“It’s only the sixth and you are good, really good, but you can be even better. It only needs to be the beginning. The rest of it is fantastic. Are you ready?”
“Okay, okay, but that will be it.”
Her face changed in an instant from raw to sweet. The director said, “Start from: ‘You were yourself abused as a child.’”
The interviewer echoed this, but with the appropriately emotional tone: “You were yourself abused as a child?”
She looked down and did not answer. Two tears ran down her cheeks but she still did not say anything and her silence screamed into the camera. Then she straightened her head and wiped her face. Her first sentence was hesitant. Searching and unsure.
“Yes, I was abused when I was a child.”
Thereafter her voice grew clearer and steadier and took on a slightly questioning tone.
“Abused—abused is what you call it. It sounds like I was forced to deliver newspapers without getting paid. That is what adults call it.”
She now sounded loud and clear. Accusatory but not hysterical or aggressive.
“I was raped. From when I was nine until I was fourteen I was raped. A lot—it was a good week if I was raped less than three times and it went on month after month, year after year. That is why I have agreed to do this today and it is because the fate of the victims interests me far more than the perpetrators.”
“And you think this will help?”
She overheard the question. It was the third time M?rk had heard the passage but it was as effective and strong as the first. Despair and helplessness passed over her pretty face.
“You should see my brother. He couldn’t manage it, he’s very sick today and they don’t have space for him at the clinic.”
The desire to hold her came over him. Just to hold her close for a moment, to comfort and protect her. He rejected the thought as absurd but unconsciously advanced a couple of steps.
The interviewer let her take a moment without injecting a new question. When she spoke again she was more collected and her voice was lower.
“Where were the grown-ups when I needed them most? Where was my mother? My family? My teachers? The counselors? All of the people who were supposed to be watching out for me…”
She jerked her head around and spoke directly into the camera.
The director jumped in: “Okay, cut. We’re going to have to practice that turn a couple of times before it looks spontaneous. It’s too quick.”
The girl said sourly, “It was too slow before.”
“Yes, and now, as I said, it is too fast. And I’d like it if you would be a tad less accusatory, perhaps with a note of uncertainty. Give yourself more time, so you don’t sound as if you’re reciting. Can you manage all that at once?”
M?rk had trouble imagining what he meant. Until he watched the girl and then he saw it. She came through that part with bravado and was allowed to keep going.
“Where were you then? And where are you now? Why do you allow pedophilic associations? Why is there a more severe punishment for adult rape than for the rape of a minor? Why—”
“Thanks, thanks, that was great,” the director interrupted her.
The girl straightened and her expression changed to nothing. “What do I do if I’m interrupted?”
“You won’t be, but there’s a little detail…”
“Damn, you go on and on.”
“I’d like you to seem a little bit more upset when you talk about your brother.”
“I can blubber when I talk about him.”
There was a pause. The interviewer left the studio. The girl, the cameraman, and the director walked over to M?rk.
The director said, “She’s the most phenomenal talent I’ve ever worked with. She can blush like virtue itself, she can cry and touch the heart of a debt collector, her smile can coax the sun out of a winter night, her phrasing, her tone, her appearance—she has the whole package, and then on top of that she’s a quick study.” He spoke as if the girl weren’t there.
M?rk agreed: her media potential was world class. In spite of this he felt a twinge of concern.
“But what she’s saying, is that also, is that … what happened to her?”
“Happened? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did it happen in reality?”
The director walked away. M?rk stared after him in bewilderment and then he asked the cameraman, “Why did he leave? Is he upset about something?”
“Don’t worry about him, he’s a little eccentric. There are words he can’t tolerate, but we’re lucky to have someone of his caliber. He’s fabulous.”
M?rk nodded, as if he understood.
The man went on: “You should read his book sometime. In the global village, the camera is god, or, Everyone steps on beetles, not ladybugs. Those are two of his most famous sayings.”
“Well, there might be something in that.”
“Something in that—you don’t get it, do you?”
“No, probably not.”