The Submission Read Online Free PDF Page A

security. We must be practical—our job is to get the memorial built. If we fight for this I will lead that fight—”
    At this perceived usurpation, Paul’s ego rose in protest. Was Leo implying, somehow, that Paul wasn’t up to the job? Maybe Paul’s silence implied as much, but he had been preoccupied by the question of whether to wake the mayor and governor, who might expect to be told immediately of this development, though the very fact of a midnight awakening would suggest something wrong, and Paul had yet to decide whether they should proceed as if something was wrong.
    Leo continued: “But let’s first make sure it’s a fight we want to takeon. We must consider the public reaction, the possibility of an uproar. You know better than anyone the sense of ownership the victims’ families feel—rightly, of course—toward this site. Fund-raising will be more difficult, possibly much more so. The memorial could be ensnared in years of controversy, even litigation. Is that cost worth the point we want to make?”
    “Although if this designer ever finds out we took it away from him, he could litigate, too,” Violet interjected, worried.
    “Leave the lawyering to me, Violet,” Wilner said. “He’s not going to find out anything.”
    Claire broke in, her voice strong, almost abrasive now. “So that’s what you propose? That we quash it, when the majority of us believed it to be the best design? That’s a total betrayal of what this country means, what it stands for. My husband must be turning—” She pulled up short. “He would be appalled if he were alive,” she resumed, with a new quietness.
    “But your husband’s not alive, Claire, and that’s why we’re here.” The historian spoke as gently as he could, which wasn’t very gently. “History makes its own truths, new truths. It cannot be unwritten, we must acknowledge—”
    “Nonsense,” she interrupted, in a tone that sounded more like “Shut up.” “Things—ideals—change only if we allow them to. And if we do, they’ve won.”
    Elliott, the critic, interjected, “Look, my sympathies here are with the Muslims—I know you’ll take that in the right spirit, Bob—in that things are just beginning to normalize for them. The backlash to this could deal a real setback to their quest for acceptance. So while it may be in this particular Muslim’s interest to win, it may not be in the interest of all the other Muslims. We can’t privilege the desires of the one over the good of the many. We don’t want to turn up the heat on them all over again.”
    “Yes,” the mayor’s aide said. “For their own good it might be better to … to … not change the outcome, but, well, just think if there’s perhaps a different way to arrive at an outcome that could be different—orthe same, of course!—for their own good. As I said, just something to think about. What is the best outcome for everybody? Then we can figure out how to get there.”
    “She’s right,” Wilner said. “Claire, you know I respect you and your loss. But you are out of your mind if you think we can pretend this is just any winner.”
    Claire’s mouth was tight, a cinched purse; Paul could see she wouldn’t be budged tonight. He proposed that they adjourn for a few days so he could further assess Khan’s suitability. “As I would do for any designer,” he was quick to add. They would meet again at the end of the week. “No talking to the press. Or anyone. Not even your families.”
    “I told you, Paul, but you wouldn’t listen,” Wilner launched in before he left. He sounded almost triumphant. “I told you we should bring the finalists in for interviews, instead of keeping them anonymous until the end. It would have solved everything. He could have been a finalist, but he wouldn’t have had to
win.
We would have looked liberal, but we wouldn’t be stuck. You’ve really put us in a pickle, Paul. You really have.”
    Paul had always counseled his juniors at