A Manhattan Maid's Tale

Nafissatou Diallo, the Guinean hotel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of rape, broke her silence today to tell her side of the story. The three-hour interview with Newsweek is riveting. (The magazine couldn't resist giving Diallo the once over, describing her as "statuesque" but "not glamorous" and noting the "faint acne scars" on her "light-brown skin." In other words, DSK didn't mistake her for, say, Tyra Banks or the sculpted beauties he has allegedly manhandled in the past. Decipher that subliminal message as you will.) Though Diallo is compelling as her own witness, angelic is not the adjective I would use to describe her. That goes double for DSK, of course. Frankly, I don't know whom to believe. My gut tells me that this was probably a tryst gone horribly wrong. But I wouldn't bet a wooden nickel on my gut. Diallo's credibility issues notwithstanding, maybe this thing ought to go to a jury for a proper sorting out. (Right. Like that's going to happen.) In any case, one assertion in the Newsweek piece grabbed me by the lapels: "Diallo cannot read or write in any language." That should not have astonished me (the literacy rate in Guinea is 29%), but it did. If, as Shakespeare said, "there is no darkness but ignorance," then Diallo's world is surely beclouded by her illiteracy. Now that she is mired in an unwanted but scandalous predicament, one can only image her bewilderment. The klieg lights will almost certainly deepen it. Diallo may or may not be innocent. But it's hard to avoid thinking that she is an unwitting lamb being led to the slaughter.