New
York City Criminal Court Building, Room 1317 Friday, December 4,
1992, 9:30 a.m.

Worried the jury will misinterpret my seeming calm for contempt or
worse, my lawyer, Benjamin Marks, tries to make me understand that
I need to show grief or exhibit sadness. If I can't, if I don't,
he's not sure he can put me on the stand when the time comes. And
if the jury doesn't hear me testify, Benjamin is not certain they
will acquit me.

He says it exactly that way --- not certain they will acquit ---
instead of just saying they might find me guilty.

But the female members of the jury will understand why I am numb.
They will recognize me as just another woman who has loved a man
too much. There are so many of us --- not proud that we put a man
first, of the sacrifices we made or of the prices we paid --- but
we know that if we had to do it over we would not do it any
differently.

Of course I should have known better, but I got lost in the man
named Slade Gabriel. And, although I might appear calm now, I'm
not. I'm paralyzed.

Since Gabriel died, I've lost all feeling. Only take shallow
breaths. I can't concentrate. And I can't cry.

Although aware of Judge Bailey welcoming the jury in his orator's
voice, the bailiff, an elderly black man with a limp standing at
attention and the clerk typist's fingers silently lifting and
landing --- I'm unable to link any of this ordered activity to me
or my life.

Why aren't Gabriel's paintings hanging in this musty courtroom
shedding their luminous light instead of the dirty tarp stretched
across the wall hiding the mural of justice that Judge Bailey has
just explained to the jury was damaged by a leak? Gabriel's
paintings would explain everything.

"It is not the law in need of reparation in this room --- simply
the painted representation of her holding her scales," the judge
says to the jury --- the blur of faces that I cannot focus on. Not
now. Not yet.

Instead I study the stretch of fabric. Edges unraveling, gaping
like a badly hung drapery, the canvas, which smells of mildew,
casts a dull pall, unrelieved by the weak winter light coming
through the windows. Outside, the wind blows and bare branches tap,
tap, tap against the panes, rattling the glass.

Judge Bailey finishes his introductory remarks, takes off his gold
rimmed spectacles, wipes them with a clean white handkerchief,
replaces them on the bridge of his beaklike nose and nods to the
assistant district attorney. "Miss Zavidow," he says slowly,
savoring the ceremony. "Would you care to make your opening
statement?"

From the moment the assistant district attorney rises, she focuses
all her attention on the jury: "Ladies and gentlemen, Slade Gabriel
is unable to come forward and speak to you of the circumstances
surrounding his death, unable to point his finger at his lover,
Genny Haviland, and say she did it, she murdered me. And so on his
behalf, I point my finger at Genny Haviland and say she did it; she
committed this gross and unholy crime."

Linda Zavidow partially turns away from the jury box --- each man
and woman following her movements with their eyes. Lifting her arm,
she energetically points across the courtroom toward the
defendant's table, at me.

Rubbing the palms of my hands up and down the sleeve of my black
cashmere sweater, I try to relieve the itching that has started up
again and, at the same time, try not to open any fresh scabs.

What a clever choice the D.A.'s office made when they assigned
Linda Zavidow to prosecute my case. A man up there might seem like
a bully; a less attractive or older woman might appear envious of
me. But Linda Zavidow, like me, is in her late thirties. With her
soft green eyes, chin-length shining blond hair, and a wide wedding
band on her finger she can get away with saying almost anything.
Ultimately it will come down to her against me, won't it? And
compared to Linda Zavidow I am dark, brooding, untamed; and
certainly capable of --- how did she just refer to it? --- this
gross and unholy crime.

"Over the next week or so," Linda continues, "my job as the
prosecuting attorney will be to show you how deeply, how
obsessively, Genny Haviland loved Slade Gabriel and how that love
turned into an equally great hate --- so great it motivated her to
kill him. I will fill in the background, set the scene, and present
the evidence: a jigsaw puzzle of information for you to piece
together.

"It won't be easy for you. You'll hear many hours of testimony from
witnesses who will each swear to be telling the truth. Your job is
to question each answer you hear. What seems plausible? What
doesn't? Which witnesses are telling the truth? Which aren't? What
does each have to gain? Or to lose?

"These questions will be most crucial when it comes to the
defense's argument. Mr. Marks will have you believe Genny
Haviland's story is reliable. But I contend it has been completely
fabricated; not the truth at all, but a lie concocted to save her
life."

Linda looks at me. As per Benjamin's instructions, I meet her eyes
so she has no choice but to be the one to look away when she turns
back to the jury.

She wants them to believe it's only the answers that matter, but
from making films I know it's the questions that shape a story and
move it in either one direction or another. By now, Linda's already
talked to every witness and discovered which questions to ask and
which to discard in order to elicit the right answers.

But what about all the other questions?

What about my questions? What does it mean that for the last four
months I have been unable to say good-bye to Gabriel? Unable to
mourn him? Why is it that although my future is in jeopardy, I am
only able to think about the past with him? Gabriel once cautioned
me that by trying to dissect what bound us, each to the other, I
would trivialize it and make it suspect. He said our connection
would defy time, that even if we tried, we would never be able to
completely let go of each other.

During the years we spent apart, I had gotten used to missing him
but that was simply missing someone who wasn't physically with me
--- he was still on this planet, just keeping some other place
warm. Now he is not even a body buried somewhere, but ashes emptied
out of a plane window, caught in the wind, blown far away.

"Although I have described this crime to you during jury
selection," Linda Zavidow continues, "I would like to repeat it to
you now as designated jurors with all the responsibility that
implies.

"The Grand Jury of the County of New York by this indictment
accuses the defendant of the crime of murder in the second degree,
committed as follows: The defendant acting alone, in the County of
New York, on September 18, 1992, knowingly caused the death of
Slade Gabriel by drugging him with a narcotic and then suffocating
him to death.

"This is a case of cold-blooded murder --- " Linda says and then
stops as if she's too shook up by her own words to continue.

Beside me, Benjamin Marks shakes his head, disapproving the
assistant D.A.'s theatrics while behind me, my father breathes
deeply. I, always in tune with my father even when we're angry with
each other (as he is with me now), can almost believe his breath is
being expelled from my mouth. It's killing him that he has not,
cannot, protect me from this. But to do that, he would have had to
be a different father and a different man.

"As a woman who has been in love," Linda's voice softens, "my heart
goes out to Genny Haviland. What a fantasy Slade Gabriel must have
seemed when she first met him twenty years ago! A successful
artist. An attractive, charming, sensual man who was part of her
parents' world. How could she not have idolized him? So imagine, if
you will, how traumatized Genny must have been when this man proved
not to be a fantasy at all, but a narcissistic, egotistical artist
who didn't always treat the people who loved him well. Throughout
their relationship he was cruel to Genny. Irresponsible. Ultimately
impregnating her and then insisting --- no demanding --- she abort
their child despite her own wishes and beliefs.

"But since when, ladies and gentlemen, is being selfish just cause
for murder?"

Excerpted from FLESH TONES © Copyright 2002 by M. J. Rose.
Reprinted with permission by Ballantine Books, a division of Random
House, Inc. All rights reserved.