“Here we go,” said the prosecutor, rolling his eyes.
“Ah,” muttered Unwin, and he began busily perusing a thick report he’d just found, grunting, lost in thought.
The judge dangled his gavel between two fingers. “Counselor … Counselor—”
Oblivious to all but the page he held near his nose, Unwin lifted one hand above his head in a shushing gesture and continued reading.
The judge looked so angry that Winkie started tugging on his lawyer’s sleeve, but he paid no attention. His eyes moved rapidly across the page. “Huh, huh, uh-huh … What? Oh. Hm, uh-huh … Oh, my God! Huh. Ah … Huh … ”
Several witnesses went by before Unwin even raised his little eyes from the tableful of evidence. Testimony floated past the lonely bear as if in a dream where one can only watch and do nothing. When the chief detective was called, however, the man gave Winkie such an intense look of hatred that the bear began urgently tugging his lawyer’s sleeve again.
“Jesus—what?” Unwin snapped.
Winkie pointed in alarm, but the chief’s murderous gaze had already lapsed. He looked especially calm and handsome now, as he stood very tall near the flag and spoke his oath of truth in the same booming voice the bear had first heard coming from a helicopter.
Even Unwin began to pay attention. Under the prosecutor’s questioning, the chief recounted the many years spent tracking down the defendant, and the circumstances of his arrest at last. “I knew from the first moment I saw him—through the binoculars—that he was our man.”
Unwin shot up. “Your Honor, um, whatever, whatever this agent believed, it, it, it, it has no bearing, no bearing whatsoever, on, on—”
“Overrruled.” Crack.
“Thank you, Judge,” said the prosecutor, shutting his eyes and inclining his head as if, without the court’s intervention, he would submit humbly to any attack by the defense. He turned to the chief again. “And why is that, sir? How did you know you had found ‘your man,’ as you put it so vividly?”
“Because he matched the profile perfectly.”
“And what was that profile?”
The chief held out the palm of his large hand and began tapping it with one finger, then two, then three, as he made each irrefutable point. “A very short male with what experts call a ‘Napoleon complex,’ probably deformed, perhaps severely so, socially awkward, a drifter, paranoid, totally isolated from family and friends, unmarried, of course, and incapable of normal, healthy sexual relations with the opposite sex, relations that could lead to the birth of normal, loving children and a normal, healthy, fulfilling family life.”
After months of interrogation, Winkie had grown inured to most of the chief’s outlandish charges, but he did very much want to object that he had, in fact, given birth to a beautiful, happy child …
“But how—how could such a person even exist?” asked the prosecutor. “How could anyone go on like that?”
“Again, this is a not a normal individual.” Many in the courtroom murmured their agreement, and the chief grimaced with disgust. “To make up for these physical and emotional defects, such a personality will, inevitably, resort to criminal activity—especially the construction of bombs, which make him feel all powerful—like God himself.”
“Terrible. Just terrible,” remarked the prosecutor, shaking his head.
Unwin appeared about to object but subsided, his eye suddenly attracted by some phrase in yet another document.
“How long have you been an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation?” the prosecutor asked the witness.
“Twenty-eight years, sir.” His thick head of hair glowed silvery beneath the overhead lighting.
“And have you ever seen a case like this?” the prosecutor asked.
“Never.” The chief shook his large head sagely. “Never in all my experience have I encountered so dangerous a criminal—nor so subtle a criminal mind.”
“And I think we can safely say that the experience on which you base that opinion is vast?”
The chief looked almost boyish as he dropped his chin in modest assent.
Unwin handed the chief a thick bound volume. In his endless and seemingly random riffling of pages, the lawyer had nevertheless managed to sift out a key FBI document produced not long before the bear’s arrest. “Will the witness, um, um, um, please read for us, page, page, page—page one thousand fifty-seven, the beginning of the last paragraph?” he asked, barely able to contain the excitement of his impending coup.
“According to various reports from the field, the so-called ‘mad bomber’ is believed to be …,” mumbled the chief.
