Yet Hannah insists, she hasn’t been raped at all.

  “—was he a Black man? Who found you in the stairwell? I seem to remember, parking attendants at the Marriott are Black …”

  No no no.

  Life in the body, terrifying. You never realize until things go wrong.

  “Hannah, please look at me. We have to get medical help for you, and we have to notify the police.”

  Hannah wants to scream at her tormentor-husband to leave her alone, her life is over, she has destroyed her own life out of vanity, stupidity. She’d had no intention of such destruction, yet it has happened.

  As the residents of Detroit’s “inner city” in July 1967 had reveled in their rage, had set fire to their surroundings commensurate with their fury, only to discover when the fires subsided that they’d burned down their own neighborhoods: their homes.

  Fire burns and does its duty. We must not interfere.

  The fire in the body, too, we must not interfere with its burning.

  Her life is over, Hannah thinks. Her life in the body. The female in the body. Where he’d raked her with his nails, penetrated her without love, jeering at her, her very hunger. Still, not rape, Hannah insists to herself it was not rape, Hannah cannot find words to explain to the anguished husband looming above her. She can only shake her head mutely No.

  Wes persists, grieving and suspicious: What Hannah has told him—falling on the steps in the stairwell—doesn’t explain the vaginal injuries. The particular bruises around her neck. Hannah is not remembering what was done to her. She must remember.

  The raging husband, his future, too, has collapsed. At this moment, he cannot think of a future. He can only be satisfied with vengeance—an arrest of the rapist, punishment. Of the injury to Hannah he cannot (yet) think, the wound is his as well for the woman is his wife.

  Most primitive of (male) instincts: sexual possession. His.

  Wes has found Hannah’s clothing thrown across a chair as if she’d hastily undressed the night before. Soiled, torn, smelling of her body. He lifts the rumpled white linen trousers, examines the (discolored) silken crotch and throws the trousers down in disgust.

  How has it come to this, his life as a man! As a husband, father.

  On a bureau Hannah’s large leather handbag lies open. In a fury Wes turns it upside down, its jumbled contents spill out onto the bureau top—sleek black leather wallet, gold-glittering compact, tubes of lipstick, comb, small brush, wadded tissues, a silver ballpoint pen, ticket stubs … One of these stubs, Wes discovers, with mounting excitement, is for the Far Hills Marriott parking garage.

  Wes snatches up the ticket, elated.

  No idea where this will lead, but Wes will follow.

  • • •

  Insisting: Hannah must be examined by a doctor.

  Not at the Beaumont Hospital ER in Birmingham where Hannah might be recognized and identified but by their primary care physician, an internist whom they know socially, who, at Wes’s urgent request, is willing to see Hannah in his office on short notice.

  No doubt wondering what the urgency and the secrecy are about.

  “This has to be in confidence, Norman,” Wes says, “you have to give me your word.”

  Norman Schell hesitates. He sees that usually imperturbable Wes Jarrett is agitated, and his usually well-groomed wife is looking ill, near-unrecognizable.

  “I don’t think that I can give you my word as a physician,” Norman Schell says. “But as a friend …”

  “Yes! Thank you.” Wes clutches at Norman’s hand in a desperate sort of handshake.

  After Schell examines Hannah in private, he reports to Wes that yes, it does appear that Hannah has been sexually assaulted as well as beaten, but Hannah refuses to submit to a pelvic exam.

  She insists that she has not been raped. She has no memory of rape, no memory of anyone attacking her, hitting her—all she remembers is falling down a flight of concrete steps in the parking garage, striking her head, managing to recover, and driving home with a migraine headache.

  Wes listens incredulously as Hannah retells her story, now claiming not to remember anyone pushing open the door to the stairwell. She doesn’t remember a “kind” man helping her to her feet, walking her to her car …

  “Hannah! You were just telling me …”

  “My brain aches! I’m in too much pain to think.”

  It’s a matter of great mortification to Hannah, Wes hadn’t allowed her to shower before bringing her to Schell’s office. Norman Schell, seeing her in such a condition! Smelling her! Smelling him on her.

