Gibbon's Decline and Fall

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Did we get anything we can use?” Bettiann rubbed her forehead where lately the lines had refused to be smoothed away.

  Faye responded musingly, slowly, thinking it over. “The Goddess. And the old man who brought her food. The striding man who offered her the world if he could make love to her, whom these women identify, I think, as a … the devil, and whom Agnes identifies as … something else. She, Sophy, went into his lair. What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bettiann fretfully. “Another thing was, she laid hands on these women. That’s what … religious leaders do, isn’t it?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person, Bets.”

  “She never … laid her hands on us.”

  Faye sighed. “These women were her students, her followers. Her disciples, if you will. We were her friends. Maybe; she felt it would be presumptuous with us, that we wouldn’t appreciate it. Or maybe she knew us too well. Or maybe …” She did not finish the thought. Maybe Sophy had wanted them to find the way for themselves. Or knew that some of them wouldn’t.

  Bettiann was still fretting. “We can’t go looking for a goddess or a devil. The old man was human, though. What did she say his name was?”

  “She said Qowat. Qowat, Josephus, something. Chendi Qowat is the name on the application Sophy made to the foundation. He could be still alive. Why not? We think Sophy is. Come on. Let’s call Santa Fe and tell the others what we’ve found out so far.”

  They had just finished the call when Aggie came from her room, wiping her eyes. “I’m ready to go back to Carolyn’s. Everything they said today made it clear we had no idea who Sophy was. Or what she was. We’re not going to learn anything more here.”

  Bettiann shook her head. “We’ll go, Aggie, but not until morning. We’re tired out, and for a few hours we’re going to rest. We’re going to walk down to Frog Hollow and buy something funny for Carolyn and Ophy and Jessamine. We’re going to have dinner out and quietly drink some wine. Then if you can’t sleep, I’ll give you one of my sleeping pills, and tomorrow we’ll go west again.”

  It was not the Bettiann whom Aggie was accustomed to, but she did not argue.

  In a different place an old yellow school bus drove down the rainy streets of a middle-size city where evening lamplight shone at windows and streetlights made misty spheres of radiance above rain-licked pavement. The bus passed a small boy dressed in a yellow raincoat and hat, sailing boats in the gutter. The boy waved, and the old man who was driving the bus waved back. The bus passed a dignified dog trotting purposefully about its business and taking no notice of bus or driver. It passed a man and woman walking close together, head and shoulders concealed by an umbrella. The driver turned a corner and pulled to the curb in front of an ordinary house: white clapboard, green shutters, trimmed evergreens in the front yard, a covered porch at the front and side. The porch light was on, as though someone was expected.

  He turned and nudged his only passenger, who was drowsing.

  “Where are we?” Helen asked.

  “Where you’ll be safe,” said the old man, getting to his feet. “This is Rebecca’s house. You’ll be all right here.”

  “For how long?” she cried. “Until he finds me?”

  “Perhaps he won’t find you.”

  “My children,” she said, something between a whimper and a prayer.

  “Everything is changing,” he said, putting his hand on her head. “Everything is in flux, moving like a stream over rocks, full of eddies and wavelets. Whatever happens will happen soon. It will not be long until you can be together.” He pressed his cheek against hers. “Or it will not be long before being together won’t seem important. Go in. This is a refuge. They have been told you are coming. They are expecting you.”

  The bus door wheezed open. She stepped down onto the sidewalk, hearing the door shush closed behind her. She was halfway to the house when the house door opened, spilling indoor light onto the rain-wet walk to make a golden river. Behind her the bus hummed itself away. She did not turn to see it go, for her eyes were fixed on the woman who came to meet her and take her by the hand. She looked to be about sixty. Her face was tranquil.

  Children were playing inside. Their laughter came clearly into the night, along with the voices of women. There was the smell of cooking.

  “I’m Rebecca Rainford,” said the woman. “Welcome.”

