A STERN LOOK from Judge Wilson immediately silences the anxious gallery on the morning of the second day of Henryks v. Stein. “Good morning Mr. Henryks, Mr. Sparks,” he says. Then redirecting his attention to the defense table, he says, “Good morning to you, Ms. Lockhart and Ms. Fisher. May I inquire on the health of Mrs. Stein?”
“Thank you for asking, your honor,” Catherine says. “She’s still in the hospital, but she seems to be doing better. She’s very eager to receive our accounts of the proceedings, which we pass along to her every time we get a break.”
Wilson gives a quick nod. “Very good. Anything more before we summon the jury?” Seeing no response, he nods to his clerk.
“All rise for the jury.” Twelve jurors and two alternates file in and take their seats. They are also eager for the proceedings and the testimony to begin. Wilson says, “Mr. Sparks, you may call your first witness.”
As everyone expects, Sparks calls Ole Henryks. After the routine preliminary questions, Sparks says, “Ole, have you been honored recently?”
“Yes, I have. The Danish-American Association of Chicago has recognized my accomplishments in Denmark and also here in Chicago for the many civic causes that I’ve sponsored. They voted me into their hall of fame. I’m Danish, you know, by heritage.” He stares at Catherine with narrowed eyes and curls his lip. “They want to honor me for being a war hero. Second World War, you know. I saved the lives of Jews.”
“How did that make you feel, Ole, to receive an invitation to a hall of fame?”
“I felt like it’s a crowning achievement to a lifetime of service. I am proud of what I’ve done in my life and obviously the association feels the same way. That is the good reputation that I have enjoyed.” His jaw begins to shake. He purses his lips, turns his face to Catherine and raises his voice. “That is, until her client sought to destroy it for no reason.”
Sparks approaches the witness stand, showing deep concern. He will milk this emotional outburst for all it’s worth. “Calm down, Ole. Take a sip of water. Do you need a break?” Henryks shakes his head. Sparks continues softly, “Now I know this will be extremely painful for you, but I need you to tell the jury what happened last March 14.”
“The day started out like any other. I came to The Melancholy Dane, about six o’clock, and saw right away we were getting a pretty good crowd. I thought to myself, something must be going on. Some of my regulars started saying to me that they were sorry. Others said, ‘What’s this all about?’ I asked them, what do they mean? They say, it’s about the Nazi sign painted on the side of my building. I went out and took a look, but there was nothing there. They said they saw it on TV. I asked my son and he said yeah, it’s true. My son, Nils, he always opens the bar. When he came in the afternoon, he saw the words ‘Nazi Collaborator’ spray-painted on the side of my building. My building. Calling me a Nazi!” Henryks stands, his face is red. He shouts, “A goddamn Nazi!”
“All right, all right, you need to settle down, Mr. Henryks,” Wilson says. “Let’s take a break.” Looking straight at Sparks, he says, “You have to calm your client down, Mr. Sparks. We can’t have these outbursts.”
“Calm him down?” Sparks says with his hand on his heart. “It’s not his fault. It’s Stein’s fault. You can see what her defamatory words have done to Mr. Henryks and his reputation.”
Wilson stands and slams his gavel. “The jury will disregard counsel’s remarks; they are not evidence, and clearly out of line. Mr. Sparks, I caution you against doing that again or I will call a mistrial and recommend you for discipline. You know better.”
CATHERINE SHOOS AWAY reporters in the hallway. “No interviews during a break. There is a witness on the stand.”
Emma pulls her aside. “What do you think?”
“Aside from having a jury watch a ninety-five-year-old man crumble into a hysterical crying fit, it’s what we expected. It’s heavy-handed, but that’s basic Sparks. He’s managing his direct reasonably well, though I suspect some of the jurors can see through the theatrics. Still, watching an old man have a meltdown is never good for us. I anticipate we’ll have two or three more. It certainly raises the bar for our defense. Hearsay identifications won’t carry the day.”
“Bubbe saw Henryks bring the Gestapo to confront her and Lukas outside the Lutheran church. Bubbe heard Henryks bring the Gestapo into the bookstore when they arrested Lukas. Those are firsthand identifications. Not hearsay.”
Catherine nods. “I agree. But she’d be testifying to what she saw and heard from behind a door seventy-five years ago, and neither of those actions is unequivocal. Not enough to label Ole a traitor. He’ll try to explain them away. We’ll need more. Ole is going to have to help us out.”
“I have faith in you, Catherine.”
Catherine notices that everyone is starting to file back into the courtroom. She whispers to Emma, “If your grandmother is healthy enough, we may need her tomorrow. I want you to go to her condo and get whatever clothes she would want to wear to court. And her makeup. Tell her that I don’t want her here to testify; I just want the jury to see her. It’s too easy to convict a ghost. And I want Henryks to see her too. That should send chills up his weepy spine. Of course, I only want her here if she’s up to it. Make sure you clear it with her nurse.”
HENRYKS RETAKES THE stand. “At first, I thought it was some punk kid who painted ‘Nazi Collaborator.’ Just a one-time shot. But then the next night ‘Traitor’ was painted. Then ‘Betrayer.’ Now people began to ask me what the hell is going on? I even had some old friends of mine question me. You know, what did you really do during the war, Ole? I thought you were a hero? I had to explain myself. Who knows what they think today? All these years I’ve led a good life…” Henryks can’t go on. He sobs loudly and turns his head. His reddened eyes hold pools of tears. It is excruciating to watch. Sometimes the jurors avert their eyes.
