The entrée, beef stew, came from a large plastic container that Arthur had removed from the freezer in the morning. Now he dumped the contents into a large pot and added various fresh ingredients. There was probably enough here to feed twelve. When dinner was over, the substantial leftovers would be refrozen. By Arthur’s calculations, there had to be a few cubes of beef in there that had been thawed every week since the early ’90s. It was an appalling health hazard. But this was the way their frugal father had done it—waste not, want not—and his sister would not abide any other procedure.
Susan set the table for three, her first overt acknowledgment of Gillian’s presence. Arthur dished out portions from the pot. Susan then picked up her plate and settled in the living room in front of the TV.
“What did I do?” whispered Gillian.
“That’s part of the drill.”
“You don’t eat together?”
Arthur shook his head. “Her show is on. It’s the only thing she can watch without getting zooey.”
“Which is?”
“You ready? Star Trek.”
Arthur held his fingers to his lips to caution Gillian against laughter, and she had to stuff half her fist into her mouth to keep silent. Apparently finding it a safer subject, Gillian then asked about Rommy’s case. She had not heard about Harlow’s ruling and seemed pleased for Arthur’s sake by the news.
“What’s your next step now, Arthur?”
“I can’t think of anything. I’ve filed every motion, issued every subpoena that makes any sense. There are absolutely no jail records left to show who was or wasn’t in the House of Corrections on the night of the murders. Jackson Aires won’t let anyone talk to Erno’s nephew, and Muriel’s not about to give him immunity, and the judge can’t force her. As of June 29th, the limited discovery period closes. I think I should just run out the clock. After Harlow’s findings, it’s really on Muriel to try to do something to undermine Erno’s credibility before we go back to the Court of Appeals for a ruling on whether the case can proceed.”
Arthur’s biggest challenge was likely to come from Reverend Blythe. As expected, dealings with the Reverend were entirely a one-way street. After their first meeting, the Reverend no longer deigned to call Arthur directly. Instead, he had an aide who phoned every day for a detailed briefing, information Arthur was obliged to share because Rommy, who had been thrilled by Blythe’s visits to Rudyard, had requested that Arthur do so. There seemed to be no countervailing courtesies. Although Blythe now referred to himself as Rommy’s spiritual counselor, and claimed Arthur and he were a team, the Reverend ignored Arthur’s efforts to moderate Blythe’s rhetoric or even to gain advance warning of when the next blast would issue.
“I’m scared to death,” said Arthur, “that with all this stuff about ‘racist oppressors’ he’ll infuriate the Court of Appeals.”
“But they have to let you go on, wouldn’t you think? Erno can’t be disregarded, not without a full hearing. Isn’t that what Harlow was saying?”
That was how Arthur saw it, but he had failed many times in his career to guess correctly about what judges would do.
When the show was over, Susan rejoined them for dessert. She loved pastry. Then the dishes were washed and everything was shelved. Before Arthur left the apartment, he opened the freezer and replaced the container of stew.
IN THE DIM STAIRWELL of the three-flat, Gillian followed while Arthur led his sister down. These old tenements were as solid as destroyers, but the maintenance here had been neglected. On the treads, the carpeting in several places was worn to the backing, and amoeboid forms spotted the walls where the plaster had rejected the paint.
There were few occasions when she got out, besides work and uncomfortable visits with her sisters, so Gillian had actually found herself looking forward to this evening, and she had not been disappointed. It had pleased her enormously, much as it had on the first occasion, to watch Arthur’s adroitness with his sister and his persistent, loving manner.
As they drove back, Susan gave him a precise recounting of the Star Trek episode. Like everyone else in the joint, Gillian had watched her share of TV, and she asked a couple of well-versed questions about Kirk and Spock and Scotty, to which Susan responded with eagerness. When they arrived at the Franz Center, Gillian got out of the car to say good night and to take Susan’s place in the front seat. And there on the curb, with the year’s longest light still in the sky, Gillian briefly met the other Susan Raven. Her hand came up somewhat awkwardly and she pumped Gillian’s arm too hard. But she made unwavering eye contact, and Gillian could feel herself recognized in an entirely different way.
“It’s very nice to see you again,” said Susan. “I’m glad Arthur has such a nice friend.”
Arthur walked Susan in. Gillian lingered just outside the Center’s front door to have a cigarette. She found herself strangely moved. When Arthur reappeared, Gillian, who never cried, had to push away tears. Arthur noticed at once, and as they were on the way back to Duffy’s, Gillian explained that she had finally seen Susan as she was capable of being, almost as if a pair of eyes had stared at her out of a forest. Arthur mulled her remark for several blocks.
“The truth,” he said then, “is that for me, that person, the woman who just spoke to you—she’s always there, you know, the shadow of the girl I grew up with.”
“She was in good health as a child?”
“That’s how it usually is with schizophrenics. It just happens. She was fourteen. And I don’t think you’d ever have guessed. I mean, she was eccentric. She collected soldiers and staged battles. That was unusual for a girl. She kept rocks from the riverbank, and was compulsive about figuring out how old each one was. She couldn’t sleep until she had them in chronological order. But we all thought she was brilliant. Well, she is. And then one day, she was naked in the corner of her room and wouldn’t come out. She’d smeared her shit all over herself. She said my mother’s mother had come back from the dead to tell her my parents were talking about her in code.
