I would have loved to flirt with silence, to see if some of Sam’s presence was still out there, hanging in the air, to see if I could harness it for myself. But this wasn’t the moment to indulge myself. The stakes were too high. Unlike Sam, I had no right to speak to this audience. I wasn’t a member of the family. I had no personal interest in what bound them together. I was here on sufferance, and that sufferance would wear thin unless I could justify my existence to them. I had to stick with what I knew for now.
‘Let me cover the basics,’ I began as soon as Sam had introduced me, ‘and then I will answer any questions you have, for as long as I need to.
‘First, why a lawsuit? As Sam said, it’s the only way to make the government listen and make them at least address our concerns. Now that we’ve filed, they have to give us a written response, and if they’re not prepared to agree to what we want, they have to explain why. In addition, the court can order the government to search their records for any evidence in their possession that proves that Jacob made the loans and was never repaid.
‘So I have filed suit in the United States Claims Court in Washington DC, which is a court the government set up in the nineteenth century so that citizens could sue the government to recover money they are owed. I have filed the suit as a class action. All that means is that anyone who can prove that he or she is a descendant of Jacob van Eyck is entitled to join in the action as a plaintiff.’
I had expected to get through the basics before the inevitable interrogation began, but that wasn’t the way it was to be. The interruptions began almost straight away. Sam shot me an anxious glance. But it was OK. I didn’t mind interruptions at all. I might be afraid of silence, but questions and argument hold no terror for me. They are my bread and butter. I’d had enough experience of arguing before appellate courts to know that questions are a good sign. That’s rather counter-intuitive, I admit. To most people it might not seem encouraging that the three judges begin bombarding you with questions as soon as you have told them your name and who you represent; that they tear up the neat plans you had laid so carefully to present your arguments in logical order; that they eat into your time to such an extent that you think you may never get to present your arguments at all before the clerk flashes the red light. But to me, that is a sign that the appeal is going well, and it has always made me relax in the courtroom.
As long as the judges are asking questions, you know they have read your written brief; you know they haven’t made up their minds yet; and you know you are still in with a chance. Their questions give away what they are thinking; you can see the way their minds are going, what problems they see with your case; and you have a chance to answer them. It’s not the judges who pepper you with questions that scare me; it’s the judges who sit there without saying a word, who don’t give you the first clue about what they are thinking, or even whether they are thinking at all. Those are the ones who scare me.
It was Ben Stevens again.
‘Miss Harmon, what makes you think you can win this case?’
‘Good question,’ I replied. ‘In all honesty, I don’t know whether we can win or not. The only thing I know is that we can’t win without evidence. That means that we have to find one or more loan certificates with Jacob van Eyck’s name on them. We can ask for the court’s help in ordering the government to produce what they have, but we are going to have to look for ourselves too.
‘One reason we’re here today is to find out everything the family knows about Jacob’s loan certificates. Mr Powalski is going to be here this afternoon and tomorrow in the lobby, and I want everyone to talk to him. If you have some document or photograph at home that you could lend us; if you heard something from a grandfather or an uncle; even if it’s some story you heard, and you’re not even sure whether you believe it. Some detail that may seem unimportant may connect with a detail someone else has. So don’t be afraid to come forward and tell us whatever you know. We need all the help we can get. That’s the only way we can win.’
Terri Ayles from St Louis.
‘I read in the newspaper that you’re expecting to get some crazy amount – more than $600 billion dollars – from the government. I don’t believe they even have that kind of money. How are you ever going to get them to pay that much?’
There was some laughter around the room. I joined in.
‘I wish. No. Look, that’s just a number you come up with if you do the compound interest calculation. There’s no way the country could afford to pay that amount, and there’s no way I’m going to ask them to. We’re going to ask for a financial settlement, but I know Sam’s main goal is to make the government do something to recognise Jacob. If we can lay our hands on some evidence, I am confident that they will talk to us, negotiate with us.’
‘Who gets to decide how much we accept?’ Terri asked.
‘You do. Anyone who becomes a plaintiff has a say in what we accept. It’s not up to me. I will advise you about what I think is reasonable, but you have the last word.’
‘How do we get to be a plaintiff?’
‘It’s simple. You need to prove you are one of Jacob’s descendants. You can do that online. Arlene will show you how. You need to do a search and send the results to our website, and we will register you as a plaintiff. You don’t need to do a separate search for your children. If you are a descendant, so are they. Just make sure you list all your children on the website.’
‘Arlene said there was a fee of fifty dollars to register?’ Jack Simmons from Albuquerque asked.
‘That’s correct. Please understand that we will have significant expenses in investigating and following through with the case. The Department of Justice will represent the government and believe me, they are well-funded and efficient. They’re not about to roll over. We need a war chest.
‘What I can promise you is that we will not waste money. We are a lean machine. Apart from student interns, our entire team is here this weekend. I’m going to ask for help from any family members who are lawyers and are willing to help. But apart from that, if you ask me what kind of team we have to work on this, you’re looking at us. If you’re going to be part of this case, you’re going to have to help us, and I can’t promise you that fifty dollars will be enough. What I can promise you is that we will use it wisely, and I will also promise you that if I come to believe that the case is hopeless, I will advise you of that before we incur any further expenditure.’
