The world rests on the tip of the tongue.
Jewish proverb
They are here. They are installed in a small hotel, the clerk at the front desk instructed to provide them with any help necessary. The doctor, gruff from the wearying trip, her ankles more swollen than before. The music teacher, tired but inquisitive, intrigued by everything in this new place — taxis, buskers, jackhammers. They are precious goods, these people, human containers of evidence. The possessors of rare facts, of vanishing truths.
The investigator insisted on coming as well, and Louis agreed, with the idea that this would be useful for everyday translation, shuttling the witnesses around. He wants them carefully tended, shepherded and protected. The music teacher is interested in an art museum? Take him there. A concert? Find one for him. The man is in high spirits, delighted to be somewhere new, about this unexpected parole.
The doctor is more subdued — she wants cocoa before bed, ice packs for her feet. But she is willing to be driven around, to see the Flatiron Building, the old university, the cube house — pleased in her own wintry way.
Keep them calm, keep them comfortable, says Leah to the investigator.
Louis has been to see them, to get a feel for their ability to testify, to assess how well — or not — they will withstand cross-examination.
As long as they don’t die until after examination-in-chief, he says.
But she can hear the suppressed excitement in his voice, see it in his gestures. The case is attracting attention now, no longer unnoticed, brief clips on the news, opinion pieces, journalists calling for interviews, background material before the day of the hearing. All this seems to have uncovered hidden longing in him, a yearning for some sliver of legal glory. This is his moment, he seems to be thinking, the moment when he vaults to some vague heights, some overdue applause — a moment he had almost given up on, a moment all the sweeter because of that.
In the midst of this, his grudge towards her seems to have almost evaporated. She is relieved, but acutely aware that her future rests on this case, and that the case rests on these witnesses. She drafts questions over and over to prepare them for testifying, hoping to find the perfect way to ask something, the perfect way to evoke the most persuasive — the most damning — answer. She wakes up in the middle of the night, simplifying, untangling, reframing sentences — aware all the while that most of this might be futile.
You know what witnesses are like, says Nate.
Yes.
Unpredictable. Impulsive. Liable to depart from their previous answers without warning. She knows already the sinking feeling when a witness goes off on an unexpected tangent, or reveals something damaging, corkscrewing off into a different story while the case changes shape before her eyes.
What possesses them? she thinks, as if they are actually possessed, in the grip of some malign spirit. Is it that the oath begins to weigh too heavily on them? Is it a form of witness-like panic?
Don’t prepare them too much, says Louis. I don’t want them to sound rehearsed.
Not much danger of that.
In the office, there is an undercurrent of expectation, the air almost bristling. Even Nate can feel it, but he is torn, she thinks, torn between regret that he let this case go, and summoning up some element of graciousness.
But the deep-sea divers are back, their dark green helmets bobbing.
Another threat. Another search.
Isabel is more fearful as the court date draws closer, treating all incoming mail as if it were enemy fire. What does a suspicious parcel look like?
A hoax, says Nate gently. That’s what they said.
He is less comforting with Leah, as she waves her pages of questions in front of him.
Litigation, he says, shrugging. Anything can happen.
Her throat closes at the thought. Anything. Louis losing himself again, his face wandering, disorganized. Pushing his notes in front of her. Go on. No, impossible, this time she knows, she will ask for a recess, an adjournment. She wishes she could talk to Owen, to obtain some assurance in advance that an adjournment is possible, but the last thing she wants to do is remind him of the last time, the moment when his lawyer drifted off and a junior stumbled through the argument instead. It says something for Owen — although she is not sure what — that they are still on the case. But when Louis is good, he is very, very good.
Or perhaps this is only to avoid the cost of briefing other lawyers, perhaps this is the last case they will have from him. Even so, an outstanding performance here, a resounding win might redeem them, might generate more work later on.
But speaking to him is out of the question, she knows this. He will talk to Louis, of course, and she will be fired again, the fastest refiring in legal history. Perhaps she should speak directly to Louis instead. How are you feeling? Any more of those blank moments?
No, no, says Nate. He’ll be furious. He’ll go off like a grenade.