  Carolyn took Ophy and Jessamine to the jail to examine Lolly, returning well before noon on Sunday.

  “How’d it go?” Hal asked when they returned.

  Carolyn shrugged. “Lolly was very much herself. Ophy did a thorough physical; Jessamine took her through a couple of nonverbal tests.”

  “Enough to get an idea of the level she functions at,” murmured Jessy. “Carolyn hadn’t misled us. She’s just as described. Lily the chimp probably has better sense, but then, Lily’s mother raised her carefully.”

  It was the only notable happening in a day otherwise spent in edgy sloth, nothing accomplished, though everything was worried over. The evening was marked only by Bettiann’s call telling them what the eastern contingent had come up with and saying they would return sometime on Monday. After a quiet supper everyone retired but Carolyn. She sat up late, obsessively going over everything that might go wrong, noting down everything that Jagger could use against her and every wrong step she might make. She included in this lengthy list the possibility that Josh might not be able to continue overseeing Lolly’s clothing.

  The wisdom of her foresight was clear the moment she saw Lolly in the courtroom on Monday morning, hair teased into a mane, eyes made up, lipstick a smear, and a scarlet dress so tight it looked painted on. Carolyn grabbed her, steered her out into the bailiff’s anteroom, and from there, with a female guard, to the women’s room, where Lolly was, over feeble protestations, stripped to her underwear, washed, brushed, combed, and redressed in a set of clothing that Carolyn had brought with her just on the off chance.

  “I looked good before,” she wailed.

  “You looked like a hooker,” said Carolyn firmly. “Juries put girls who look like hookers in the tanks. Who dressed you up like that?”

  “My mama. She said somebody give her the clothes.…”

  Carolyn could imagine who had given her the clothes. When they went back into the courtroom, the girl was neatly dressed in clean jeans, low-heeled shoes, and a knit polo shirt. Though elsewhere this might have been too informal for court, in Santa Fe it was sufficient. Her hair, though somewhat the worse for the quart of mousse that had been gooped onto it, was reasonably neat.

  “Now, what’re you going to do?” Carolyn asked when she was seated.

  Lolly made a sullen face.

  “Look, kid. If you want to get tanked, fine. I won’t waste my time. If you don’t want to get tanked, then cooperate.” Carolyn had chosen not to mention the death penalty, on the theory that it would only send Lolly into a complete funk if she understood it at all.

  She mumbled. “I’m s’posed to sit still, and not chew gum, and not make faces, and not, like … say anything, no matter what nobody says. But I can tell you things in a whisper if I need to.”

  “Right, Lolly. It’s going to be long, and it’s going to be boring. Just do the best you can.”

  Carolyn seated herself, feeling the surge of people behind her. The courtoom was like a tidal pool, with people pouring in and out, shifting groups of them, whispering and exclaiming. They were discussing the news, the epidemic, the change. My wife thinks this. My husband told me that. My mother said. Judge so-and-so thinks. Did you read this? Well, I think what will happen is.

  Carolyn eavesdropped unabashedly. They were not talking about Lolly, or the case. So what were they all doing here?

  The question was answered when the bailiff entered, looking at his watch. Some of the visitors aped the action, then drifted out and away, followed by others. The ebb and surge had been courthouse workers, clerks and secretaries now gone to their own offices and courtroom
s, leaving only about ten people behind. So much for the great interest in this case the media had claimed! Carolyn felt a certain weary annoyance about that.

  The bailiff called order. Judge Rombauer came in amid a rustle and confusion of getting up and sitting down. The case was called. The jury filed in, some members of it smiling and nodding at people in the courtroom. Were they neighbors? Relatives? Carolyn shook her head slowly. What attendance there was had come to watch the jury more than they had the trial.

  The attorneys went through their ritual minuet, declaring their presence and preparedness. Carolyn thought, absurdly, that the whole thing should be set to music. Drums for the bailiff, fanfare for the judge, solemn horns for the jury.