“Yes, that’s it!” Unwin interjected. “Please! Do, do, do go on!” He made a feverish rolling gesture with both hands.
The chief frowned. “The mad bomber is believed to be, ahem, approximately six feet tall, age forty-five to fifty-five, overweight, of average appearance, with blue eyes, glasses, and graying hair and beard.”
“And—the sketch?” Unwin prompted. “Don’t, um, forget the sketch!”
The chief held up a police drawing of an angry human face wearing sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt. Smudged and angular, the face was like none Winkie had ever seen and more frightening than even the judge himself.
“Well, and does this, um, this rendering, or the description you so, so, so kindly read for us just now, resemble the defendant on trial here today?”
The chief avoided his questioner’s gaze. “Well, not precisely …”
“Indeed, wouldn’t you say—NOT AT ALL?!” Unwin shouted, his cheeks and forehead literally flush with victory. The witness made no answer, but Unwin couldn’t leave it at that. Triumphs such as this had come so infrequently in his career that he didn’t want the moment to end. “Thank you very much indeed, sir. That will indeed do nicely. No further questions indeed. That will indeed—”
Crack! Crack! “Mr. Unwin,” the judge boomed, “indeed, if you don’t sit down now—”
Amid general laughter, Unwin scurried back to his seat. Winkie glanced uneasily at the blank, blue curtain and back to his lawyer, whose overexcited face couldn’t seem to decide between victory and shame. “Oh, yes, we’ve got them by the you-knows now,” Unwin whispered.
However, for the previous twenty minutes, the prosecutor’s twelve assistants (who sat in a row behind him) had been madly searching through this particular document on their twelve laptops, and thanks to Assistant Number Twelve’s avid data-ferreting, the prosecutor was able to come back now with one more question for the chief detective:
“What else, sir, does the report say about this criminal—on page seven hundred forty-seven, footnote fifty-six, paragraph four?”
Wearily the chief flipped through the heavy report, but then suddenly his face lit up. “Ah. Shall I read it?” he asked.
“Please.”
The chief spoke the words slowly and clearly: “Both the description and the composite sketch of the mad bomber must be taken with a healthy grain of salt, for this wily criminal is also believed to be a master of disguise.”
All eyes turned now to the bear—eyes so inquisitive and accusing that Winkie felt as though his appearance was shifting, here and now, against his will, to any number of configurations—little or tall, animal or human, scary or cute—faster and faster until he was nothing but the blurred symbols of a slot machine, spinning past.
2.
Winkie stared up at the unchanging circular eye of the overhead light, which gazed back down in a way that seemed almost to pity the bear. By now he’d given up on searching the events of his life for some kind of relief—a pattern, a lesson forgotten, a morsel of hope—and instead he simply watched his mind go blank. It was perhaps 3 A.M. The bunk seemed to drop away and he was floating, yet crushed, in the stale air that had grown so heavy with all the words spoken against him that day in court. Despite the unbearable itching, he resolved each night as he lay down not to scratch, not even to move, and he usually succeeded for a time. But
now, he let himself wonder, what if he couldn’t move? The sawdust in his limbs seemed to be soaked in poison syrup, a punishment he deserved simply because it seemed so fitting. Whatever terrible new dream had begun today with the trial, this terrible sensation now was the same dream and, moreover, the worst part of it.
From below, in the shade of his bunk, came the ragged buzz of his cell mate Darryl’s troubled snoring, which began every night precisely at this hour and always startled Winkie to the world as it was rather than as he feared it. He began to scratch again—a different, more mundane kind of penance. He focused on the left side of his belly, timing his movements to Darryl’s breaths, which always sounded like a mountain lion growling from a cave but which actually, like Darryl himself, were harmless.
Though the hulking prisoner had been chosen by the authorities to torment the bear, he’d instead taken an immediate liking to Winkie, for there was nothing he missed more in jail than his stuffed animals. Darryl was serving a life sentence for shoplifting. He wasn’t adjusting well to incarceration. Following his last rebellion he had been given newer, stronger sedatives, but in fact it was the little bear’s presence that most soothed him. Though the chief detective complained repeatedly that Darryl wasn’t doing his “job” and should be replaced with a more dangerous inmate, the guards were so relieved not to have to clean his shit from the walls and their uniforms that they left him where he was.