He will. She knows it. A man who sees himself as a small island of intelligence — increasingly beleaguered — in a sea of inanity. Someone who is enchanted by his own intellect, more than that, who thinks of it as the essence of his being. To raise, however delicately, however tactfully, that something might be flawed with his mind would be disastrous.
He must know something is wrong, she says, more to herself than Nate.
Then why say anything? says Nate.
He needs a doctor, she says.
He probably has one. And his wife is likely alert to this. Don’t let that effervescence fool you — she can be very perceptive.
Despite everything, she feels a creeping sympathy for Louis. Of all possible afflictions, this is something that goes directly to the core of his being. No wonder he is so busy creating ongoing descriptions of himself, to himself, for himself. Perhaps he is urgently trying to remember who he is. Or discover who he is now, at this minute or the next one. Is it possible he is really looking for bulletins from his own depths?
In fact, perhaps it is this fear that has made him so thin-skinned, so sensitive to any inability to control things. Maybe he has become more rigid as a way of staving off a certain slackness in his mind, a way of grappling with the possibility of disintegration. Clinging to absolutes, to straight lines, unable to stand too much uncertainty. Or anyone not following directions.
A guess, but perhaps a good guess. And a glimmer of understanding.
So no risky questions? says Nate.
Not for now, she says.
···
You may have a future here yet.
But the person who needs a future is Gus.
The procedure went as well as could be expected, says the cardiologist. That’s all I can say. He’s still not in great shape. But I prefer to be cautiously optimistic.
Cautiously optimistic? No, this is not for her. She has decided to be wildly optimistic, madly optimistic. What does this phrase mean, after all? A way of hedging her bets on the possibility of death? She is incapable of measuring degrees of optimism when it comes to Gus, of gauging in small increments his chances of survival. Instead, she has only a sense of hope.
He is home now, staples across his chest, equipped with blood thinners and a handful of other medications. The pain is gradually lessening, although he still moves very cautiously. She sits by his bed, wiggling her feet under the blanket — away from his, no danger of physical contact — and works on her cases, while he skims the sports pages, gardening magazines, his reading glasses making him look smaller, more bookish than he is. Or he watches television, he has become immersed in crime dramas. Hours of people dissecting bits of rotting organs, brain matter, insects, the microscopic details of decay and mortality.
What is it you like about them? she almost says. But this is Gus, so she doesn’t.
Perhaps they reduce death to its smallest possible parts, to tiny, knowable fractions.
At the moment, she can hear Rudy walking in the hall downstairs. He is still slightly huffy, as if he had put an early claim on this ailment — a heart attack — for himself. But he is also frightened, she thinks — he needs Gus, Gus is a marker for him, a pin holding the map of his world in place. And the truth is that he is close to him in his own peculiar way — an austere form of affection.
He is irritated as a result, something that has made his cooking deteriorate even further. The trays that he sends up for Gus — reluctantly — are increasingly inedible.
And why he needs to be waited on hand and foot is beyond me, he says.
Malcolm says nothing, for once he has bottled himself up. But she can almost read his thoughts: if anyone deserves this kind of care, it is him, the possessor of swollen knee, a tendency to migraines, bouts of sciatica. For all his peevishness, though, he has his own attachment to Gus — sloppy, self-centred, but real.
When she is not sitting with Gus, she is thinking about sitting there, she is thinking about him, as if this alone could sustain him in some way. But her thoughts are repetitive, an ongoing roiling in her head. Has he taken his blood thinners? His beta blockers? His nitrates? Is the incision clean? Does he have an infection? Is the bypass — such a simple idea, such an intricate procedure — really working? Is there no way to entirely, completely fix this man?
She runs her fingers through her hair, pressing on her scalp, as if this will push all this away.
Gus looks up from the bed inquiringly.
Tell me more about this drive from the cottage, she says, seizing on this. My mother. The fever. The trip to the hospital.
I don’t know any more, he says.
Unsedated, he is back to being taciturn.
But Rudy and Malcolm have nothing to say about it either. There is a vacuum where the pieces that make up this accident should be. Only the night, the dripping trees, the overwhelming pain in her leg — a half-dream that edges into her days from time to time. But the rest of it is missing.
