Empire of Lies

Juliette's Tear

That was the night it began. The worst of it, the end of it. Most of the details you probably already know: the race against time, the bloodshed, the devastation, and the rest. A lot of it you've probably seen replayed endlessly on TV. If you were paying attention-if you gave a damn-you know some of my part in it, too. You've heard me called a hero and a monster-sometimes by the same people. You've heard me accused of lying, of racism, and, yes, of murder. But no one-no one until now-has told the whole awful, grisly truth about the things I did, the role I played.

There were riots in Paris that night, I remember. Angry mobs ranged through the city setting cars on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. The trouble had started just after sundown. Earlier in the day, an official at the Louvre had announced that Ingres's Odalisque, the painting that had been slashed recently by an Islamo-fascist vandal, would soon be restored to the permanent exhibit. Rabble-rousing radical imams spread the word among their followers that this was an offense against Islam. The fires began in the suburbs and quickly spread. The government-being the French government-immediately surrendered and recanted. But it didn't matter: The disturbances went on. At the height of the violence-this was the lead story, the real shocker-there had been a seemingly organized assault against the Louvre itself. The video showed the army of white-shirted, brown-skinned men breaking like a moonlit wave out of the shadows into the museum's illuminated courtyard. Their faces were bright and twisted in the joy of their outrage. The line of police, their suits blue black, their shields black, their helmets black, looked like a phalanx of myrmidons as they fearfully tried to hold the onslaught at bay. The rioters threatened and shouted. Their Molotovs flew in bright arcs against the Paris sky. Some of the flaming bottles sailed over the cops' heads and smashed against Pei's pyramid, the museum's modern entranceway. The pyramid's glass caught the sudden crowns and medallions of flame and threw the light of them against the Renaissance facade of the palace itself. The palace's verdigris roof, its spotlit arches, the statues arrayed in its niches and around its base leapt with the bursts of sudden fire and seemed to come alive. Other homemade bombs, meanwhile, burst with savage gaiety against the black police shields. The explosions reflected off the cops' helmet visors, revealing glimpses of the tough, frightened eyes behind. The silhouettes of the rioters danced and whirled out of the darkness and across the firelight then melded back into the surrounding darkness again. On my brother's gigantic TV, it all had a sort of hellish grace.

"These are not riots," one policeman said-speaking anonymously for fear of losing his job. "This is Holy War."

I sat on the sofa in the television room, looking up at all this from a turkey sandwich on a paper plate. Now and then, I sat back and tipped a plastic water bottle to my lips. No more wine. I was finished with that. I wanted my head clear so I could come to a final decision about what I was going to do about Serena.

After a while, I got tired of watching Europe die. I started changing channels.

On Feel the Fear! contestants were eating dung beetles for cash prizes.

On Sparkle for the Prosecution, a single mother-slash-DA was trying to convict a group of Christian child molesters.

On Shoutdown, an Egyptian feminist was crying out to an interviewer, "They're taking over our mosques, they stone and mutilate our women, they murder dissenters. If the West will not condemn them, who will save us?"

Oh, and look! Here was Sally Sterling on Hollywood Tonight- perky blond Sally with her kissable lips-saying, "Juliette Lovesey reveals the shocking truth in this exclusive emotional interview."

Listen, I wouldn't mention this, but it turned out to be important. No, really. What happened on this show during the next few minutes changed everything in the end. Hard as it may be to believe, Sally's interview with Juliette became a matter of life and death.

Juliette, you see, had cried on camera. Now this was a big deal. You could tell it was a big deal, because Sally wouldn't even show the whole interview right away. She just kept tantalizing us, showing us the moment when Juliette's lips trembled, when her eyes swam, showing it again and again, only to cut it off cruelly, saying, "We'll have more of that interview later in the program."

Then we-we whose tears fall piteously but off camera-we, the Great Unwatched-had to wait through the commercials for the full catharsis. Buy a pad that keeps your menstrual blood from staining your underwear. Get cheaper loans online, get a better credit card, watch a new TV series about a serial killer who works for the police. And don't forget to pick up a box of laundry detergent to get those really tough bloodstains out of your panties…

And then at last, at last, Sally delivered the goods. There was Juliette in the usual canvas chair, her tanned, shapely legs crossed, her hands resting ladylike on her skirted thigh.

"This is not something I ever wanted to talk about publicly," she was beginning to say, when… well, you remember that scene where the monster latched onto the guy's face in the movie Alien? That's how close the camera got to Juliette. It zoomed in so hard and tight we could almost feed on the trembling of her lips, practically drink the single tear that glistened on the long underlashes of one fabulously vulnerable eye. That crystal droplet hung there for a moment of indescribable pathos and suspense and then, as a grateful nation gasped with compassion and release, it spilled down over one sweet, high, fragile cheekbone to leave a trail of shine on the peach complexion by L'Oreal and…

"Yes," said Juliette, dabbing at the corner of her eye with a fingertip. "Yes. I am going to have Todd's baby."

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

"And you're going to keep it," said Sally. She had her Compassionate Face on now. She was leaning forward in her own canvas chair, her own legs in their elegant black slacks crossed ladylike at the knee.

"Oh, yes," said Juliette, bravely flicking another tear from her eyelashes with a slender knuckle. "I love children, and I just don't think another abortion would be right for me right now."

"And Todd…?" Sally asked, with that infinite gentleness and sensitivity she did so well.

"Well, you know, in the end, he wasn't ready for the commitment I was hoping he would make," Juliette replied nobly. "But he really is a wonderful man, and I wish him every happiness."

"Even"-it was a hard question but, as a professional journalist, Sally had to ask it-"even if that happiness is with Angelica Eden?"

"Yes. Yes. Of course." Juliette's tears were over now. You could see in the set of her cleft chin that her native strength was flooding back into her. What a woman. "This is the way of things, you know. Love doesn't always last. People move on. It happens. You have to let them follow their hearts."

Now, gauging her moment, Sally began to alter the interview's tone, to lighten it, to bring it back from its dark, confessional depths. With a girlish, conspiratorial smile, she asked, "Do you know yet if it's a boy or a girl?"

And Juliette brightened instantly, pleased and shy as any young mother, only so much more beautiful. "It's a boy! I'm going to name him Portobello."

"Portobello." Sally giggled. "Like the mushroom?"

"Yes. I really-oh, I can't tell you how much I love them. And it's just always seemed to me such a beautiful word."

"Wonderful," said Sally. "So let's talk about your new film, The End of Civilization as We Know It."

So it went on-as it would, in fact, go on, days and years and even decades, I suspect. Because the thing is, the audience-the Great Unwatched-they loved her from that moment forward. From then on, endlessly it seemed, the TV, the magazines, the Internet would leap upon her every little lust and rumbling, spreading her joys and twitches and discontents across our consciousness as if they were some ocean-sized puddle making up in area what it lacked in depth. The audience would tune in for all of it. The pregnancy, the birth, the difficult partings when Juliette tore herself away from her baby to go filming on location, her son's picture-perfect childhood, his own early movie roles, his wild nightclubbing, his first stint in rehab, and Juliette's selfless dedication to preventing teen depression and suicide through the Portobello Fund, named in his memory. Even in her twilight, when her looks were fading, she would still command the magazine covers with interviews asking why-why? why?-were there no good parts in Hollywood for older actresses? On this night-this last night before the worst of it-Juliette went from being a starlet to a star.

And that, as I say, changed everything.