‘Mary Jane Perrins from Boston, Massachusetts. What’s in this for you, Miss Harmon?’
I’d been expecting that one, of course. But when it eventually came, it was disquieting. It wasn’t the question itself as much as the way it was asked, with more than a trace of suspicion, perhaps even hostility. The woman who asked it was a plain forty-something dressed in a Celtics T-shirt and blue jeans, all of it too tight, and she had sat through the entire meeting with her arms folded firmly across her chest. Mary Jane Perrins sounded like a woman with a chip on her shoulder. Why, I had no way of knowing, but there was no mistaking it.
‘Like all lawyers,’ I replied, ‘I work for a fee. In a case like this, the only realistic way is a contingency fee agreement, which means that I will take a percentage of any recovery. I have a standard fee agreement, which is in the form approved by the courts in Virginia, where I practice. You can find it on my website. Sam has signed it, and I will need anyone who registers as a plaintiff to sign it also. Please be assured that the more I recover for you, the smaller percentage I will take. Everything will be above board and transparent, and I will answer any questions you have as we go along.’
There was some murmuring around the room as the family started to imagine what a percentage of $600 billion would look like. Sam and I exchanged glances. For a moment or two, the atmosphere had changed, and Mary Jane Perrins was smiling like a woman who had made her point. But she hadn’t quite finished.
‘Why can’t we have our own lawyers?’ she asked.
‘Each one of you is entitled to consult your own attorney,’ I replied, ‘and if you feel you need to check out what I’ve been telling you, please feel free to get a second opinion. But bear in mind that attorneys cost money, which we could be spending on the case.’
‘But why should you be handling the case?’ Mary Jane wanted to know.
‘Because Sam is the first plaintiff to file, and I am her attorney,’ I replied as calmly as I could. ‘Please understand that the court is not going to permit multiple lawsuits. That’s the whole idea of a class action – that we don’t have a series of cases about the same thing that drag on forever. I hope all of you can see that it would serve no good purpose at all to fight among ourselves. All that would do would make the government’s job a lot easier.’
I was glad to see that most people in the audience were nodding in agreement, but I had the impression that Mary Jane was far from satisfied. Whether she would have spoken again, I don’t know. But at that precise moment, I saw Aunt Meg stand, slowly and majestically, and make her way forward towards the top table. That simple action reduced the whole room to silence. Sam walked over to meet her, and helped her negotiate the steps up to the platform. From the steps, Aunt Meg found her own way to the microphone.
‘You all know me,’ she began, ‘so I’m not going to waste my time introducing myself, and suchlike.’
There was some affectionate laughter.
‘And you all know me well enough to know that when I have something to say, I get on and say it. And I have something to say now.’
She paused for effect, and it worked.
‘I’m eighty-five years old, and nobody can prove different.’
More laughter.
‘And for all those eighty-five years, I’ve been hearing about Jacob, and about the loans he made, and about how he saved the War of Independence, and about how the government doesn’t give a damn about it. And I was one of those who turned to congressmen for help in the past, and got nowhere. And that’s when I learned for myself that the government doesn’t give a damn. And, you know what? I’m sick to death of it.
‘I’ve been coming to these reunions since I was knee-high to a daisy, and all I’ve ever heard is talk, talk, talk, complain, complain, complain. “It’s not fair. It’s not right. Something should be done about it.” And you know what? In all that time, I’ve learned that this family is pretty damn good at complaining.’
‘You got that right, Aunt Meg,’ a male voice from somewhere said.
‘But we don’t seem to be too good at doing something to help ourselves. What have we ever done, except ask a few politicians politely whether they could find time to help us, and then give up when they didn’t follow through?’
‘Not a damn thing,’ the same male voice responded, even though I’m pretty sure Aunt Meg had intended her question to be rhetorical.
‘That’s right,’ she continued. ‘But today, we are being offered a chance to do something, and I think that we ought to be grateful to Sam and to Miss Harmon for starting this off, and for coming here to tell us about it and giving us all the chance to join in and help. There’s no way to tell whether we can win this thing. But, win or lose, at least we may eventually learn the truth. There are only two ways this can go. Either we win, and America finally honours Jacob van Eyck as it should; or we lose, and we finally know that all the stories we heard are just so much hogwash, or at least no one can prove otherwise.’
She paused again.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I think we win both ways. Even if we lose the case, at least we can stop obsessing about this, and we can stop boring each other to death with it every time we have a reunion. Maybe we can finally get a life.’
This produced some applause and cheers across the room, though not from Mary Jane Perrins.
‘So,’ Aunt Meg, concluded, ‘what I want to say to this family this morning is: the time has come to either put up or shut up.’
More applause and cheers.
‘I say thank you, Sam, and thank you, Miss Harmon, and now I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. I’m going to talk to Miss Arlene, and pay my fifty dollars and get myself signed up for this thing, and I hope you will all join me. And then, I’m going to talk to Mr Powalski until he can’t stand to listen to me any more, and I’m going to tell him everything I know. And I hope you will all join me in doing that, too.’