She is struck by something now, though. This fact, this lost fact — that they were on their way to the hospital — has not yet sunk in. The idea that this fatal outing was not a joyride, the result of some half-drunk impulse, seems suddenly — startlingly — illuminating. There was a reason for this drive, this lethal trip, a spike in a tube of mercury. A reason that reshapes the picture of that night, rearranges it, something that turns it from a child’s dark hole — murky, frightening, bewildering — into something almost comprehensible. Almost.
Comfort, a little frayed, begins to spread through her, the easing of an old ache.
But there is still one primitive, childish thought lying there, a long, inconsolable wail that remains.
Where are you come back come back come back.
···
I’ll stay with him, says Val. Go to work, I’ll be here.
Leah is surprised to find she is almost grateful — an unwelcome thought. Val, she says to herself, trying to stir up her old indignation, but it seems to have seeped away, overtaken by events. She wants Gus to be under watchful eyes, regardless of whose they are, to be studied hourly for signs of changes, any traces of healing or decline. And Val herself is more restrained — she still slaps his pillows in a proprietorial way, produces vanilla cake, baked pears, lemon loaf — but there is something missing, an element of conviction. She is not fooling anyone, Leah thinks. Underneath this bustling is a more subdued version of herself, one who has been knocked off course by this change in circumstances. Someone who is beginning to realize that the filmy hopes she created are starting to dissolve. Whether some of them might be salvaged is uncertain, but there is a slight loosening of her attention, a shift in her focus.
He’s too stubborn to die, says Malcolm almost regretfully.
For once, Leah wants to agree with him.
But he needs a future. Perhaps she can find one for him, find a better one — or at least a longer one. For example: The stockbrokers who trade in futures, in contracts for coming events. Do any of them cover human futures, life prospects? Perhaps this could be a new form of commodity, listed on the exchange — used to make up any shortfalls in the length of a particular existence.
Another possibility: acquiring a second-hand future, a castoff from someone who died, who was unable to use it. Like new. Sad, of course, but there was no point in wasting the suddenly available future. Or perhaps it might be feasible to buy a future at a specialty store, something sold by the ounce. Expensive, naturally, as costly as saffron or a rare perfume. But worth it, worth every penny.
···
They play gin rummy each week, a game with an old pack of cards, corners bent, surfaces worn.
Ace is high, says her aunt. So ace, king, queen, jack.
This is a serious business, there is no talking about other things, they are intent, studying their cards. They pick them up with deliberation, discard them with a sigh, as if they regret letting each one go.
Ace, king, queen, jack. The girl studies their faces, the king of spades with his curling moustache, the skeptical queen of diamonds, the jack of hearts so pleased with himself and his yellow hair.
Surprisingly, she is good at this game, she is astonished how good she is. She wins and wins and wins and wins.
Look at that, says her aunt fondly. A genius.
The girl accepts this — who would know better than her aunt? Someday, she and the jack of diamonds — not as vain as the jack of hearts — will go off together, the two of them and her genius. Travelling around, finding roller coasters to ride, eating raspberry pie for breakfast.
Why raspberry? says her aunt.
He likes red things, she says, willing to make this sacrifice for him.
Today the cards are not co-operating, though.
Her aunt deals again.
Nothing, says her aunt, rearranging her hand. Look at that, I’ve got nothing again. A handful of nisht. You must have all my cards.
The game goes on and on, round after round, neither one able to gin.
The girl looks accusingly at her hand, the king of diamonds sitting there smugly, the haughty queen of spades. These double-headed cards, a face at either end. Why are they suddenly such loners, why no friends and relations?
Another round. Nisht. Nada. Zip.
I must be losing my touch, says her aunt.
···
Later, as she grows older, a whisper of doubt about her card-playing genius begins to surface in the girl’s mind. Not a suspicion, too quiet for that, merely a rustle in the back of her mind. Only enough to know this: she should avoid playing cards with anyone else.
···
The investigator is circling the two witnesses like an irritable sheepdog. They are sitting in the front row of seats in the courtroom, waiting for the case to start, and he moves restlessly from one to the other. The courtrooms around them have been cleared out, their case the only one listed here. This isolation is one of the security measures; they were given the location only yesterday, the room has been swept with equipment, they were searched and searched again, their briefcases rifled. Additional officers are posted in the halls, in the courtroom itself, a throng of dark blue. But what could they do if there was an explosion? she thinks. Perhaps they are there as a defiant gesture — we will not allow ourselves to be intimidated — something to ward off the edginess that has settled over the room, as if it has drifted up out of the air vents. Even the court clerk seems nervous.