“Darryl and I get along just fine,” sighed the bear, as if that were consolation for anything. The two of them were kept in isolation, a prison of two with Deputy Walter their sole jailor. Time was strange here. They were allowed no visitors, save Unwin. Darryl slept nineteen and a half hours a day and otherwise sat cross-legged on his bunk silently filling in the pages of one of the coloring books his grandmother left for him each week. Sometimes when the shouts and screams of some riot drifted here from the main cell block, he picked up Winkie and roughly cuddled him. Sometimes he pressed upon the bear an orange and purple striped Yosemite Sam, Darryl’s favorite. Sometimes he even shared a slimy white capsule or two that he’d managed to hide in his cheek until Walter had left; the bitter substance inside made Winkie’s eyes droop pleasantly and the itching stop for maybe half an hour.
Proceeding with his claws to the mangier right side of his belly, the little bear allowed himself to be appalled that his life had come to this. It wasn’t a new thought. But sometimes, like tonight, the sense of every painful memory being carried at last to its lurid conclusion took on the strangely satisfying force of doom. He wished he could literally rub his own nose in it. And so, if this was indeed his final destination, he asked himself—as he always asked when he reached this point, as if the question could save him—what had he learned from his life?
“One,” he answered himself, unflinching, almost wishing for the blow: “Love will be punished. Two …”
But he didn’t know yet what Two was.
3.
The prosecutor rose and cleared his throat. “Your Honor, because of the severe danger posed to prosecution witnesses, not to mention their families, by the international terror and crime ring that the defendant commands and, we believe, continues to command from his cell, many of those witnesses will be represented to this court by trained actors.”
A furious Unwin began to protest. “Um—um—um—um—”
“To further protect witnesses’ identities,” the prosecutor continued, “and so as not to prejudice the jury, we will not divulge which are actors and which are the witnesses themselves. In some cases,” he added very quickly, “actors will represent witnesses who, for various reasons, aren’t otherwise available to testify.”
By now even Unwin’s bony hands had gone red with agitation. “Your Honor, this is—Your Honor, I cannot—Your Honor, surely you must—”
Three cracks of the gavel. “Overruled, overruled, overruled. Mr. Unwin, these constant interruptions must cease, or I will replace you with an actor.” Crack. “At least then we’d have someone who could spit the words out.”
The courtroom burst into wild hilarity, with sprinkles of applause. Unwin sank down into his chair. Winkie looked daggers at the judge.
“The people call Jane Cotter!”
A slight young woman in a black dress, black stockings, and frilly white apron and cap took the stand. For a moment Winkie pretended she was Françoise, even though the uniform wasn’t much like hers; as in a dream, she had come to testify on his behalf, in altered garb, at a time least expected—but of course it wasn’t Françoise, and Winkie’s heart sank back to its accustomed despair.
“I am employed as a chambermaid in the Savoy Hotel,” Miss Cotter said very quietly, in a lilting Irish accent. “I remember Mr. Winkie staying at the hotel in March 1893.” She cleared her throat nervously.
As he had explained to his assistants that morning, the prosecutor hoped to make legal history by playing on the jury’s emotions in ways that had never been attempted before. Unwin half rose to object, but the judge shook his gavel at him, so he subsided back down in his chair and began scribbling furiously on his pad.
Miss Cotter continued: “I found it necessary to call the attention of the housekeeper to the condition of Mr. Winkie’s bed.” She cleared her throat again. “The sheets were stained in … in a peculiar way.”
A murmur in the courtroom. Even Unwin stopped scribbling for a moment, and Winkie wished he could hide under the blanket in his cell.
“Go on,” said the prosecutor.
