A Harvest of Thorns

by Corban Addison

  Ben was the first to see Cameron. He stood and extended his hand in greeting. “Thank you for coming, son. It means a lot to your mother.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” Cameron replied before turning to greet everyone else, including Justine, who had stepped in from the kitchen.

  The conversations remained light until dinnertime, that is, as light as conversations went in the home of Benjamin Alexander. Surrounded by attorneys, Ben was in his element, holding court on topics as far ranging as tax reform, prison administration, and the spiraling national debt. His intellect was polymathic. There was simply no subject that he couldn’t talk about with intimidating familiarity. His temperament, at once pugnacious and indomitable, was ideal for the academy but toxic for fatherhood. Cameron hadn’t really listened to him in years.

  After forty-five minutes or so, Iris entered the room and said, “Dinner is served.”

  Everyone made a beeline for the dining room. The feast was laid out on the sideboard beneath an antique mirror that had been in the family for generations. The turkey, skin golden and glistening with fat, was at the center and flanked by serving bowls with dressing, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, cranberry relish, and homemade bread rolls. The family took their places around the table and held hands while Ben said grace. Then they loaded their plates and gorged themselves, as they did every year, on the best of Iris’s cooking.

  Cameron sat between his mother and Noel, trying not to think about the chair that stood alone by the doorway to the kitchen—Olivia’s old seat. There was more room at the table now, and fewer elbow collisions, but his wife’s absence was as much a hole in the family as it was in Cameron’s heart. Ben and Iris had loved her as their own, never allowing her to believe that she was less because she could not conceive. After her death, they had wept for her as if they were her own parents, and they had adopted her Russian Blues, Grayson and Bella, cherishing them like grandchildren. Cameron hadn’t seen the cats since his arrival, but he imagined they were upstairs enjoying a special Thanksgiving meal. It was his mother’s way.

  “I’ve been doing more ancestry research,” Iris said, interrupting his reverie. “I had a breakthrough a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Wonderful,” Cameron said, showing interest without actually feeling it. Along with gardening, cooking, and singing in the church choir, his mother loved nothing more than staring through the looking glass into the past, especially at her husband’s paternal line, which stretched back to the Jamestown colony. As much as Cameron was proud of his family’s heritage—his ancestors had been among the most prominent African Americans at every stage in the unfolding drama of the United States—he found the minutiae soporific.

  “Yes, it’s quite exciting,” Iris said, fixing him with the insistent look he could never quite ignore. “I found Esther. You remember her—the first wife of your father’s namesake, Cornelius I. They were married on December 14, 1865, just a week after Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, but before that, nothing. She came to him without a history. I have so many of his letters, but none of them refer to her. I’ve suspected for a long time that she was an escaped slave. But now I have proof. I have Cornelius’s diary. He wrote it all down, Esther’s entire story, but he kept it secret, and then all of his heirs kept it secret. You wouldn’t believe how I found it.”

  Cameron smiled at his mother’s enthusiasm. “Tell me.”

  So Iris did. “He had three children—your ancestor, Jeremiah, by Esther, and two others by his second wife . . .” For the next ten minutes, she recounted her investigation in detail. Cameron heard all of her words but only processed the highlights—the death of Cornelius I in 1900; Jeremiah’s inheritance of the diary; his bequest to his daughter, Hannah, who married a German merchant, moved to San Francisco, and hid the journal until her death in 1952; the discovery of the journal by Hannah’s daughter, Violet, in the estate; Violet’s conundrum: what to do with the knowledge that she was of mixed race, despite her white skin and white husband and white children, at a time when America was a boiling cauldron of racial tension; her decision to keep the journal buried too until her death in 1995; the recent discovery of the journal by her eldest daughter, Susanna, in her mother’s attic; Susanna’s fascination, even delight, at its revelations, her sensibilities about race reflecting the multiculturalism of the modern era; and then, unexpectedly, the phone call she received from Iris who had traced her through the Internet and had questions about Esther that no one else could answer but Cornelius himself.