“That scene,” said Arthur sighing, “that scene is in my head like a movie poster under lights. You know, framed next to the doorway of the theater? It’s there every time I walk in to see Susan. Because it was one of those instants when you realize that everything about your life from top to bottom is now different.”
“It must have been devastating.”
“That’s the word. For my parents, at least. I mean, as soon as they heard the word ‘schizophrenic’ they knew they were doomed. And they were right. My mother was out the door in two years. I was nine when Susan got sick, and I didn’t know what to think. I mean, the truth, the ugly truth, is that I can actually remember being happy.”
“Happy?”
“She was so bright. She was so beautiful. Susan was the starring attraction. The Great Susan. That’s what I’d always called her in my head. And suddenly she’d been swept aside. I cringe, remembering it. Not just the childishness. But because I was so wrong. The dumbest, funniest, saddest part is that I still idolize her. Maybe I almost feel obliged to, so that somebody on earth really knows how tragic it is. The Great Susan,” said Arthur again.
“Yes,” said Gillian. Arthur brought the sedan to the curb in front of Duffy’s. She looked toward the squat bungalow, but she was not quite ready to give up the conversation. “I had a brother like that,” she said. “Whom I idolized.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. Carl. He was my favorite. Carl was four years older. Oh,” she said, in a sudden rush of feeling, “he was gorgeous. And wild. I adored him.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead. He died on a motorcycle. He lived out his fate in eighteen years.” She cleared her throat and declared, “He was the first man I ever slept with.”
Somehow, after a moment, she found the resolve to turn to Arthur. He stared, but it was a dense, thoughtful look. She could see him laboring to comprehend what this meant to her. Here, as so often before, she was startled to
discover what a grown-up Arthur Raven had become.
She found she had lit a cigarette, without even thinking that she was defiling the perfect environment in Arthur’s fancy car.
“I’ve shocked you,” she said.
He took some time before he answered, “Of course.”
“Yes,” said Gillian. She closed her purse and went to toss out the cigarette, then drew it back to savor one last puff. “Of course, it’s shocking. I’ve never really known what to make of it, so, frankly, I don’t think of it at all. Because I wanted it to happen. It was more confusing afterwards—over the years. But at the time, I was pleased.”
To a fourteen-year-old it had been momentous but without any sinister aspect. As a judge, she routinely sentenced men—fathers, stepfathers—for the sexual abuse of children and deemed it unpardonable. But her own experience resided in a category beyond the social expectations of the law. She had been willing and seductive. And she loved Carl far too much to burden him with blame, even in memory. They had always been one another’s favorites. From an early age they shared a certain purchase on things, usually expressed in telling glances. He was her pal while she warred with their parents. So many other young women craved his attention and his beauty. One night, Carl came home staggering. He cuddled her. She clung. Nature provided the momentum. The next morning, he said, ‘I’m more fucked up than I think I am.’ ‘I liked it,’ she told him. There were two more occasions. She listened for his arrival, and went to him. She went. After that, he began to lock the door to his room, and angrily rebuked her when she dared to ask why. ‘Sometimes it comes to me, what I’ve done, and I want to pull the ears off my head so I can’t hear that. This is insane,’ he said. ‘Insane.’ She’d succeeded in repelling him. That was the most painful part. They’d barely spoken in the months before his death.
“I wanted to die after he died. I thought about killing myself. I’d make up plots. Schemes. Ways to do it. I’d have discussions with friends. Hanging. Fire. Drowning. I wanted to jump under a train—I’d already read Anna Karenina. And then for a while I actually burned myself with cigarettes. In places other people couldn’t see. But it passed. I stopped acting like that. I stopped thinking like that, or about why I’d felt that way in the first place. People do bizarre things when they’re growing up. We all do. We survive them. But there was nothing about the experience that ever squared for me with the word ‘abuse.’” She looked down to find herself about to put fire to another cigarette. The left hand holding her lighter was steady, but in the other, the cigarette was teetering between her fingers as if there were a strong wind.
“I’ve never told anyone that story, Arthur,” she said. “No one.” She had sat through dozens of hours of confessions in various groups, and had shared everything with Duffy. Or thought she had. She found the courage to look again at Arthur, who was studying her.
“You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, do you?” he asked.
So he had figured that out as well.
“No,” she said.
Leaning against the car door, he used the wheel to pull himself forward. His face ended up inches from hers, and he spoke quietly.
“When you grow up with somebody as frantic as my father,” he said to her, “you spend a lot of time figuring out what there is in the world that’s really worth being scared of.” He reached across her to open the passenger door, but his eyes never left hers.
“And I’m not scared of you,” he said.