Her task for now: ensure that all is in readiness, that all will go as smoothly as possible. She has laid out their materials on the counsel table — the books of authorities, the notes, the tabbed exhibits — with almost geometric precision, the edges of the papers lined up with the edges of the desk. If only these things are perfectly straight, the case will go well. The journalists are keeping their distance for now, a group of alert, harassed people, deprived of their coffee cups at the door. Louis has worked out an arrangement with them, they will have interviews with the witnesses after the hearing. And of course, with their lawyer. She can see from his posture, his gestures that he is working hard to conceal his suppressed excitement. He is sharp enough to keep this under control, to keep his wits about him, only a tiny, gleeful leak every now and then.
Raised voices. She glances around. Behind her, in the first row of seats, the doctor is insisting on something with the investigator, a stream of Belarusian. He tries to quiet her, patting the air down with his palms.
What is it? she says to them. What’s the problem?
Nothing, says the investigator hastily. Nothing, nothing.
He tell me money, says the doctor in English.
The travel money, says the investigator loudly.
No, not the travel money, the money for to be a witness.
Leah stares at the investigator.
Fifteen hundred rubles, says the doctor.
All rise, says the clerk.
···
Opening statements. Louis at his best, painting the outline of the case in long, lean strokes, describing the evidence to come with effortless fluency. He describes the natural — almost inevitable — outcome to this case, how right it is, how preposterous any other result would be — exuding a kind of seductive reason. He sounds as if he is confiding these things to his listeners candidly, letting them in on the real story of the case. But she is barely listening, she is too busy trying to unscramble her thoughts.
The doctor was paid. The music teacher too, likely. Paid. Of course, this doesn’t mean their evidence is untruthful. Not at all, witnesses are paid for many things — travel, accommodation, meals, even attendance. But most of those things have already been paid for here — this fifteen hundred rubles is merely to testify.
She must talk to Louis about this, he must be told. But Owen is there, and Louis would insist that he be insulated from something like this. If there are any sins to be committed, this is their job.
If there are any sins. No, the witnesses are telling the truth, she is convinced. Their stories are too detailed, they have the grainy feel of fact. And there is something rough, unmistakably genuine underlying them. Then she sees the music teacher’s second of hesitancy again, the small sitting room, the investigator nodding at him. What about the identification of Drozd? Was that true as well? But the investigator was only reassuring him, making it clear it was safe for him to talk.
Then why did the investigator lie about it — only travel money — when she asked before? Because he knows it might taint their evidence? Or at least that it might be seen that way. A fine line, but still a line.
No, no, say the spiders, groaning. Just this once. Just this once, make sure someone like him gets what he deserves.
But she is so haunted by this case now herself that the idea of it collapsing, of this man eluding any form of reckoning is unthinkable.
Then Louis is coming to the end of his opening, moving into a lower key. A few sentences later, and he is finished. He sits back in his chair while the other lawyer begins lumbering through his own opening, paragraphs of canned words pasted together.
She tears off a scrap of pleadings, writes on the back: The doctor was paid by the investigator.
Louis glances at it, crumples it up.
Obviously he needs time to think about it, how to handle it. Undoubtedly he will ask for a break. He will wait until the other lawyer is finished, he will request a brief recess. He will get to the root of this, he will sort it out — what it means, what effect it has.
As the other lawyer drones on, though, Louis does nothing, unperturbed.
Eventually the man comes to a halt and Louis is still not moving.
Call your evidence, says the judge.
Another note. More urgent. Fifteen hundred rubles. About eight hundred dollars.
He looks at her warningly, and crumples this one up as well.
The doctor, the court interpreter — a man with an acerbic face and a deep voice — are sworn in. The evidence given by you touching on the matters in question.
The doctor begins her testimony, speaking tensely but steadily, as if she is walking along a narrow ridge of facts. She is wearing a dark green jersey dress with a cowl neck today, her grey-streaked hair tied in a bun. A sobering presence, a spare dignity of her own. The resonant voice of the court interpreter becomes her voice, carrying them along — even the journalists are engrossed.