  “I’d like you to read the diary sometime,” Iris said. “Cornelius was a remarkable man. In many ways, he reminds me of you.”

  “I’d love to,” Cameron lied, and poured his mother another glass of wine.

  “How is Vance?” she asked, changing the subject. “I haven’t seen him in so long.”

  Cameron was about to respond when Ben interjected from the head of the table. “Yes, how is Vance? Other than what we would expect—oversexed and obscenely rich?”

  Silence descended on the room.

  Iris looked at her husband agape. “Ben, I thought—”

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” Ben said. “I’m just curious. What’s he doing over the holiday? No, wait. Let me guess. He flew his most recent girlfriend to Bora Bora on his Learjet.”

  “He’s in the Canaries with his daughter,” Cameron answered, maintaining his calm. “He hasn’t seen her in a year.”

  “Ah,” said Ben, a bit off balance. But he recovered quickly. “I saw the footage from Bangladesh. A terrible tragedy, but predictable, given the way corporations operate these days. You know, I had a thought. If Vance gave away one year of his salary—not his stock options, just his paycheck—he could take care of every person who was injured in that fire for years. But I can’t imagine that thought has ever crossed his mind.”

  Cameron’s skin was thick, but the accusation stung. He glanced at his mother and saw the wound in her eyes. “Dad,” he said evenly. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Neither do I,” Ben rejoined. “This isn’t personal. This is about that beast of a company you work for. Their clothes go up in smoke in a sweatshop, hundreds of people die—people who happen to be brown and poor—and for the next three weeks we’re bombarded with ads in which middle-class white people are praising all the good Presto is doing in their communities and shopaholics are hyper-ventilating about the deals they’re going to get after waiting for Black Friday like it’s the Second Coming. Tell me the whole thing isn’t sick, and I’ll be quiet.”

  Cameron sat motionless, his fist clenched around the napkin in his lap. He knew his father was baiting him. “Leave it, Dad. This isn’t the time.”

  But Ben was far from finished. “What do you mean? You’re here. Do you want me to call your secretary and schedule an appointment? I want you to tell me something, Cameron. I know the boy I raised. He was a gentle boy, a sweet boy, with one of the most finely tuned moral compasses I have ever seen. He stood up for the powerless. He defended the weak. I don’t believe that boy is gone. He’s sitting right here in front of me, in a man’s body. I just want to know how he lives with himself when the company he works for is reaping colossal profits from the abuse of the powerless and the weak. Please, enlighten me. I’d like to know.”

  Cameron rubbed his temples, feeling a migraine coming on. The dagger had plunged deep, down to the roots of his identity, raising doubts he had wrestled with since his twenties, since he had heeded the advice of his maternal grandfather to get an MBA as well as a law degree, since he had met Vance and developed a taste for the perquisites of privilege. There was truth in what his father said. But there was also bias. If his father had a blind spot, it was his hatred of the very engine of production by which wealth was created, not just for the rich, but for everyone from the top to the bottom of the economic totem pole.

  “We’re not a perfect company,” Cameron admitted, offering Ben an olive branch. “When we make mistakes, we pay for them.” As s
oon as the words left his lips, he saw the trap he had laid for himself. His mind scrambled for a way to backtrack, but there was no way out.

  Ben’s rebuttal came swiftly. “How much has Presto paid for this mistake, other than the temporary nosedive in sales? Is Presto going to create a fund for the victims? What about the children who lost their parents? Will Presto pay for their education? And that girl in the photo they keep showing, do you even know her name?” Ben shook his head like a judge delivering a sentence. “Of course you don’t. You’ve run like rats from the light. You’ve done it for your investors, because that’s the nature of capitalism. You’ve done it for yourselves, because we’re all self-seeking. But it doesn’t make it any less repugnant.”