  And then the trombone, proclaiming an oily importance: Jagger, who began the prosecution case by calling, in sequence, police officers John Martinez and Ben Lujan, who testified to being tipped about the baby’s body, subsequently finding the body, and transporting it to the pathologist. Pictures taken by the police photographer were entered into evidence.

  Carolyn elicited information about the mattress, which wasn’t shown in the police photographs, and the fact that it was bitterly cold at the time.

  Jagger called the pathologist, who testified to the identification of the baby as Lolly Ashaler’s baby, through DNA testing. The cause of death of the slightly premature male newborn weighing five pounds eight ounces was exposure, he said. Extreme cold.

  Jagger asked, “The child was born alive?”

  Very brief pause. The witness looked at the ceiling. “It was, yes. It took at least one breath—there was air in the lungs.” When his eyes came back down, he glanced at Carolyn and flushed.

  Well, well, she thought without surprise. First suborned witness of this trial. The baby hadn’t been alive. Or hadn’t lived to take a breath.

  Carolyn rose and approached the witness, noting the clenched jaw. The bastard was afraid she’d catch him out in his lie, and she wasn’t even going to ask him about that.

  “Doctor, when you saw the body, how was it presented to you?”

  The jaw relaxed a little. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Was the body clean, washed?”

  “Of course not. It was as found, with the umbilical cord intact, still attached to the placenta, wrapped up in paper toweling.”

  “Placenta, cord, and body, all sort of wrapped up together?”

  “That’s right.”

  “To the layman, a bloody mess?”

  “I suppose.” He sneered his disregard for laymen, an expression that changed to surprise when she said simply:

  “Thank you, Doctor. That’s all.”

  Dr. Belmont testified that Lolly was mentally normal and suffered from no psychiatric disease. Carolyn asked her how many times she had seen Lolly and was told one time only.

  An elementary schoolteacher, Maria Gallegos, testified that she had taught Lolly Ashaler in fifth grade. Lolly had been a slow student, but not in any sense retarded. Jagger grinned at Carolyn when he strutted back to his chair.

  “Mrs. Gallegos, do you remember Lolly well?” Carolyn asked.

  “Fairly well.”

  “Even though it was years ago that you taught her?”

  “Yes. I remember some of them. She’s one I remember.”

  “What made you remember Lolly?”

  “Objection, Your Honor. What causes any given memory is irrelevant.”

  “The prosecutor wishes us to believe in this witness’s memory, Your Honor. I think we have the right to question it.”

  “The witness may answer.” Rombauer frowned and made a tally on a sheet of paper. The paper was roughly divided into two columns, one headed with a J for Jagger, the other with a D for the defense. The tally went into the defense column.

  The teacher said, “She was always hungry. I don’t think she was given food at home, not at all. I used to bring a sandwich in my purse for her. Toward the end of that year she moved in with her grandmother, and she put on a little weight and looked better.”

  “Did Lolly ever come to school injured?”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “What kinds of injuries?”

  “The kind that made me refer her to the school nurse, who referred her to the hospital and a social worker.”

  “What do you think caused the injuries?”

  Jagger stood. “Objection, Your Honor. This calls for a conclusion by the witness.”

  Carolyn said, “The witness is an experienced teacher. She sees children all the time. She has enough experience to draw conclusions of this kind.”

  Rombauer said in a bored voice, “Sustained.” He made a tally in the J column.

  The teacher looked daggers at Jagger, which he pretended not to see.

  The woman had something she wanted to say. Carolyn gave her an opening. “Was she a good student?”

  The witness’s reply came too quickly for Jagger to stop her. “No, because someone was beating on her. Probably her mother’s boyfriend, that’s usually who it is about that age.”

  Jagger was getting to his feet.

  Carolyn asked, “About that age?”

  “Puberty. When they start to look like women—”

  “Your Honor,” thundered Jagger.

  “The jury will disregard the last questions and answers,” said Judge Rombauer, giving Carolyn a dirty look.