The mushrooms. The shots, her mother. The barbed wire. A foot sticking out of the sand.
Her words seem to expand, become taller, fuller. The room is unnaturally quiet and still. There is no coughing, no rustling, no creaking. Even the noises from outside are muffled, all that matters is in this room, her voice. No sounds of movement, no murmuring, no clearing of throats. They are all listening, transfixed.
This moment, thinks Leah. A moment without any warning. When fragments of leftover history spill into the present. When a living story falls out of the past, redrawing the lines of understanding. A moment that alters the bargain with time.
The other lawyer shambles up to the lectern, robes flapping around his legs, and begins his cross-examination. He is surprisingly capable at this, darting into the corners of the doctor’s story, sniffing out uncertainty, collecting whatever he can find. He may not be much of an orator, but he is clever enough. And he harps on the doctor’s age, her memory, how long ago it was. She is giving up very little, though, she is determined to deliver her evidence, determined to have it believed. Her black eyes become even darker, they seem to absorb the questions into their depths and then reflect the answers back. He slogs away for an hour, doing what he can to fluster her.
As he nears the end, Leah starts to relax slightly, to unclench her jaw. Is it possible the doctor, her testimony will make it through without too much damage? She straightens out the papers on the table in front of her, aligning their edges again.
He has almost finished now, scratching the back of his head with one hand while he leafs through his notes one last time.
You’re a long way from home, he says finally.
She nods.
Have you received any inducement to testify, has anyone promised you anything?
Objection, says Louis instantly, almost before the end of the question. A witness is entitled to be paid a reasonable allowance.
Overruled, says the judge. Save it for argument.
Go ahead and answer, says the other lawyer.
Only the witness money, she says.
How much was that?
Fifteen hundred rubles.
And that’s that, says the lawyer, closing his binder.
···
A reasonable allowance?
Look how far she had to come, says Louis. Look how old she is. Look how many days she had to spend here.
···
A break for lunch. The bomb threat, momentarily forgotten, looms up again. More security, more searches. A swift meal of paninis and espresso in a cafe, the doctor visibly relieved, the music teacher swivelling his head most of the time, intrigued by the meal, the place. And then back to the courtroom and their next witness, the music teacher. After him, two researchers who work in the War Crimes Section will testify.
And may I say that you’ve made them very happy, says Owen.
The investigator, she says. He was the one who found them.
The music teacher is nervous, twisting in his seat, rubbing the backs of his knobby hands. What is he so worried about? She has gone through the questions with him several times now. But his testimony is coming out in streams, he is almost gabbling, and the court interpreter is having difficulty keeping up.
A weakling, says Drozd scornfully. A Jew.
A weakling? A man who survived what he has survived? No, this is a hardy man, a tenacious man — an enduring man.
But she knows he might be more vulnerable here, out of his element, that he might become tied in knots more easily than the doctor. Or that he might become belligerent, flaring out at a questioner. And she can see that Louis is having difficulty keeping him on track; he is deliberately slowing down his questions, trying to set a pace for the man.
He pauses now, to allow a small break in the current of words.
But this pause is suddenly too long. She looks up at him sharply, dismay flooding her. There it is again. The empty look in his eyes, the lack of recognition, as if he has been cut loose from himself, as if even the chairs, the desks were unfamiliar things, unknown objects. He shakes his head, as if he has water in his ears.
She tries to collect herself, leans over to Owen. An adjournment? she whispers, indicating Louis with her head.
No, he says quickly. No adjournments. We need to get this case over, over and done.
A recess? she says desperately.
No, you pick it up, you go ahead.
Go ahead? After the last time? Could he have forgotten how badly it went?
Go ahead, he says.
She stands up stiffly, moves to the lectern. The journalists, sensing something, lift their heads. She feels her throat starting to close, her tongue starting to swell.
And then all at once her breath comes back to her in a gasp. She realizes that she has gone over and over these questions, that she knows them inside out, that she knows this witness better than Louis. She gathers the remnants of her confidence, pulls them up around her. At least try. Take a crack at it. Be bold.
She smiles at the witness, as if it were just the two of them, as if this were just another preparation session. He looks at her, puzzled, and then smiles back, his creased face lighting up. For a moment, he seems almost mischievous, as if this were a game that only the two of them were playing.
