s only opponent, affirmed her in the jury room.
“Whoever raised it,” she said, “it’s now been raised. And left hanging out there.”
“Where it will hang forever,” he said.
“What?”
“Why should I be responsible for assuaging fears I didn’t create?”
“But Paul said you would answer my questions,” she said, baffled. “Because of Asma Anwar.”
“I told him I would answer whatever questions I could,” Khan said. “He chose not to hear me. It’s exactly because of Asma Anwar that I won’t answer questions like the one you just asked me. Didn’t you listen to her speech? She was saying terrorists shouldn’t count more than people like her husband. But your questions—the suspicions they contain—make them count more. You assume we all must think like them unless we prove otherwise.”
“I’m not assuming anything. A question doesn’t make me a bigot. How can I support a memorial when I don’t know what it is?”
“You seemed very comfortable with what it was when