Here he was, he thought, at one of those signal moments in life which come upon you, part of the infinite progression, just like other moments, but with the chance for enormous change. There had been a great deal of that for him lately—but he was prepared. He had probably not felt a thing like this in over thirty years, yet he recognized it at once. A certain border terrain had been crossed, and they waited on the edges of real intimacy—not just social interaction or an exchange of views, but penetration of the most fixed personal boundaries. And here, awaiting that final passage, he felt the full complexity, mystery of her persona. Oh, he knew nothing about the kinds of things that had made her. They came from different ends of the earth, different eras. It would be years before he recognized the imprint of her experience upon her, every layer, like the accumulating pages of a book. But his heart rose to the assignment; and he was confident that the required energy still resided within him. Every corny fatigued metaphor seemed apropos. He was drunk with the prospect, dizzy.
“What an unexpected pleasure,” he said, beaming, as she awkwardly stood, brushing the soil from her seat and blinking off the sun.
He had actually opened his arms to embrace her, when he caught her look, pointed and intense, which stopped him cold; he knew at once that he had blundered. From somewhere she had produced a white envelope and she raised it at arm’s length, as if to warn him, or even, perhaps, to fend him off.
“This is not for pleasure, Sandy. I came to give you this.” She continued to extend the envelope. “I wanted to do it myself.”
He stood there, mannequin-still. How had she put it? After forty, she had learned no one was even normal.
“Here.”
Eventually he took it. With any reflection, he would have known what it must be, but instead he opened the envelope, fumbling and mindless, and studied the document. It was a grand jury subpoena which she had drafted; her initials were at the foot. Investigation 89—86. He read it over three or four times before the import came home. It was addressed to Stern himself; he had been subpoenaed to appear personally, commanded to attend on Thursday 10 a.m., and then and there produce “a safe transported on or about April 30 from the premises of MD Clearing Corp. and all items in your possession, custody, or control which were contained within said safe as of the time you received it.” She had checked both boxes on the form—he was required to testify and to produce the object. As he read, there loomed up in him once more the familiar intimation of yet another disaster.
“I have to tell you,” Sonny said, “that I’m really pissed off ”
“Oh, Sonny,” he said. “This is a misunderstanding. Please. Come inside for a moment.” He was already walking up the slate stairs to his home.
“Sandy, there’s no point.”
“A moment,” he said again.
They came into the foyer, and around them the house was dark and cool.
“Sonny, I am constrained, of course, by privilege,” he said, meaning that he could not repeat anything Dixon had told him, “but I believe you have a terrible misimpression about this.”
“Sandy, I really wouldn’t say too much if I were you. I don’t know where this thing will end up, and I don’t want to have to testify. I can’t play the game as hard as you guys do. Any of you.”
“Sonny, there are no games involved.”
“Oh, please! How can you say that? After you sat there telling me you were going to search for those records, when you had them in your office all the time. And I fell for that routine. That’s what I really can’t believe. Do you know what I’ve been wondering all day—what was so important you had to drive a hundred miles to find out about it? What would you have done with those documents if I told you the government’s whole case depended on them?”
His mouth parted vaguely as he realized what she was saying: he was being accused. He sat heavily on the milking chair, which was behind him.
“You misunderstand,” he said again.
“I understand fine. I thought you were my fucking friend.”
“I am your friend.”
“Pardon me, but bullshit. Friends don’t do this to each other. No matter who their clients are. Do you want to know how I found out?”
He nodded mildly, afraid that, if he showed greater interest, in her great anger she might refuse to say.
“I walked in this morning,” she said, “feeling sort of cheerful, and there’s Kyle Horn waiting for me. He had a nice weekend, too—he went through all the checks from MD what’s-her-name brought into the grand jury last week. And guess what he found? A check written out of your client’s Chicago office to a cartage company here, with a little note on the bottom: ‘DH Personal.’ Think DH is trying to hide something, maybe?”
Margy again, thought Stern. Had Horn merely been exhaustive, or had someone provided him a clue about what he might find in those stacks of negotiated checks?
“So, naturally, he wants a grand jury subpoena, and he’s out to the cartage company before noon and comes back with the bill of lading and lays it on my desk. ‘Your idol,’ he says. ‘Shit happens.’ I’m not naïve, Sandy. I understand you have a job to do. But you don’t seem to care a bit about the position you put me in.”
“Oh, Sonny, I care enormously.” His tone—soulful, plaintive—took even her aback, and she stared at him a moment, weighing his sincerity. Finally she winced and turned for the door.
“My client,” he said to her, “will not return until late on Thursday.”
She shook her head at once.
“Don’t ask for an extension, because you won’t get it from Sennett—or from me. You and the safe and everything in it are in the grand jury on Thursday morning.”
“That is not possible without conferring with my client.”
“Then you better get a lawyer, Sandy. I mean it. This isn’t amusing or cute or anything else. Don’t put yourself in a vulnerable position with Sennett.” She stopped herself. “Jesus, I’m doing it again. Look. You need a lawyer.”