Then she begins going back over what he has said, slowing him down, breaking the questions into smaller parts. She feels oddly calm, her panic is muffled, remote. She can hear it circling the edges of her being, but it stays there, going no further. And she is too intent on what she is doing, too busy to be surprised at herself.
The man is less nervous now, listening carefully to the questions as he unwinds his story.
The arrest. The prayer shawls, the books, the sheet music. The packed cell, the smell. The interrogation, the beatings, the broken fingers. The pits, the shooting, the dirt.
This is good? he says through the investigator at the mid-afternoon break, before his cross-examination.
Good, good, she says, a little too heartily. But we’re not allowed to talk to you about it at this point in the case.
He looks disappointed.
More rules. A thicket of constraints, designed to keep evidence as pristine as possible. How pristine is that? Memory — so wily, so brittle. So corruptible. But what else is there?
She smiles at the music teacher in what she hopes is a reassuring way. Then Louis is there beside her, restored now, entirely normal. More than normal, he is bantering with Owen, chatting with the witnesses, skilfully keeping several balls in the air. As if nothing had happened, as if his dazed moment was nothing more than a bout of absent-mindedness.
You really have to do something about this, she says to him silently.
About what? he says.
···
The music teacher is more loquacious in cross-examination, running the other lawyer over with words.
Just answer the question, says the lawyer in a petulant tone.
I am answering the question, the teacher says indignantly. It requires a big answer.
She is tempted to laugh at the lawyer’s predicament, the way the witness is swamping him. This small man, this elderly man, shrunk with age and circumstance, but getting the better of the lawyer on his own ground. Bravo.
Although this spate of words is dangerous for them, too — the man might blurt something that could undermine his story. What could that be? Anything. Lying, deception, duplicity, these get all the attention — the glib fakers, the masters of deceit are the ones usually in the spotlight. Ignored are all the people who tell the truth badly, who can make a fact, solid as a truck, disappear simply by talking about it. The wrong intonation, too much hesitation, a hurried sentence or two, a shifty look for no reason. Some people are born with question marks in their throats, she thinks.
But this man — voluble as he is — is not one of them. No, his downfall might be to drop an innocent fact into the wrong place, some unlucky spot that gives it a damaging meaning, some shadow. She notices that even Louis is gripping his pen more tightly than usual.
Another hour is gone, though, before the lawyer surrenders.
One last question:
And were you paid to testify as well?
Objection, says Louis.
We’ve done this, says the judge.
···
Still no bomb, no explosion.
···
The next day, Louis takes the two researchers through their documents, the admission of one record after another. They are skilful witnesses, expert, tidy. One — a purist — manages to get snarled up in cross-examination briefly, but he recovers after a minute or two.
And then they are done.
Counsel? says the judge, turning to the other lawyer.
No evidence, says the lawyer.
No evidence? Drozd is not testifying?
After all his outrage, his fury, he is not willing to swear to his story under oath? To expose it to cross-examination?
You coward, she says to him. You odious coward.
What did you think? he says. That I would serve myself up to you like a piece of meat on a plate?
···
Final arguments. Louis, in superb form, casting out lines of thought, opening them up, then reeling them in. He is agile, sure-footed, he knows his way around these arguments, knows their twists and curves. And he lures the judge down one pathway and onto another, weaving the words around him. Hold him responsible . . . the fabric of justice . . . right the balance . . . the ethical imperative . . . escape the consequences . . . the suffering of his victims . . . meaning . . . terrible acts made up of small parts.
On he goes, eloquent, his voice climbing and falling, gripping and then releasing. He speaks so easily, so unselfconsciously that his sentences have a natural elegance to them. He talks about justice and morality — these unwieldy ideas — as if they are everyday thoughts, as if they can be taught to sit and stay.
Is that an unfamiliar note in his voice, something new? Yes, there is something else, something beyond his usual verbal skill. His voice sounds throatier, thicker. He does fall for his cases, but not like this, this is different. This case must matter to him, must matter in some indefinable manner.
Or perhaps not so indefinable. So many of them Jewish.
But then he is finished and the other lawyer begins.
