Rape by Joyce Carol Oates

their cooperation as witnesses. Martine has said she is dropping charges. And will not allow her daughter to testify. But they can’t refuse to help us now. If—”
    Your grandmother stood with her arms tightly folded across her sloping shelf of a bust. Her steely-ivory hair fitted her skull like a sleek cap and her skin looked as if it had been squeezed in a powerful hand, and released in a pattern of fine wrinkles. She said, with an air of infinite contempt, “You! ‘Prosecutors.’ You promised to protect my daughter. And you did not.”
    â€œMrs. Kevecki, we could not anticipate—”
    â€œYou must be ignorant, then. You must be inexperienced. We can’t trust you.”
    â€œBut Mrs. Kevecki—”
    â€œThat man, calling my daughter a whore! A hooker! My poor daughter who was almost killed! Exposing her to such shame! You allowed it, you did not prevent it. A trial would kill her. A trial would kill all of us. Every day in the newspapers, on TV—it would kill our family. And you dare to suggest that my granddaughter be exposed, too!”
    Diebenkorn protested, “The defense counsel is unscrupulous! Kirkpatrick is a—a notorious distorter of truths. The man turns truth upside down. Inside out. He’s a black magician. He should be disbarred. He resorts to such vicious tactics because he knows that the case against his clients is overwhelming. And a jury will know, I promise! I will see to it, Mrs. Kevecki, I promise. But your daughter and granddaughter, Mrs. Kevecki, must—”
    Your grandmother rose stiffly. Her heart fluttered when she was becoming upset. A daily handful of white and green pills monitored her blood pressure yet even so at such moments a pulse beat heavily in her head.
    â€œMs. Diebehkorn, there is no ‘must’ in this house for my daughter and my granddaughter. Good-bye.”
    The second time Diebenkorn came to the house on Baltic Avenue, your grandmother refused to answer the door. You slipped out to speak to the prosecutor on the front porch.
    It was a damp, overcast day at the Falls. Sky like a dirty bandage and wind from the river smelling like wet chalk.
    Diebenkorn began by apologizing profusely. She’d beentaken by surprise by Kirkpatrick. Bushwacked! Her entire team! That would not happen again, Diebenkorn promised.
    â€œEverybody in Niagara Falls knows that the rapists and their attorneys are lying. Absolute lies! The entire story is concocted, an invention of Jay Kirkpatrick. The defendants originally told police, when they were brought into custody, that they didn’t know Martine Maguire, had never seen or heard of Martine Maguire. They told police they’d never been in the park that night, which is a preposterous lie, we have a dozen witnesses who saw them. And now, this claim of . . .” Diebenkorn paused, panting. You could see the pupils of her eyes contracting. She was speaking to a thirteen-year-old girl, an assault victim. She was speaking to the daughter of a rape victim. Yet she had no choice but to continue, vehemently, like a runaway trailer-truck, “. . .‘consensual sex.’ ‘Sex for money.’ Ridiculous! Any reasonable jury will reject it. I will see to it that they reject it. And the preposterous claim that a second pack of rapists rushed in—oh, impossible! How a defense attorney can argue such nonsense with a straight face, I don’t know. Believe me, Bethel. And tell your mother.”
    Blankly you stared at Diebenkorn. You had a new habit of going empty-eyed and uncomprehending when it suited you. It would be a stratagem to serve you through years of public school in Niagara Falls at times in the very presence of enemies. You saw that Diebenkorn had smeared a dark crimson lipstick on her thin lips and that there was lipstick on her front teeth.
    Diebenkorn said, guiltily, “It is true, I have to concede. Kirkpatrick has a staff of legal