"You gave a description to whom?" he asked.
Mr. Ryan objected. "I think we have gone outside the scope of direct examination," he said. "Anything further would be for a Wade Hearing."
I had no idea what that was. The three men, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Meggesto, and Judge Anderson, debated what had been stipulated prior to the preliminary. They reached an agreement. Mr. Meggesto could continue concerning the arrest of the individual. But the judge warned that he was "going into it"-the issue of identification. The judge's last words recorded in the transcript are "Come on." Even now I hear the fatigue in them. His major motivation, I feel certain, was to wrap it up and get to lunch.
Frantic, because I had not understood the decision or even, frankly, what the hell they had been talking about, I tried to focus back on Mr. Meggesto. Whatever was said, it gave him permission to attack again.
"After you crossed the street and went to Huntington Hall, did you ever see this individual again?"
"No."
"Were you shown any photographs?"
"No." At the time I didn't know that there was no photo lineup in my case because a mug shot of Gregory Madison did not exist.
"Ever taken to a lineup?"
"No."
"You came there and made an identification at the police station?"
"Yes."
"That is after you called your mother?"
"Yes."
"And after that you were informed someone was arrested?"
"I wasn't informed that night. I was informed, I think it was this Thursday morning, by Officer Lorenz."
"So, you didn't know of your own knowledge whether or not the individual that you saw on October fifth was the individual that was arrested?"
"There was no way I could know that unless the police who arrested him-"
"The question is, yes or no, do you know whether or not the individual-"
This time when he cut me off, it made me mad.
"As they described the man, it was the man they arrested-"
"Question is, do you know?"
"I haven't seen him since he was arrested."
"You didn't see him."
"The man I described on the eighth of May and the individual on October fifth is the man that raped me."
"That is your testimony, you believe the man you saw on October fifth-"
"I know the man I saw on October fifth is the man that raped me."
"The man you say is the man who raped you is the same man you saw on October fifth?"
"Right."
"But you don't know whether that man was arrested?"
"Well, I didn't arrest him, how would I know?"
"That is my question-you don't know?"
"All right, I don't know, then." What else could I say? He had proven, very dramatically, that I was not a member of the Syracuse Police Department.
Mr. Meggesto turned to the judge. "I don't think I have anything further," he said.
But he wasn't done. I stayed in the witness stand while the judge listened, and then debated, the point of identification with him. It turned out that Ryan's purpose had been to have Madison in the court, that by Madison's having waived his right to appear, all Ryan now had to prove was that a rape had taken place on May eighth and that I had identified a man I believed to be my assailant. There was confusion. Ryan believed that in Madison waiving his right to appear, Meggesto had forfeited the question of identification. That was not Meggesto's understanding.
"Held for action of the grand jury," the judge said finally. He was tired. I concluded from the movements of Ryan and Meggesto-they were closing up their briefcases-that I was done.
Tess and I went to lunch. We had Upstate New York food-cheese fries, that sort of thing. We sat in a restaurant booth and the smell of the grease from the kitchen filled the air. She talked. She filled the time with talk. I stared up at the lush restaurant philodendrons that adorned and softened the high shelves separating each booth. I was exhausted. Now I wonder if Tess was silently asking the question I do when I reread the transcripts from that day. Where were my parents?
I want to give them an excuse. Perhaps they don't need one. At the time I felt that since it had been my decision to return to Syracuse, the outcome of this-that I had indeed run into my rapist again-was left to me. Now I'm tempted to make all the excuses available to them. My mother didn't fly. My father was teaching. Et cetera. But there was time. My mother could have driven up. My father could have canceled his classes for one day. But I was nineteen and ornery. I was afraid of their comfort, that to feel anything was to feel weak.
I called from the restaurant and told my mother the judge's decision. She was happy I had Tess with me, asked questions about when the grand jury would be held, and fretted about the lineup-any close proximity to him. She had been nervous all day, waiting for the phone to ring. I was glad to bring her good news-it was the closest I could get to straight A's.
I was taking a normal course load in school. Of the five classes two were writing workshops but three were requirements. Tess's survey course. A foreign language. Classics in translation.
In the Classics class I was bored stiff. The teacher spoke less than he intoned and this, combined with the shabby, much-used textbook, made the class seem like an hour of death every other day. But in the midst of this teacher's droning on, I started to read. Catullus. Sappho. Apollonius. And Lysistrata, a play by Aristophanes in which the women of Athens and Sparta rebel-until the men of both nation-states agree to make peace, these women of warring cities unite in a boycott of all marital relations. Aristophanes wrote this in 411 B.C. but it translated beautifully. Our teacher insisted that it was low comedy but in its hidden message-the power of women united-the play was very important to me.
Ten days after the preliminary hearing, I returned home to my dorm after the Italian 101 class I appeared to be failing. I could not speak the words out loud the way we were required to. I sat in the back of the classroom and couldn't keep my mind on the conjugations. When I was called on, I butchered some form of what I was convinced might be a word but which the professor had trouble recognizing. Under my door at Haven, someone had slid an envelope. It was from the office of the district attorney. I was being subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury on November 4 at 2:00 P.M. I was supposed to go down to Marshall Street with Lila after she got back from class. While I waited, I called the DA's office. Gail Uebelhoer, who would represent me, wasn't in. I had the office assistant say her name a few times slowly. I wanted to get it right. I still have the piece of paper where I wrote down, phonetically, how to say it. "You-bel-air or E-belle-air." I practiced saying it in front of the mirror, trying to make it sound natural. "Hello, Ms. You-bel-air, it's Alice Sebold from State versus Gregory Madison." "Hello, Ms. E-belle-air… " I worked on it. I put Italian aside.
NINE
On the morning of November 4, a county car met me at Haven Hall. I watched for it through the glass walls of the dorm's entranceway. Students had already attended breakfast in the cafeteria upstairs and gathered their books to leave for classes.
I had been up since five. I tried to linger over the rituals of hygiene. I took a long shower in the bathroom down the hall. I moisturized my face as Mary Alice had taught me to do the year before. I selected and pressed my clothes. My body alternated between stony chills and hot flashes of nerves centered near my chest. I was aware that this might be the kind of panic that ruled my mother. I swore I would not allow it to rule me.
I left the glass-walled foyer and met the detective as he was coming in. I engaged his eyes. I shook his hand.