A low-paid clerk, a proxy . . . a stand-in for the crimes of NKVD officers . . . political purposes . . . satisfy the demands for prosecution . . . witnesses unreliable . . . too long ago . . . paid to remember things that never happened . . . his youth, his circumstances . . . shaky evidence . . . a blameless life . . . send an old man back to a country he has not seen in decades . . . cut off from his wife, children, grandchildren.
He is reading his notes again, but with more emphasis than usual — even he has been roused by the case. But finally he, too, is coming to a close.
A brief reply by Louis, a last flourish.
Reserved, says the judge.
···
She is exultant. They did it. Louis did it. She did it, her part. Did you see that? she says to Nate. Did you see that? she says to Gus. She wants everyone to know, Isabel, the police officers, the people outside on the street. She wants to whoop, to jump. Of course, she feels badly that Louis had another of his lost moments, that he misplaced himself again. But she is still jubilant — she wants to spin around in the middle of the floor, spin and spin until the room is a blur, trailing drops of law from her fingertips.
···
No bomb.
Isabel is suddenly relaxed again, restored to her tart self.
Nothing, she says, marveling. Nothing.
Nothing, says Leah.
Are you surprised? says Nate.
Yes and no, she says.
She feels the bomb threat slowly pulling its claws out of her, beginning to disappear.
···
One more time. One more time, and she will speak to him.
Have you seen a doctor? Do you know what it is? You really must do something.
No, says Nate.
Yes. What if these are tiny seizures? What if he doesn’t remember them? What if he is ignoring them, hoping they will go away?
One more time.
···
The doctrine of wilful blindness. A jockey, a horse trainer, and another man were playing cards in a private room at an inn. The innkeeper was charged with suffering gambling to be carried on in her licensed premises. She claimed that she was not aware of the card playing and that they did not have the cards of her, but was convicted on the basis that she had taken pains not to know what her guests were doing. I cannot say whether or not I should have drawn the same conclusion myself, said Lord Blackburn.
···
The cells of the eyes replace themselves, his son said once, self-important from school. Some of them. And blood cells, liver cells, the cells of the stomach lining are the same, constantly turning over, new cells generated. After a while, almost an entirely new body.
If this is true, Drozd thinks now, then he is made of this country, has been made of this country many times over. His skin, his fingernails, his bones built from food grown in this soil, rainwater from these lakes, oxygen from this air.
I belong here, he thinks.
They are hounding me, he says.
Persecution, says his lawyer.
I have done nothing but mind my own business here. This country has nothing against me. Even in the old country, I did what I had to do. And I was a child. I did what I had to do, we all did during the war.
Of course, says his lawyer.
These people who think they can get through a war with clean hands are dreaming. They have no idea what war is like.
True, says the lawyer.
It is impossible that they will win this case. Impossible that they would deport someone like me.
If we lose, we’ll appeal, says his lawyer. It has to go up the ladder anyway, and then we can get a court to review it. We can probably spin this out for years.
How much will that cost?
How much do you want to stay here?
···
A child? she says. Sixteen is not a child.
I’ve worked like a madman for everything I have, he says. I’ve earned it. Why would I let some stupid bitch like you take it away?
···
We do the job, says the doctor. Now you pay us the money.
She is turning her rings around on her blue-veined fingers.
The music teacher nods emphatically, bobbing his head.
They are at the office, wrapping up, a few minutes of talk about how well the case went before they go back to the hotel. Louis has left after summarizing the case for them — or for himself — in the best possible light, buffing up the high points, glossing over the low ones. She watches as he turns the case into something finer, more impressive, although perhaps a little hard to recognize. Then he shakes their hands, tells them he has to go, he has other cases, other clients.
But this is not what he will be doing, she thinks. No, he will feel he has earned a rest, he will be immersing himself in his books, sinking into them with a sigh. Allowing them to carry him along, drifting through their well-worn pages.
Now she is sitting with the witnesses, waiting until the taxi comes for them.
We do the job. What does that mean? What exactly does that mean?
She turns towards the investigator.
But before she has time to ask, to say anything, Nate is there, at her elbow, his face tightly set.
What? she says, half-annoyed, half-alarmed.
Come here, he says, pulling her up and into the hallway.
He puts his hands on the sides of her face, then on her shoulders.
Gus.