  But of course, a victim of sexual assault cannot be allowed to shower and cleanse herself. Not ever again.

  Is it a violation of medical ethics, that Norman might, or surely will, remark to his wife, Melissa, that evening that a distraught Wes Jarrett brought his wife to his office that day badly bruised, with (evident) vaginal injuries, (evidently) a victim of rape?

  (The look on Melissa Schell’s smug face! All the worse, Melissa is some sort of physician herself, possibly a psychiatrist. Hannah shudders.)

  If only Hannah had had the strength and the foresight to have showered and bathed at home, before Wes discovered the bruises. If only she’d been shrewd enough to prevent Wes from discovering the bruises at all …

  Areas of numbness in her body. Patches of amnesia in her brain.

  “Your wife is in a state of shock, Wes. That’s all that I can say with certainty.”

  Schell has measured Hannah’s blood pressure three times and each time Hannah has winced as her upper left arm is squeezed, tight. It seems that her blood pressure is “extremely” low, she is in danger of fainting.

  Schell insists: Hannah should be taken directly to the Beaumont ER for bloodwork and a thorough pelvic examination. X-rays of her skull, neck, ribs, right ankle. Vaginal swabs, in the event of rape …

  Hannah cringes, hearing. But she was not raped!

  It’s entirely possible, Schell says, with grim satisfaction, that Hannah has a hairline skull fracture, which could be very dangerous. It’s possible that she has been infected with a venereal disease—yes, instantaneously! The ER will contact the authorities. Police have to be involved if a crime has been committed, in this instance a clear case of assault and (possible) rape.

  He, too, will be making a report to police. It’s Michigan state law, there is no way around it.

  No way around it?—Wes is dumbfounded.

  “You gave me your word, Norman!”

  “No. I did not, Wes.”

  “If this were your wife—”

  “If this were my wife I would certainly take her to the ER,” Schell says sharply, “since I love my wife.”

  Hannah protests that Schell has no right to violate her privacy, report her case to the police, she would never have consented to the examination if she’d known. Her voice rises shrilly, she would like to claw at Norman Schell’s face.

  Eager now to leave Schell’s office. So mortified, exhausted. In the parking lot pulling away from Wes who grips her hand, as a dog might struggle against a leash tight around its neck.

  No no no—Hannah can’t bear the thought of the ER. Being examined, touched again.

  Can’t bear the thought of being looked at, assessed by strangers.

  As if, labeled a “crime victim,” Hannah no longer has dominion over her own body.

  Hannah pleads with Wes to drive her home, not to the ER. She is desperate to soak in a hot bath. She will take aspirin, she will try to have a nap. One hour! He will ruin her life if he insists on the ER, she will never forgive him.

  All she wants, Hannah says, is to be her normal self for the children. They will never notice anything unusual about her. In fact she wants to pick them up at school …

  Not possible, Wes says grimly. Ismelda will pick them up, he’s taking her to the ER.

  Hannah weeps helplessly. She feels so filthy, she tells Wes, she can’t bear herself in this state. Please, will Wes drive her home? She will be her normal self again by morning.

  But Wes refuses: Not possible. Not home. Not yet. Not now.

  Wes is becoming impatient with Hannah, he is losing sympathy for her. This woman, a hysteric, isn’t behaving like his wife at all. His wife is reasonable, poised.

  His wife has never taken up so much emotional space in their marriage as she has in just this brief period of time, this morning. Wes is baffled, stymied. Other men’s wives are emotional, hysterical—not his.

  He’d seen, in Norman Schell’s eyes, that look of alarm, wariness—the wish not to be involved. If Hannah has indeed been raped, if a criminal case will ensue.

  Wes tries to speak comfortingly to Hannah, as he might to one of the children. He squeezes her hand. Her poor, limp hand! Could crush the delicate bones in his fist.

  Surely Hannah understands that she has to have X-rays, a pelvic exam. The thought that Hannah may have been infected with venereal disease is particularly repugnant to her husband who knows exactly why she wants to take a bath: To cleanse herself of the rapist’s semen. To wash away all evidence.

  He is suffused with rage, he can’t bear to think of it.

