Anya left Dan a message telling him she was visiting his father that afternoon. She arrived at the nursing home with a bunch of flowers and a tin of store-bought shortbread. If she knew how, she would have baked them for the older gentleman.
William Brody sat in a wheelchair next to his bed, facing side on to the door. He appeared to be listening to The “Conversation Show,” in which authors were interviewed about their fascinating lives and books.
Anya had just been listening in her car and was enthralled by the story of a doctor who had dedicated her life to operating on victims of militia rape in Africa. The Australian-born surgeon spent ten hours a day repairing extensive gynecological injuries. She described systematic sexual attacks that intentionally mutilated whole villages of women. Those who survived suffered shocking long-term injuries, which often rendered them incontinent of urine and feces and no longer able to have children.
She thought again about Giverny Hart’s attack and the support she had been given by the unit, counselors and her loving parents. That was more than any of these African victims received. Sophie had no womb, and was now suffering bowel complications, all due to the initial rape and attack.
Sexual violence against women seemed, sadly, to be universal.
In the villages, the rape victims’ own families refused to have the women back home. Not only had they been defiled, but they were no longer socially acceptable due to the incontinence. The surgeon had bought a special van to take these women to receive medical care. No bus company or taxi driver would even carry them.
The announcer was declaring, “You don’t just perform surgical miracles, you restore lives with no local financial, political or social support. And all the while you risk being attacked yourself for the work you do.”
Judging by the intensity on Mr. Brody’s face, he felt the same admiration as Anya did for that doctor.
As a phone number was given for donations, he turned his head and noticed his visitor. His eyes brightened when he recognized her.
“I was just listening to that too. What an incredible woman.”
William Brody nodded. He still radiated dignity, despite being in a dressing-gown and slippers. His good hand flattened what little hair he had on his head.
She placed the flowers next to her. Anya hoped they could have a conversation this time, so pulled out an A4 sized whiteboard with marker and eraser attached. Just like the ones Ben’s class used at school.
The show was finishing and Anya sat on the made bed before she spoke.
“It’s hard to imagine how people can be so depraved,” she said.
He gestured for the whiteboard and began to write.
MONEY + POWER.
“True. Together they often incite corruption. But the sort of depravity that leads to groups of men raping and maiming women for economics…” She shook her head.
“Would you like a biscuit,” she asked, and opened the lid of the tin, offering the scribe a piece of shortbread. He didn’t need encouragement. The pen dropped to his lap and he held the piece of shortbread to his nose, closing his eyes as if smelling an expensive cigar. Instead of chewing it, he seemed to roll it around in his mouth, making it last as long as possible.
She realized that even the simple pleasure of eating what he wanted when he wanted it was no longer in his control.
“I know the key to your heart.”
His cheeks glowed and he reached over to squeeze Anya’s hand. He then collected the pen from his lap and wrote again.
HOW IS DAN?
“Assume he’s working hard, haven’t seen him much.”
The conversation stalled when a nurse entered the room and fussed over the flowers. She scurried off to find a vase and disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.
Anya noticed a chess set on his bedside cabinet. “Do you play?”
As with the shortbread, his eyes told her he didn’t have to be asked twice.
She wheeled over the bedside table and began to set up the pieces. The senior Brody might be more comfortable with the distraction of a game. She knew she would be.
YOU BELIEVE ABOUT ECONOMICS?
Anya looked across the table. This man’s physical disabilities belied his brain function. The whiteboard was already a hit.
“Women are the ones who tend the fields, bring back food and water. By attacking or killing them, there’s no one left to do the job, so the militia cuts off the villagers’ food and source of income-they starve them out.”
INDEFENSIBLE.
“That’s not what a defense lawyer is supposed to say.” Dan Brody had mentioned that his father had chosen a career in legal aid. His son had opted for the prestige and remuneration of private practice.
RETIRED. NO MORE MITIGATION.
William rested the pen on the board and began the game by moving a pawn. Anya responded and they settled down to a series of safe moves.
“Do you mind if I ask you about what happened when Therese’s first baby was born? We need to know whether or not she took a breath.”
The elder gentleman moved another chess piece before writing, STILLBORN. MIDWIFE TRIED. I TRIED. NO BREATH OR HEARTBEAT.
“You were there with Therese. That must have been awful to go through. Were her parents in any way supportive?”
He shook his head.
DISOWNED HER.
“That must have been so difficult. Did Therese suffer in the labor?”
