The Submission - Amy Waldman [146]
At the time of the opening in New York, he was seized by a regret so powerful it curled him in his bed in Mumbai. Ever since, he had been seeking another way back in. He had never spoken publicly of the memorial controversy, barely spoke of it privately. Perhaps opening up about it now could elicit the conversation, the apology, he wanted. Here he was, playing another game with his country, imposing another test. He couldn’t help himself.
Molly plunged in. “Can we look around the apartment and see if there are any shots we’d want to get, and where we want to set you up?”
“You should be able to get what you need out here,” he said, gesturing at the living room. “The light’s best on that side—”
“I’ll figure it out, thanks,” said the cameraman, whose name Mo had already forgotten.
“This is some place,” Molly said. Mo didn’t say he had designed it, designed the whole building, in fact, taking the top floor for himself. His apartment was simple, spare, naturally cooled by shade and currents of air. A balcony embraced the entire apartment; its overhang shielded the art and artifacts inside from the afternoon sun. Filigreed screens on windows dappled intricate carpets of light and shadow onto the floor. Where they stood, the actual rug beneath their bare feet was so soft it begged stroking. Its pattern had faded with age—great, expensive age—but could still be seen: a tree of life, cypresses, flowers. A garden.
“Be careful!” Mo said. The cameraman, like an overexcited Labrador, had nearly knocked over a folio of Persian miniatures displayed on a stand. The cavalier clumsiness of the gesture made Mo homesick as much as irritable. The young man had the peculiarly half-formed quality of his age, class, country. He seemed nervous. This began to make Mo nervous, too.
Over tea, Molly updated him on everyone they had interviewed, or tried to. Vice President Bitman had not responded to repeated interview requests. Lou Sarge had died of a prescription drug overdose before they could speak with him. Sean Gallagher—“the headscarf-puller”—they had yet to find. He surfaced from time to time to check on his family, according to his tight-lipped mother, then disappeared.
Paul Rubin had died some years back, of a heart attack, but they had interviewed his wife. Did Mo want to see? Molly asked. They had brought some footage.
Mo logged her into his wireless system. The image of a white-haired, sharp-eyed woman bloomed on the wall screen. Well past eighty, she was impeccably coiffed, with a string of pearls at her throat, a pale mint suit, discreet lipstick, and a fierce expression that would make Death himself nervous to approach. Edith Rubin.
She began by quoting, from pained memory, Rubin’s obituary: “‘Despite a distinguished career in finance, he will be remembered mostly for his failed stewardship of the memorial process, which some argued set back America’s long convalescence.’”
“I spent years arguing with the obituary writers over that,” she said in a tart tone. “It’s wrong. It’s not fair to Paul. No one could have handled the process better than he did. It was an impossible situation. Impossible, especially with the way Geraldine Bitman behaved, and I hope you’ll put that in your film. He always thought the best thing for the country, even for the Muslims, was for Mohammad Khan to withdraw, and that is what happened.”
“But I didn’t give in—withdraw—because he asked me to,” Mo protested over Edith’s speech. “Rubin pressuring me only made me fight harder.”
Molly checked some notes and fast-forwarded a little. “What Paul told me of his interactions with Khan—it reminded me so much of the way he related to our sons,” Edith continued, as if in conversation with Mo. “He always wanted the boys to be something other, something more, than they were. They resisted, and Khan, in his own way, resisted even more zealously. Poor Paul. And Claire Burwell: Paul was so surprised when