  “Enough!” The cry came from Iris. Cameron turned and saw his mother’s face stained with tears. “This is a festival of gratitude, and I will not have it polluted with bitterness.” She took Cameron’s hand. “We are a family. We are not perfect, but we know how to love.”

  Cameron glanced at his sisters and saw them nod in agreement.

  “I have an idea to reclaim the evening,” Iris continued, an undercurrent of reproach in her voice. “We’re all going to say three things we’re thankful for. I’ll start. I’m thankful for my children and grandchildren. You mean the world to me. I’m thankful for my husband, even though right now a part of me would like to kick his teeth in.” Subdued laughter rippled around the table. “Ben, you’re an honorable man—most of the time. We’ve had many good years together. I hope there will be more.” Her voice began to break. “Third, I’m thankful for time. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to get, but I plan to make the most of it. I’ve lived a good life, better than any woman could ask. When my time comes, I want to go peacefully with all of you by my side. Promise me that.” She wiped her cheek. “Promise me.”

  All eyes were on her, not one of them dry. Even Ben was blinking away tears.

  “I promise,” Cameron said and heard the chorus of echoes fill the room.

  Ben took a ponderous breath, his countenance filled with remorse. “I’m sorry,” he said heavily. “To all of you. My remarks were unbecoming of a holiday. I should have held my tongue.” He met Cameron’s eyes and held them. “Please forgive me.”

  No one spoke. Everyone looked at Cameron as he returned his father’s gaze. He couldn’t remember the last time Ben had apologized for anything. His motives were as plain as they were pragmatic. Still, in the catalog of Cameron’s memory, it was an astonishing event. He hesitated, allowing Ben to stew a bit in his penitence, and then he reached deep, found the tip of the blade, and prized it loose. The pain didn’t relent, but he threw the dagger down anyway.

  “I forgive you, Dad,” he said. For now at least.

  Then he squeezed his mother’s hand.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PRESTO TOWER, 16TH FLOOR

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  JANUARY 22, 2014

  10:02 A.M.

  Two months later, after the swirl of the holidays faded into the long winter grind, Cameron sat at his desk reading the first draft of a letter Vance had written to Presto’s preferred stockholders, celebrating the company’s end-of-year rebound. Presto was just days away from releasing its fourth-quarter earnings statement, which in a near-miraculous turn showed the strongest sales in three years. The Black Friday bonanza had saved them, as had the image-oriented ad campaign that was still airing on stations around the country. Cameron made a few changes to the letter, then reached for the speakerphone, thinking to discuss them with Vance. Before he pressed the button, his iPhone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and saw Kent Salazar’s name. Immediately his mood soured. Until now, the Atlas consultant had limited his communications to e-mail. That he was calling meant that something had happened.

  “Do you have a minute?” Kent said when Cameron answered.

  “How bad is it?” Cameron asked, turning away from his computer and looking out at the clouds huddled low and close over the Capitol. Four inches of snow had fallen the night before, blanketing streets and rooftops and brightening the stubble of winter grass on the National Mall.

  “A clear-cut case of forced labor,” Salazar replied, his voice lagging as it circled half the globe. “And I’m afraid it’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

  Cameron winced but took the news in stride. Salazar and his team of researchers were in Malaysia conducting unannounced audits of Presto’s largest garment suppliers. It was part of a strategy Cameron and Salazar had hashed out over dinner at the Capital Grille. With a supply chain as sprawling as Presto’s, a complete investigation of illegal activity would have required a battalion of researchers over a number of years. Since Atlas had only six months, they had decided to focus on two countries—Malaysia and Jordan—that had widespread corruption and substantiated reports of forced labor. In addition, Atlas had agreed to conduct spot audits of select Red List suppliers outside South Asia to determine whether the rot in Presto’s sourcing system extended beyond Manny Singh. Also, after his father’s chastisement at Thanksgiving, Cameron had asked Salazar to search discreetly for the girl in the photograph. He didn’t know what he would do if they found her, but he wanted to keep all options on the table.