“A lawyer?” asked Stern.
Sonny seemed to hear the sounds first and bolted about facing the stairwell. It had not occurred to Stern that they were not alone, but he recognized the wind-sprung hairdo and the flowing gown, even before the face, so much like his own, appeared over the banister.
“Who needs a lawyer?” Marta asked.
34
THE ENSUING SCENE at the bottom of the staircase was brief and confusing. Stern, at the height of emotional turmoil, found himself sorely annoyed with Marta for her grand entrance and her failure to announce herself earlier. Never one to brook criticism casually, Marta defended herself stoutly, reminded him that she had written and that she had been letting herself into this house with the same set of keys for nearly twenty years.
“I called Kate. She said she left you a message last night. Don’t you even listen to that machine?”
Finally daunted, Stern made no reply. Instead, he noticed Sonny, who seemed awestruck by the unpredicted outbreak of spirited family emotions. He made the introductions, while Marta, in her familiar way, removed the paper from his hand.
“This is a grand jury subpoena,” she said.
“Ms. Klonsky has served me this moment.”
“Again!” exclaimed Marta. Clearly she recalled the day of the funeral. “You people are too much. Haven’t you ever heard of an office?” She took one step toward Sonny. “Get out,” Marta said.
“Oh Lord.” Stern held his head. He reached despairingly after Sonny, but she was at the door long before him, and was gone with no further remark than “Thursday,” as she pointed at Stern.
“My God, Marta. Your tongue!”
“You mean you’re happy about this?”
“Marta, this is a most complicated circumstance.”
His daughter tipped her head querulously and her face abruptly took on a new light.
“Is that the girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend?” asked Stern. Flummoxed, he managed to ask who had spoken to h
er about his girlfriends. It was a serial connection, as it turned out. Maxine had called Kate last night, after hearing from her mother; Marta had spoken with Kate this afternoon when she had not met Marta here, as planned. Kate said she was not well, but that Stern would be expecting Marta, since she had left a message last night. The discussion of last night apparently brought out the rest.
“Is she?” Marta asked. “Your girlfriend?”
Deeply troubled by all this—Sonny, the subpoena, the image of a tom-tom network of females wailing over his shortcomings late into the night—Stern could not contain his irritation. Why did his children, in their twenties, extend to themselves an irrevocable privilege to be irreverent, even rude?
“Does she appear to be in any condition to be my girlfriend?”
Marta shrugged. Who knew? Who understood proprieties at the end of the century?
Stern, ready for another subject, asked about Kate.
“She says it’s nothing physical. She’s tired. But she sounds upset. Is something going on around here?”
“Ay, Marta,” answered Stern, who finally took his daughter in his arms. He asked about her flight, whether she was hungry. They decided to go out for dinner.
“What about this?” asked Marta of the subpoena.
“I should call someone now, I imagine.”
“I could represent you,” Marta said. “I’ve had a couple clients get grand jury subpoenas, nothing like this but, you know, you could tell me what to do. I don’t have a lot of experience in court, but I’d love to try it. I’m licensed here.”
Indeed, thought Stern, not to mention in three other states. Nonetheless, as a holding action, the idea held some appeal. Stern would never feel completely comfortable as the client of one of his competitors. And criminal lawyers gossiped so freely. He would hate to read some clever item in the papers about his visit to the grand jury. All in all, this was the sort of thing he would be just as happy to keep in the family.
“Bring it along,” said Stern. “We can speak over dinner.”
Marta ran upstairs. There were things of Clara’s she had discovered during her afternoon sifting through the dressers that she wanted Stern to see.
“That,” said Stern, “is a cameo your grandfather Henry gave her when she was sixteen. I have not seen it in years.” Stern held the pendant above a small silver-stemmed menu light on the table. By the same wan glow, Marta studied the female silhouette.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Oh, yes. Henry had a fine eye for such things.”
“It’s strange she never gave it to one of us. Don’t you think?”
Perhaps she could not bear to part with it. Or to think about her father. Perhaps this was marked for the first granddaughter. It piqued him to think that Clara had some plan which had gone unfulfilled. He asked Marta what else she had discovered.
“This is amazing.” Marta peered into her enormous bag and withdrew a huge ball of tissue, from which she slowly unwrapped a splendid sapphire ring. The stone was very large, guarded by a row of diamonds on either side, the setting platinum or white gold.
“Dear Lord,” said Stern as she handed it over. It was the kind of item, so grand, that these days one could not even afford to insure it. He studied the ring at length. “Where on earth did you find these things?”
“There was a little Japanese black lacquer box at the bottom of her second drawer. I guess it was her private place or something.” Marta touched the ring. “You don’t know where she got that? It looks old.”
Her private place, indeed, thought Stern. Could Nate possibly have provided a gift so lavish? Once more, he had that sensation of the earth failing beneath him, as he grappled with Clara’s secrets. Then he clenched his eyes, stabbed by guilt. Oh, he was a shabby, suspicious fellow.
“This,” said Stern, “is undoubtedly the ring your mother received the first time she was engaged.”