SO MUCH PAIN. SO QUICK. NO TIME FOR HOSPITAL. DID WHAT WE COULD. 1 BRAVE LADY.
Anya captured one of William’s knights.
“I’m assuming that nobody else but the midwife knew about the baby, or there would have been questions.”
FEW KNEW. WE TOLD THEM WE LOST THE BABY. STILLBORNS NEVER REGISTERED.
Now the story made sense. Therese had become pregnant and hidden herself away, after being disowned by her family. It was a different time, with no acknowledgment of loss from miscarriage or stillbirth. People carried on as if nothing had happened.
GOOD WOMAN. NOT HER FAULT. FATHER MADE HER GO OUT WITH HIM. 1 TIME.
They played chess for a few more minutes before Anya spoke again.
“You said before that the father was still alive but he didn’t know about the baby.”
THERESE MADE ME PROMISE.
Dan had mentioned that his maternal grandfather had been a judge. So the baby’s father had known the family, and presumably had social status on par with theirs.
It couldn’t have been easy. “You must have really loved her to stand by a pregnancy to another man and take any flak for a shotgun wedding.” She wondered if William had been her choice or her only option.
I ALWAYS LOVED HER. NO REGRETS.
“Did you know the man responsible?”
MONEY + POWER.
“Okay, anything you didn’t like about him?” she joked, moving a castle. “Check.”
ONE-EYED.
“There are a lot of people who are biased and opinionated.” She studied his face and then realized what he meant.
Instead of counterattacking on the board, her opponent took a while to write.
INDEFENSIBLE.
Anya stared into the man’s face, trying to read him. He lowered his head, avoiding her gaze, and scrawled over the word, obliterating it with black pen.
Anya remembered him scribbling over another word when she’d visited him before. Slowly, things were falling into place. She grabbed his hand to make him stop and felt the spasm in his fist.
Suddenly it made sense. The secrecy, the protective husband.
She locked eyes with the old man. “Did this man rape Therese that night?”
The silence answered her question. Her mother always said that the words people refused to speak said more about them than the ones they actually spoke.
Therese Brody had not been responsible for the pregnancy. The man her father had forced her to go out with had raped her on their one outing. As a result, she had been ostracized and left without support. Apart from a young man who loved her unconditionally.
William Brody was one of the most honorable men she had ever met.
The man who raped his wife had got away with it and continued to live without prosecution. Anya knew they could confirm his identity from the fetal DNA, but only if they knew who they were looking for.
“Why did you place the baby in the box, in your home?”
He hesitated, then turned back to the whiteboard.
CHARLOTTE ANNE BRODY. OURS. THERESE WOULD NOT LET HER BE BURIED IN GARDEN.
Anya understood. If they’d gone to the hospital, a stillborn child would have been put into either a mass unmarked grave, or thrown out with hospital waste. It was as if the system wanted mothers to forget these children. And there wouldn’t have been counseling for the mother either.
NO CATHOLIC BURIAL THOSE DAYS.
She nodded. If Charlotte had not been baptized, the Church would have refused to bury her. So much for compassion and valuing life. It must have been so painful for Therese-having been raped, she was rejected by her family for shaming them with a premarital pregnancy, then delivered her daughter, whom she’d grown to love, stillborn. No wonder she kept the baby’s remains close by.
It was the only way for her to grieve and gain closure.
The man who loved her had kept the secret, until now.
William handed back the pen. The game and the discussion were finished.
But not for Anya. She had to know. Therese’s parents’ ambitious marriage plans for their daughter, the baby’s tumor behind the eye, William striking out the word “Judge” before. “Was the man who raped Therese Judge Philip Pascoe?”
William’s hand began to spasm, and he arched his neck in distress.
“I’m sorry. I guessed. Charlotte had a retinoblastoma and was so unlucky to have died that early. It’s a rare form of tumor, often inherited and associated with unusual cancers if sufferers are lucky enough to survive into adulthood.
“Pascoe lost an eye as a child and has had a rare form of bone cancer recently. It all adds up. His age fits, the ruthless ambition for the bench, his attitudes to women. Dan said you disliked each other from years ago.”
Anya wondered how she would explain it to Dan. Not only had his mother been raped, she had delivered a stillborn child conceived as a result. The man who raped Therese was still alive and had yet to answer for it. Money and power, William said.
Suddenly she realized she had nothing to explain. Dan had been standing in the doorway all along.