  He is certain, Hannah saw the rapist’s face. In the stairwell, as the man reached for her.

  Absolutely, Hannah knows the color of the rapist’s skin. Wes is certain.

  At the ER Hannah is taken from him. At the ER the frightened and abashed husband surrenders the wife, probable victim of (sexual) assault.

  Behind drawn curtains Hannah is examined by a senior physician and his assistants, most of whom are disconcertingly young, and appear to be foreign-born; her “vital signs” are taken, she is wheeled away weeping to radiology. Wes is detained, Wes cannot accompany her but is obliged to explain multiple times how he’d come home at the request of their housekeeper, he’d found Hannah in bed too weak to get up, she’d seemed to be running a fever, she was distraught and not herself; in examining her, he’d discovered her bruises and injuries, including vaginal injuries; he’d taken her to their primary care physician who insisted that Wes bring her immediately to the ER.

  This account Wes will tell, retell. Eventually, to plainclothes detectives.

  For once the story is begun, it cannot be reclaimed. Released to the world, a matter of public record.

  In this role which is new to Wes Jarrett, in which he is awkward, vehement, earnest, aggrieved, he will soon resume the entitlement of authority that is his right by birth, class, profession: the man whose word is not to be doubted.

  Recalling that Hannah had described a man approaching her after she’d fallen in the stairwell: “One of the hotel employees, she said—had to be a valet parking attendant—‘Black’—I think Hannah said … ‘A Black man’—in a uniform—opening the stairwell door, finding her lying on the floor …”

  Each time he is required to give this account Wes becomes more vehement, and more certain. The (white) detectives’ attentiveness, their sympathy and respect for him, the (white) husband of the rape victim, encourage Wes to be emphatic, decisive, as if he himself had seen the door in the stairwell pushed boldly open, he’d had a glimpse of the figure in the doorway, he’d been there to see the brute face: a Black man, surely an employee at the Marriott, which means he’d have been wearing a uniform, a valet attendant who’d discovered Hannah on the floor in the stairwell where she’d fallen, unable to defend herself.

  Wait, Wes is asked: Did this person find your wife after she’d been attacked, or before?

  Before! Since he is the rapist.

  Testing the words: the rapist.

  It has been hours. Wes’s voice is quavering, he is sick with rage. The detectives regard him somberly. The husband of the rape victim. White husband, Black rapist. The detectives’ questions are repeated, Wes’s account is repeated. How many times repeated, Wes will have no idea. Gradually it seems to be understood, it has been recorded and transcribed, Hannah Jarrett identified her rapist to her husband as a “Black male employee” at the Far Hills Marriott.

  Without hesitation Wes makes the statement: Yes. His wife identified the rapist as a “Black male valet attendant” at the Marriott.

  Since then, earlier that morning she has had some sort of relapse. She is exhausted, she is in a state of shock. Since the day before she hasn’t been herself.

  And here is definitive proof: Wes provides the detectives with the ticket stub from the Marriott, found in Hannah’s handbag.

  They can check at the Marriott, Wes says. See which valet attendants were on duty at the time stamped on the ticket.

  (Only Hannah’s arrival time at the Marriott, 11:53 A.M., is stamped on the ticket. There is no departure time.)

  Interviews with Marriott hotel employees will be requested.

  Not all hotel employees, of course. Focus will be on Black valet attendants who’d been on duty at the Marriott in the early afternoon of the previous day.

  Detectives understand. Men understand. When a husband acknowledges that his wife has been raped he is acknowledging—I have been raped.

  Hannah, too, is being questioned by Far Hills detectives.

  It begins to dawn on Hannah: She has opened a door, or has she smashed a window, impossible now to shut the door or repair the window, her faltering words are being taped, transcribed.

  But I am not telling you the truth! Surely you must know, why don’t you stop me …

  None of this is true! Only the husband believes it is true.

  Badly Hannah wants to return home, she is very tired. A battery of tests performed upon her! Tries to feel relief: She does not have a hairline fracture in her skull, which (probably) means that her brain isn’t bleeding, she will not collapse from a cerebral hemorrhage in a day or two, leaving her children motherless.