  “Go on,” Cameron said.

  “A worker at Rightaway Garments opened up to us in an interview. He was duped by a manpower agency in Bangladesh and by their affiliate here in Kuala Lumpur. The fees were so onerous that the kid worked for three years before he made a dime.”

  Cameron shook his head. “Tell me the factory’s not on the Red List.”

  “Nope. It’s green. We looked at the audit history for the past five years. All of the reports were filed on time, and the auditors’ language was complimentary. No issues whatsoever. We did our interviews randomly. It was obvious that the workers had been coached, but we read between the lines. Most of them were probably trafficked. If your audit company followed Declan’s protocol, they should have seen something.”

  “Have you talked to them?” Cameron inquired.

  “No,” Salazar said. “I thought it would be more effective if you did.”

  Cameron scrolled through his calendar. The board’s Strategy and Finance Committee had a meeting at the end of the week that he could join via telephone. He had a raft of real estate deals and employee contracts to approve by Monday, but Anderson, his deputy general counsel, could handle them in his absence. His Thursday-morning call with his mother—a weekly occurrence since her relapse—could be rescheduled. Everything else could wait until his return.

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he said and then called Reagan airport and requisitioned the Gulfstream.

  Twenty-six hours and twelve time zones later, Cameron woke with a start. The phone was ringing. He jerked his head toward the nightstand while his jet-lagged brain struggled to catch up. For an instant, he didn’t know where he was. Then he saw the scalloped steel of the Petronas Towers out the window, and a flurry of thoughts struck him at once. Kuala Lumpur. The Mandarin Oriental. He had a meeting with Kent in . . . He glanced at the clock. Shit!

  He grabbed the phone. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Alexander, I’m calling from guest services. A Mr. Salazar is here to see you.”

  “Send him up in ten minutes,” Cameron replied and hung up.

  He dressed in a rush, throwing on the suit he wore on the plane and summoning Declan, who had also fallen asleep. When the knock came at the door, he let all of them in—Declan, Salazar, Victoria Brost, and a middle-aged Chinese American man whom Salazar introduced as Peter Fung, Atlas’s director of field research in Asia. They took seats in the living room.

  “We have a meeting with the auditing company at noon, so we’ll need to make this quick,” Cameron said. “What’s the latest?” he asked Salazar.

  “Our informant at Rightaway Garments is Jashel Sayed Parveen,” Salazar replied. “After I spoke with you, we met with him again—at the dormitory furnished by his outsourcing agent. He�
�s been at Rightaway long enough to know how Mayang handles audits. The picture he painted isn’t pretty. Mayang sends only one inspector—always the same man. He comes and goes in three hours. He spends most of that time in the office. Then he does a cursory walk-through and interviews two workers selected by Rightaway’s general manager in the GM’s office with the GM present. At the end, the man always leaves with an envelope in his briefcase. Jashel doesn’t know what’s in it, but he’s seen the man take it from the GM.”

  Cameron felt like muttering an expletive. On the flight over, he had read Presto’s factory auditor contract three times. The prohibitions against bribery and corner cutting were written in boldface type. Yet they were just words on paper. Enforcement was the problem. The closest oversight authority was Kanya Nguyen, Presto’s compliance director in Bangkok. Apart from her occasional visits to Malaysia, Mayang operated entirely independent of supervision.

  “What’s the relationship between the factory and the outsourcing agent?”

  Peter Fung spoke up. “To protect Jashel, we haven’t asked. But it’s probably fluid. The agent is Foysol Rashid. He’s Bangladeshi, but he’s been working in Malaysia for fifteen years. His agency is a shadow company. They’re a dime a dozen here. They serve as a bridge between outsourcing agencies abroad and factories looking for cheap foreign labor. I’m working on getting more about him. But from what I’ve heard, he’s a shady operator.”