  “Thank you,” said Carolyn to the witness.

  Jagger was on his feet. “Mrs. Gallegos, did Lolly ever tell you she was abused by someone?”

  “No. Not directly.”

  “Did she tell you that’s why she went to live with her grandmother?”

  “Not directly, no.”

  “So that’s merely your interpretation, right?”

  “On the evidence I saw,” said the woman stubbornly, thrusting her chin forward. “That child was hurt, and she was hungry. Then she lived with her grandma and she wasn’t hurt or hungry anymore.”

  Jagger shrugged, letting it go. He had established that Lolly was normal; that’s all that really mattered. He called Lolly’s mother to the stand, Maxine Ashaler.

  Maxine said she never drank when she was pregnant with Lolly, only years later, when Lolly was in school. Lolly was healthy, she said. The public-health nurse used to come see Lolly every month or so, and Lolly was healthy.

  “Your witness,” said Jagger with a grin, not bothering to hide his triumph.

  “Ms. Ashaler, how old are you?”

  “Twenny-nine.”

  “So you had Lolly when you were fourteen?”

  “Yeah. ’Bout then.”

  “How did your mother feel about that?”

  “She wannet me to, you know, not have the baby. She said I couldn’t take care of it. Because I’m, you know, a little slow. But some people, they help me have it. They give me baby clothes and stuff.”

  “What people?”

  “People. They said I had a right.”

  “They gave you baby clothes? What else did they give you? Money to support you and Lolly?”

  “No. Jus’ the clothes. Not new ones.”

  “Did they take you to the hospital for checkups? Did they buy you groceries?”

  “No, I said awready. Jus’ the clothes.” The woman looked fretfully at Jagger, who was paying no attention. Judge Rombauer seemed to be asleep. “They wasn’t even new clothes.”

  “So it was your mother who supported you and who took care of Lolly when she was a baby.”

  “Yeah. Well. She said we should get married, him and me, so we did, but he went off. So me ’n’ Lolly, we lived with Mom.”

  “Ms. Ashaler, you do drink a lot now, don’t you?” Carolyn asked.

  “Well, not right now. I got dried out.”

  “Up until Mr. Jagger put you into the hospital, you did drink.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you drink?”

  “Whattahell kinda
question’s that?”

  “I’ll try to make it clearer. Do you drink because it makes you feel better?”

  “ ’Sthere some other reason?”

  “You drink because it makes you feel better. When you don’t drink, you feel bad pretty much all the time. Is that right?”

  “I guess.”

  “You moved into an apartment of your own?”

  “Yeah. Later on.”

  “When Lolly was ten or eleven years old, did your boyfriend live with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you and he used to drink together, right?”

  “Sometimes. Sure.”

  “Did he abuse Lolly?”

  “All he did was he hugged her some, put her on his lap, like.”

  “Hugged her so she couldn’t move, and put her on his lap with his penis sticking into her, isn’t that right?”

  “How’d I know? He said he never did that.”

  “When he was drunk, he used to hit her?”

  “When he’s drunk, he hits on ever’body. Not just her.”

  “So Lolly went back to your mother’s place.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But then your mother got sick and died.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No further questions,” said Carolyn.

  After lunch Jagger called Dr. George Fulling, who went over his qualifications and experience at length, went on for some time about fetal alcohol syndrome, and then testified that Lolly Ashaler did not have it.

  “Hospital records indicate she was a normal infant. Emergency-room records of several childhood injuries show no sign that she was anything but normal. Looking at her now, I can say that her eyes appear normal, her nose appears normal, she displays none of the facial characteristics of an FAS person.”

  “In your opinion, does she have any genetic problem?”

  “Not in my opinion.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Carolyn frowned at her notes, as though dismayed. Jagger grinned, then hid the grin behind his hand. Carolyn rose. “Dr. Fulling, you mentioned that Lolly Ashaler was treated for several childhood injuries. Can you tell us what those were?”