“We put a camera on the wall,” he says when he resumes. “The next night, when she came to write ‘Informer,’ we filmed her.” He shakes his head. “I came to this country in 1947. I was twenty-four years old. I made a good life for myself and my family. Seventy-one years in the U.S. No trouble. Why does some woman I don’t even know have to come and do this to me now? Why, Sterling? Why? I don’t even know who she is.” He hunches forward and covers his eyes.
Judge Wilson is forced to call another recess while Henryks composes himself. When he retakes the stand, Sparks has an oversized exhibit. He has enlarged the black-and-white photo of Henryks, his father, and another young man standing by a boat, affixed it to a poster board and set it on an easel. “Do you recognize that photo, Ole?”
Henryks smiles broadly, the first time all week. “I should say I do.”
“Tell us about it,” Sparks says.
“That was the night the Jews were all running away, trying to escape. The Gestapo wanted to catch all the Jews and send them to one of their prison camps. But all of the rest of us, we hid the Jews. In the middle of the night, we put them in our fishing boats and sailed them to Sweden.” He points at the photo. “That was our boat. We rescued forty Jews.”
“What would have happened if you got caught by the Nazis?”
“Are you kidding?” He draws his index finger across his neck like a knife. “They’d have killed us on the spot. They were ruthless, those Gestapos.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Nah. We did it because it was the right thing to do. We were tough.”
Sparks stands still in the middle of the courtroom. He’s letting the testimony sink in. Then he turns to the judge and says, “No further questions, your honor.”
Wilson turns his attention to Catherine. “Cross-examination, Ms. Lockhart?”
She stands. “I have no questions at this time.”
There are multiple gasps from the gallery. “No questions?” “Is she nuts?” “After what he said?” “She’s throwing in the towel.”
Wilson looks at Sparks. “Call your next witness, Mr. Sparks.”
Sparks is caught off guard. “I, uh, I didn’t expect, uh, to need him so soon.”
The judge is peeved. “This is your case, Mr. Sparks. Are you prepared to proceed?”
Sparks is rattled. The gallery loves it. Any action is good action. “I’m going to call Nils Henryks, your honor. Ole Henryks’s son. I just need a few minutes to get him here. He’s probably at the restaurant.”
Wilson exhales loudly through his nostrils and addresses the jury. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that this is a good time to get your lunch.”
NILS HENRYKS, THE tall, slender, balding son of Ole Henryks, takes the stand with a pleasant smile and swears to tell the truth. “Calling your attention to March 14, please tell us all what happened that day.”
“I came to work that day, like always. I open the place every day. I mean, it’s my dad’s but I run it. I saw the words ‘Nazi Collaborator’ painted on the south side of our building. I didn’t know what that was all about. I didn’t think too much of it. I went and got some paint remover and scrubbed it off. Then I opened the bar.”
“What did your father have to say about that?”
“I didn’t tell him. Why bother him with stupid stuff like that?”
“But he did hear about it that day, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. Some guys told him they saw it on TV. One of the stations must have filmed it in the afternoon before I got there. My dad was pretty upset. You know, he fought the Nazis.”
“But that wasn’t the end of the painted words, was it?”
“Nope. The next day I saw ‘Traitor’ and I washed it away. But it was on TV. Then the next day was ‘Betrayer’ I think. Then ‘Liar.’ That’s when I decided to put up a camera. That night it filmed a woman in an overcoat spraying the wall at three-thirty in the morning. ‘Informer,’ she wrote. I took the video down to the precinct and showed it to the desk sergeant. They said they’d send a car over the next night. She had just finished writing ‘Nazi Agent’ when they arrested her.”
“How many of those filthy, defamatory words made it to TV?”
“All of them, I think.”
“From what you have observed, Nils, how has all this affected your father?”
“Really tore him up. He’s been depressed since then. I worry about him. It’s not like he’s a young man who can brush it all off. He takes it seriously. It’s done a number on him. It’s a real shame.”
“Yes, it is,” Sparks says solemnly. “No further questions for this witness, your honor.”
Nils starts to leave the witness stand when the judge says, “Hold on, Mr. Henryks. Any cross-examination, Ms. Lockhart?”
“Yes, your honor,” Catherine says. She places the poster and easel up in front of the witness stand, facing the jury box. “Mr. Henryks, do you recognize this photograph?”
“Yes, ma’am, I sure do. It hangs on the wall behind the bar.”
“Has your father ever told you who the people are in that picture?”
Nils smiles broadly. “Only about a hundred times. That’s my grandfather Viktor and my father Ole. And that’s my grandfather’s boat that they used when they rescued the Jewish people.”
“And the third person, the young man standing next to your father? Who is that?”
Nils shrugs. “I’m not real sure, I think my father said it was Henry, one of his friends in Copenhagen.”
“Could that be Henning?”
“Yeah, could be.”
“Henning Brondum?”
“Yeah, I think that’s right.”
“Thank you. No further questions.”
Nils gives his father a hug on the way out of the court. Judge Wilson says, “Call your next witness, please, Mr. Sparks.”
Sparks stands, scans the courtroom as though he is looking for someone, and then says, “I don’t have another witness.”
“Does the plaintiff rest?”
Sparks seems unsure, but says, “Yes. The plaintiff rests.”
“Will the defendant have witnesses, Ms. Lockhart?”
“Yes, your honor, we most certainly will.”
Wilson rises, slams his gavel and says, “Court stands in recess until tomorrow morning when we will hear the defendant’s case.”