For the trial strategy, he asked Marco for copies of a documentary he’d made for American TV in the nineties, about atrocities committed by Serbian forces against Bosnian Muslim civilians during the Yugoslav war. A segment of the film was about the notorious rape camps in Foča, and the lawyers seemed to think the footage might help cast Marco in a usefully ennobling light, illustrating an unimpeachable attitude toward women. For the same reason, they also asked for copies of the segment about the girl being tarred and feathered, from the film he’d shot with Julia in Belfast.
Marco wasn’t happy with any of this. He hated it in fact: hated the suggestion it raised, that he had some ongoing morbid interest in the abuse of women; hated the idea of using his films for purposes of self-exoneration; hated being in the position of trying to censor a book in the first place.
“I don’t seem to have much choice though, do I? Either I fight or I’m fucked, and these are apparently the only effective weapons I have to fight with. I have to win, too, obviously, though it’s possible I’ll be fucked even if I do.”
We were at his house during this last conversation, having an early lunch before I caught the train back upstate. Hanan and the girls were out, which inevitably meant a torrent of talk about his case. I asked about the other part of his father’s strategy: getting Renata to back down. A pained expression crossed his face. Then he shrugged, and told me with the acid resignation that was increasingly his tone at that time, that his father’s team was looking for ways to discredit Julia.
“Digging up dirt on her, basically. Apparently that’s what you do. The assumption is that Renata Shenker’s team will be doing the same on me.”
“They’ve seen that letter from Gerald Woolley?”
“Yes. But we need something stronger than that.”
“Such as?”
“Anything that’ll make her look like she’s unhinged, or a liar. Other false allegations of assault would be helpful, I suppose.”
“And what are they looking for on you?”
“Oh, dodgy bedroom behavior, I imagine. Other women willing to corroborate her story . . .”
“Are they likely to find any?”
“No. Not from anyone telling the truth. But . . .”
“But . . . ?”
He tilted his head to the side, hawk-like, as if drawing a bead on some troublesome object.
“Well, I can imagine one or two women revising the past. Not out of malice, necessarily. Maybe not even consciously . . .”
He cleared his throat. An odd expression—pained but also faintly amused—came into his eyes.
“Have I ever told you about my anthropology tutor at university?”
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