  So exhausted! Anxious. Brain numbed by codeine.

  Vaguely recalling—falling on concrete steps. Tripping.

  Soon, unable to recall her lover at the hotel in Detroit, he is the rapist.

  But no, Y.K. is not a rapist.

  A lover cannot be a rapist.

  She had not resisted, she’d “consented.” She is sure.

  Whatever happened between Y.K. and Hannah, only Y.K. and Hannah can know. But Hannah is certain: not rape.

  Of course it was rape!

  He might have strangled you. He is a demon.

  Hannah will never see him again—of course. Y.K.’s contempt for her, his brutal behavior, crude, coarse, punitive, sadistic … Obviously the man is a misogynist: His hatred for women preceded his behavior toward her.

  Nausea, self-loathing. Hoping to return home as soon as possible and obliterate her memory with barbiturates.

  As Wes remembers ever more details of the “incident in the stairwell” for the Far Hills detectives, Hannah remembers fewer details. It’s as if they are on a seesaw: As one goes up, he goes farther up; the other, down.

  Hannah is just slightly panicked, her memory is fading minute by minute. Blurry, smudged, chalk marks on a blackboard partially erased by hand.

  No. I didn’t see anyone.

  I remember falling—starting to fall. I don’t remember hitting the bottom. I don’t remember hitting my head.

  A door opening? A man? No.

  No, I don’t think so. It’s all blank now.

  It’s known that skull concussions can lead to amnesia. It’s known that shock can lead to amnesia.

  A childish defiance comes over Hannah: Why should she answer questions put to her by strangers? Why answer any questions, ever?

  Annoying to Hannah, how Wes insists upon telling her story as if it were his own. His story, so much more vividly recalled than hers.

  And the detectives, inclined to believe the husband, not the wife.

  Hannah is being urged to describe the man in the doorway—the man’s face: that is, the color of his skin.

  And was he wearing a uniform? Was he a hotel employee?

  Patiently Hannah repeats: She doesn’t remember seeing a door open, and she doesn’t remember seeing a man opening it. Certainly, she does not remember a face.

  Now Hannah is being asked why, if she’d remembered seeing a man in the stairwell doorway just a few hours ago, at home, and had described him to her husband, has she ceased remembering this man now?

  To this, Hannah has no reply.

  Repeat, repeat, and repeat the same idiotic questions.

  Hannah detaches, ceases hearing. Amnesia like a mist passing over her brain.

  No one can make me remember. None of you.

  And so through subsequent hours, after Hannah has pleaded to be allowed to return home, not to be kept in the hospital overnight.

  So tired, Hannah is pushed in a wheelchair to the (automatic) ER doors. Wes hurries to get the car, drives around to pick her up.

  The alacrity with which the concerned husband gets his vehicle. Helps the wife to the car. Hannah smiles, thinking how the viewer is deceived: This concerned husband is temporary, on camera. Very soon the furious husband will reappear.

  Here is a small pleasure: Hannah Jarrett shakily on her feet but able to walk to the station wagon at the curb, as strangers arriving at the hospital glance at her in amazement, a deathly-white-faced wraith rising from the wheelchair like a miracle.

  Why is Mommy crying?—Mommy is not crying.

  If Mommy is crying it’s because Mommy is so happy to be home.

  If Mommy is crying it’s because Mommy feels as if she has been away a long, long time and so Mommy is very happy now to be home.

  Heartbreaking, how needy the children are for Hannah—that is, for Mommy.

  Her, Hannah, the children scarcely know. But of course, no children know the people who their parents are, only parents.

  Hugging Mommy, kissing Mommy. Freshly showered, hair still damp, in a soft cream-colored cashmere bathrobe Mommy embraces the children.

  Burying her face against them in a way frightening to them.

  Still, Mommy’s head hurts if their voices are loud or the TV is loud or if they bicker or scuffle with each other so they should try to be thoughtful of Mommy.

  Contrite Katya presses her forefinger against her lips and then against Conor’s lips but Conor hisses like a snake and slaps her hand away.