“On the third morning of his stay,” Miss Cotter said, “about eleven o’clock, Mr. Winkie rang the bell for the housemaid. On answering the bell, I met Mr. Winkie in the doorway and he told me he wanted a fire in his room.” She swallowed. “There I saw a boy of eighteen or nineteen years of age with dark close-cropped hair and a sallow complexion.”
Another murmur.
“No further questions. Our nation thanks you for coming forward, Miss Cotter.”
“Um … Your Honor, a moment … A moment … Um … Um … Your Honor, a moment … Um … Um …”
“Mr. Unwin, if you do not begin your cross-examination in ten seconds—”
“Yes, oh yes, all right—” But as he moved toward the witness box, he knocked over several piles of folders, CDs, and diskettes.
“Leave it!” the judge snapped, as Unwin stooped to retrieve them. By now this had happened so many times that it didn’t even inspire laughter. In the deadly silence Unwin managed to straighten his body only halfway before addressing the witness.
“Miss Cotter—how old are you?”
“Objection. Your Honor, what possible bearing—” began the prosecutor, but the witness had already answered, “Twenty-four.”
The judge actually seemed interested for a moment. “I’ll allow it.”
“Twenty-four years old,” Unwin repeated. By now he was standing up straight. “OK. And yet you say you saw the defendant in 1893?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“More than one hundred years ago?”
“Yes. So?”
Unwin lifted his hands in lawyerly wonder. “So, Miss Cotter, how is that possible?”
“Objection!” came the shout again. “Miss Cotter is not an expert on the laws of time and space.”
The judge pondered a moment but quickly caught himself. “Sustained,” he said flatly.
If possible, Unwin looked more stunned now than ever. “Well then, well then, I have nothing, nothing, nothing further!” he cried.
Crack! “The defense will please refrain from his theatrics or be held in contempt.”
Unwin sat down muttering. It was a key defeat, for it cleared the way for the next several months of testimony.
“Mr. Winkie was the person who seduced and compelled me into the snares of witchcraft,” said Witness C, whose name was withheld “for security reasons.” He was a short stocky man who, like Witnesses A and B, was sweating profusely in a black wool coat and black wool breaches, buckled boots, and a tall black
hat. “He promised me fine clothes for doing it. He brought poppets to me, and thorns to stick into those poppets, for the afflicting of other people; and he exhorted me, with the rest of the crew, to bewitch all of America, but be sure to do it gradually, if we would prevail in what we did.”
Winkie bristled: he would never stick thorns into a poppet or any other toy.
“America thanks you for your bravery in testifying,” said the prosecutor.
“Your Honor—” Unwin sighed, rolling his eyes.
The judge swatted the air once.
“And what has happened to you since you came forward?” the prosecutor gently asked the witness.
“Ever since I confessed having been a horrible witch, I have been myself terribly tortured by the devils and other witches, and therein undergone the pains of many deaths for my confession.”
Though Winkie had certainly imagined torturing many people in his life, he was sure he’d never actually done it. But what if just thinking about it was enough?
Howard Morgan, a teenager with thick brilliantined hair, had just taken the oath. He pulled at his starched collar and bow tie. The prosecutor blew dust from an old textbook and carried it to the witness stand.
Mr. Morgan, did you study under Professor Winkie?
Yes, sir.
(Holding up the textbook) Did you study this book, General Science?
Yes, sir.
How did Professor Winkie teach that book to you? I mean by that did he ask you questions and you answered them or did he give you lectures, or both? Did he ever undertake to teach you anything about evolution?
Yes, sir.
Just state in your own words, Howard, what he taught you and when it was.
It was along about the 2nd of April.
Of this year?
Yes, sir; of this year.
(Unwin began to protest that the defendant had been in jail all of this year but the judge said that was a matter of fact, which the jury would decide. The witness continued:)
He said that the earth was once a hot molten mass too hot for plant or animal life to exist upon it; in the sea the earth cooled off; there was a little germ of a one-cell organism formed, and this organism kept evolving until it got to be a pretty good-sized animal, and then came on to be a land animal and it kept on evolving, and from this was man.
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