Chapter 9 - The Evidence Made Dad Look Worse
An archived draft surfaced in a box Victor had stored off-site.
The document was dated 2003.
English acquisition statement.
It described the Al-Nur Collection as:
permanently gifted to the Mercer Center for preservation and public benefit.
Translator:
Thomas E. Carter.
My father.
I read his name repeatedly.
Leah did not speak.
Julian said nothing.
Everything we had assumed changed direction.
Thomas had complained that the translation was wrong.
Thomas had also apparently written it.
Samira compared the English with the Arabic.
“They are not equivalent.”
“Could this be a mistake?”
She hesitated.
“Not by someone with Carter's proficiency.”
“How certain?”
“Very.”
My stomach turned.
Victor had been lying.
But perhaps not about everything.
Perhaps Dad's later accusations were an attempt to rewrite his own involvement.
The board seized on that possibility immediately.
One trustee said:
“So Thomas Carter created the disputed language, accepted a six-figure payment, and then spent years accusing Mercer of misuse?”
From a distance, yes.
It looked terrible.
Leah left the room.
I found her sitting on the service stairs.
“Grandpa lied.”
“I don't know.”
“You said we shouldn't pretend we know things.”
She had been listening.
Of course.
“You're right.”
She wiped her face.
“Why would he teach me the correct words if he wrote the wrong ones?”
That was the question.
The answer waited on a cassette recording Julian's archivist found the next morning.
Label:
T. CARTER / E. MERCER — PRIVATE. 2003.
The recording began with my father's voice.
May you like
And the first thing he said was:
“If anyone ever uses my English version as proof of ownership, then we have failed.”
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