“Engaged!” cried Marta.
Stern smiled a bit. “You did not know that your mother married me on the rebound?”
“God, no,” said Marta. “Tell me. This sounds juicy.” She had leaned across the table and the waitress had to shoo her back in order to set her dinner down before her. The establishment was called Balzini’s, a glamorized neighborhood place in Riverside, with an Italianate theme and fake fireplaces and tablecloths of crimson linen. The steaks were reliable. He would always be enough of a son of Argentina to enjoy a piece of grilled beef, but it was hardly what he would have expected Marta to choose. Apparently, however, over the years she had found that they made a generous chopped salad.
He told her Hamilton Kreitzer’s name, and that the courtship had ended precipitously. But he said no more. If Clara had not wanted to share this part of the past with her children, it was not his place to do so. Her privacy now remained Clara’s final and most valued treasure.
At the same time, Marta was the least likely of the three to be thrown off by any revelations. Marta, whose relations with Clara were most difficult, in some ways knew her best. Stern’s most telling recollection of the two would remain seeing Marta at ages four and five, dark-eyed, standing beside her mother at the sink and questioning each habit: Why do you peel the carrots? Why do you wash your hands before you touch the food? What if we just went outside and ate vegetables off the ground? How can germs hurt you if you can’t even see them? On and on. Clara, a woman of some patience, was inevitably exhausted. ‘Marta, please!’ This became the signal, as it were, for more intense inquiry. There were occasions when Marta actually drove Clara from the room.
Having become acquainted early with her mother’s vulnerabilities, Marta was less inclined to worship Clara than her brother and sister were; she saw her mother more as others very likely did. These were not, in all measures, pleasant observations; over time, Stern had acquired a strong flavor of Marta’s opinions. Her view of her mother probably came down to a single word: weak. Marta had little use for Clara’s homebound realm, her music and her garden, and the occasional synagogue functions and teas. She regarded her mother as inert, with her dignified manner and cultivated habits sheltering her from turmoil, inner and outer, that she lacked the spirit to address. Marta saw the world by her father’s measure: action, achievement. Her mother was not a doer, and was accordingly diminished in her daughter’s eyes. Over time, they had come to have a relationship that could be described as proper. Clara was wounded by Marta’s reproaches. Still, she remained available to her. In the universe of relational disasters—Peter and his father, for example—Marta and Clara had managed to make do. They recognized and reverenced, in spite of misgivings, their world of attachments.
“Was this her broken heart?” Marta asked, touching the ring her father held.
“Perhaps. Is that how you saw her, Marta—a person with a broken heart?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes.” The judgment, like most of Marta’s observations, cut him deeply. She went on with no recognition of that. “It’s hard for me to think of you guys floundering. Having sad romances. When I was a child, I thought what every kid thinks: that you two were perfectly matched, that you’d just been out there waiting for each other. Silly, huh?” Marta looked up shyly, her small eyes flickering her father’s way. No doubt, over time, Marta had also developed an unforgiving view of her parents’ marriage. Stern long assumed it had contributed to her ambivalence about men, her shifting attachments. But now, suddenly, her line of sight rose far past Stern, carried off by recollections. “God,” she said, “I can remember one night—I must have been eleven or twelve, and I found myself sitting up in bed, in the dark. Kate was sleeping, it was warm and the wind was slapping the blinds, and I thought, Oh, he is out there! This one man, this perfect man. It was so exciting, that thought.” She closed her eyes, shook her head, suffering. “Did you ever think like that?”
Stern wondered. His adolescence, as he recalled it, seemed full of other passions: the stalled complex of feelings that arose around the memory of Jacobo; his fiery
determination to be American. At night, in bed, he planned: he thought about the clothes he saw—he could remember being preoccupied with a pair of red suspenders for weeks—the way the young men dug their hands into their pockets; he mumbled phrases in English, the same words again and again, with the same sublime frustration, feeling each time that he could not quite hear himself for the sound of his accented voice. There was not much romance in him then, yet he knew what Marta meant: that romance of perfect union: heart on heart; each word, each gesture immediately known; the soul’s image reflected, a fit like puzzle pieces. He was still now, his blood suddenly racing as his mind lit once more on the image of Sonny. Already, the picture was fading somewhat, was a fraction more remote. Some bracing principle of reality had begun to intervene, burnishing his heart with much desolate pain and a feeling of injustice. He smiled weakly at his daughter and said, “I understand.”
“Now, of course, it’s not one man I think about, it’s any man. There’s something about the whole thing I can’t get. Men and women?” As she shook her head, the thick, ungoverned hairdo went in all directions. “Lately, I’ve been tormenting myself trying to figure out if men and women can be true friends without sex. Do you know the answer to that one?” she asked her father in her natural, direct way.
“I fear I am of the wrong generation. I lack experience. The two women I counted as true friends were your mother and your aunt. No doubt, that is not a valuable perspective.”
“But it’s always there, isn’t it?” asked Marta. “Sex?”
“That seems to be the case,” answered Stern, and thought again—fleetingly—of Sonny.