23
JUNE 19, 2001
Paging Dr. Kevorkian
IT WAS PAST 5:30 by the time Larry phoned Muriel and agreed they should set out separately for the airport. Morley and Larry made good time back into the city going against traffic, but on a stretch of road called “the Connector,” they came to a dead stop. The radio said a truck had spun out not far from Turner Field. At 6:15 Larry’s cell rang. It was Muriel in her taxi. She’d started out half an hour ahead of them, but at this point was only a couple of miles closer to Hartsfield.
“We’re toast,” she said. By now, as usual, she had explored all options and executed a plan. The Delta 8:10 was booked solid, with eighteen people outranking them on the standby list; a switch to another airline was impossible because their tickets were government rate. Instead, Muriel had reserved seats on an early-morning flight and had taken two rooms at an airport hotel.
When Larry arrived there, fifty minutes later, Muriel was in the lobby with her bags, running the P.A.’s Office by phone from a thousand miles away. A gang murder case was deteriorating in standard fashion—every witness, including the ones who’d been locked in by testifying before the grand jury, now claimed to have misidentified the defendant. Judge Harrison, who thought developments in the rules of criminal procedure had ceased when he left the P.A.’s Office forty years ago, was being impossible, and by the time Muriel dropped her cell phone back in her briefcase, she’d authorized a mandamus petition, to ask the state appellate court to set Harrison straight.
“Every day a new clown in the circus,” she said. She’d registered and handed Larry his key, but neither of them had had lunch, and they agreed to go directly to the restaurant. Larry nearly sat up and begged when the waitress offered a drink. He ordered a boilermaker, but quaffed the beer first, downing almost all of it at once. He could feel his clothing adhering to his body and removed his light sport coat, tossing it over a chair at the table. They had to measure the discomfort index in this city in four digits. Not that he’d helped by sprinting after Collins. He told Muriel the story. She laughed heartily until he reached the part where Collins had said his uncle was telling the God’s truth and that Collins himself asked Jesus to forgive him every night for what they had done to Gandolph.
“Ouch,” said Muriel. “That’s not good. Was he smoking you?”
“Probably. He was pretty cagey. Said flat out he’d never talk against Erno. And wouldn’t admit to anything.” There was bread on the table and Larry buttered his second piece. “To tell you the truth, he does a pretty good impression of a grown-up. Says he’s born-again. There’s a cross the size of Cleveland on the wall of his office and he gave me a real mouthful of that Holy Roller bullshit.”
Muriel fingered her wineglass and frowned.
“Don’t dis God, Larry.”
He looked at her.
“He’s there,” she said. “Something. He, She, It. But it’s there. I actually look forward to church. It’s the most complete I feel all week.”
She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. Not about the big picture.
“Catholicism ruined religion for me,” Larry said. “The pastor in our parish is wonderful. We have him to dinner. The boys love him. I could talk to the guy all day. But I can’t go through the door to the church. I do my praying in the garden. That’s the only time I feel like I have the right to ask.”
He smiled hesitantly and she smiled back in the same fashion, but he was unsettled by the thought that Muriel had undergone a transformation. Some of the stuff that had come out of her mouth lately, about God or babies, made him wonder if she’d had a brain transplant at some point in the last ten years. It was funny what happened to people after forty, when they realized that our place here on earth was leased, not owned. There seemed a peril, one he could not name, in finding Muriel had grown softer in ways.
Rather than face her, Larry surveyed the dining room. It was half empty, done improbably in a tropical theme, with palm fronds, and bamboo railings and furniture. Everybody in here was tired. You could see it. Who could call a clean bed and a room of your own a hardship? Yet it seemed hard, being removed from home and set down in places you’d never been. There was something unsound in losing connection to your own piece of earth, he thought. Somehow, everything in life took him back to the garden.
He decided to look for a pay phone. He’d just about burned up his free long-distance minutes on his cell and the Force refused to reimburse any overage. He needed to leave messages at home and at
the Hall about getting stuck down here. Walking toward the lobby, he was still thinking of Muriel. He’d had a thought to ask if Talmadge went to church with her, which would have violated the promise he’d made on the plane. He knew enough now, anyway. Like everybody else’s, Muriel’s life was, at best, complex. But he could not quite quell a grim satisfaction. Muriel believed that God made order in the universe. In his hardest moments, Larry thought it was revenge.
“WE HAVE A PROBLEM,” Muriel said when Larry returned. She’d thought it through carefully while he was gone. “The other shoe dropped this morning: Harlow buys Erno.”
“Fuck,” Larry said.
She explained the ruling, which Carol had read to her over the phone.
“Fuck,” Larry said again. “The other judges—they don’t have to go along with that, do they?”
“The Court of Appeals? In theory, no. But they didn’t see the guy testify. Harlow did. They won’t have much choice about accepting his views unless we can come up with something new that makes Erno a liar. And this stuff with Collins today only cuts the other way. Once I tell Arthur, he’s going to whine and lie on the floor and renew his motion to force me to grant Collins immunity.”
“And?”
“The motion’s still a loser. Immunity is strictly a prosecutorial decision. But he gets the information in front of the appellate court that way.”
“You don’t have to tell Arthur diddly. I promised Collins I wouldn’t write any of it down. As far as Arthur is concerned—or anyone else for that matter—the conversation never happened.”