The Laws of Our Fathers

by Scott Turow

  She glances back to be certain Hobie has been subdued, then tells him how touched she was by his eulogy. His large shoulders move.

  ‘I talk,' he says.

  'It was more than talk.'

  'I suppose. You know, I always figure if my momma was just your average black Baptist lady, I'd a been a preacher, maybe better off than I am with law. Being Catholic, however, I found clerical life lacked a certain fundamental appeal.' He clears his throat and they laugh together. Sonny has no religion. It was another of Zora's subjects. 'The great swindle,' she called it. 'Human beings on bended knee before pieces of wood. Using their last potato to hold the candles, even as they starved.' The Inquisition, the Crusades, war upon war. More evil, Zora maintained, had been done in the name of religion than any other force in human history. But today, in that gathering at the cemetery, standing, sitting, listening as many chanted with the rabbi in that ancient tongue, a language which to Sonny has always sounded like the voice of mystery itself, she had some sense of the majesty of spirit which the ritual is meant to inspire. Not that she could ever yield to it. In her own terms, she can think only of woodland moments, mountain views. But she would like to leave this door open for Nikki. Until the old man's death threw things into commotion, Sonny had been talking with Sarah about holding a seder at Sonny's house this week. She wanted Nikki to be exposed to a religious ceremony of some kind, and Passover, the festival of liberation, is the sole Jewish observance Seth seems to enjoy.

  Meanwhile, Hobie emits a ruminative sound. He's finally caught sight of what attracted her outside. 'So what do you think, Hobie?'

  'I don't think he stands much chance in the Easter Parade.'

  'And what about me?' she asks with sudden daring, 'what kind of chance do I stand?' She's a bit shocked by herself, not by the pained tone, which is genuine, but because she knows there's an element of folly. Seth would ask exactly the same question about her: What chance do I have? Then, too, this could be taken as prying. Seth and Hobie are on the phone every week or so, having those weird guy-talks, half an hour on basketball, and then out of the blue, almost as if they hope neither notices, the most heartfelt intimacies. But Hobie turns from the window, looking as puzzled as she is. Large and solemn, he places one hand on her shoulder.

  'Only thing I know,' he says, 'is there ain't a tougher guess in life than love.'

  Seth

  'Eddgar's got brass clackers, but I don't see even him pulling this off.' Coming down the hall, Seth recognizes Dubinsky's penetrating nasal tone. 'Turn a fucking street gang into a political organization?' Stew asks. "That shit went out with Hobsbawm.' Seth has just spent a minute with Sarah in his father's study. She was suffering intensely, revisiting all the losses of the recent years. His daughter is learning the hard lessons of a giving nature, that great passion means great pain. Entering the light and noise of the gathering, Seth is amazed to see that Stew's addressing Jackson Aires.

  'My condolences, my condolences,' says Jackson and falls forward for Seth's hand, it didn't even strike me Bernhard was your father. You see how doggone funny these things are?' It turns out Hobie's father had introduced Aires and Mr Weissman long ago. Jackson received investment advice from Bernhard for decades and speaks warmly of him, which, Seth supposes, means Jackson made money. The last time Aires and Seth met, they were in their own professional modes, during Nile's trial. Introducing himself as Michael Frain, Seth had proposed an interview with Hardcore. Aires had stared with unapologetic hostility and walked away.

  i told you I remembered you,' Seth says. 'You lived on the other side of U. Park.'

  ‘I lived on the black folks' side,' Aires replies, a piece of revisionism that neither of them fully believes. In the 1950s, the Negro professionals in U. Park simply thought they'd finally crossed the river to the real America.' You were always in Gurney' s kitchen. That's what I remember. I remember you fine.' Limber in spite of his age, Aires, with his snowball pomp, draws back, the better to eye Seth and to reflect on whether he's gained any advantage with this display of potent memory. He wears his burgundy sport coat, shiny at the shoulders, and an old paisley tie. 'See, what got me confused's the name, you know. You weren't Michael Frain when I knew you. Can't have been too happy to be your daddy's son. Not if you lived your life with someone else's name. Guess you just got sick and tired of bein Jewish, huh?'

  Startled, Seth actually laughs out loud. In all these years, no one has ever suggested that motive before. He is tempted, in his present melancholy, to surrender to a mood of self-accusation, but he finally screws up his face to disagree. Aires goes on, though, certain he's right.

  'I've known a couple Jewish fellas over the years who done that. One bird I went to law school with - what was this rascal's name? Abel Epstein. He became Archibald van Epps. Can you imagine? Envied him, too, I must say. Now and then. Don't you look at me like that. Hell yes, I'd change my name and be done with it. You damn right, I would, I'm not afraid to say it. Only thing is, black man can't do it. You see? Whether I call myself Tyrone or Malcolm X or Steppin Fetchit, still some white fella gonna see me comin three blocks away, half of them afraid I'm what I am and the other half afraid I'm one of them hoodlums I represent. Ain't gonna change for centuries. Centuries.' There really is no arguing with him, Seth knows. Jackson's been thinking about this one subject, race, his entire life.

  It's Dubinsky who rescues Seth. Always on the beat, Stew wants to talk about the trial, hoping to catch Aires in an unguarded moment. It wouldn't occur to Stew this is out of place. Ordinary lives, even in their tragic instants, are second-tier events to him, inherently less worthy than the news.

  'It doesn't make sense politically,' he tells Aires, returning to their quarrel about Eddgar. 'Is the Governor gonna release Kan-el from the pokey one morning and meet him for breakfast the next? It's not possible. It never was.'

  'Can't say about that. You see. All you journal-ists' - Jackson gives the word a derisive turn - 'you - all are just professional Monday-morning quarterbacks.' In his humorless, confrontational mode, Jackson rises to the balls of his feet, looming over Dubinsky. With its abrupt and unsatisfactory ending, the trial remains the subject of gossip. Everyone has theories - about where Nile went and whether he is alive or dead and who might have killed him, about Eddgar's role in the crime and his future in politics. One piece - Dubinsky's, Seth thinks - said Eddgar would not run again. Oddly, however, what Seth hears about the case, he overhears almost as background noise, much like this conversation he's happened upon. No one speaks to him directly. Sonny, Hobie, Dubinsky - they all have secrets, ruminations they won't disclose. On his own, he has occasional fantasies of encountering Eddgar on the streets of DuSable. Perhaps they'll stare each other down, or Seth will resort to violence, or they'll have a terse but complete exchange in which they finally finish their business after all these years. He thinks less elaborately about Nile, but wonders often if he's safe.

  'So you think Eddgar was on the level?' Dubinsky asks. 'See, to me, this whole case, something's wrong. My editor's like, "Give it a rest," but you know, there's just that basic Kindle County aroma here.'

  Dubinsky, Seth thinks. He lays down the best dish in this burg. You read it, you think, Holy smokes, maybe it really is like that. But it isn't. Seth would love to live in Stew Dubinsky's world, believing all evil is the result of bad old men hatching plans in back rooms and corner taverns. It would be wonderful if people were actually that powerful, if chaos was not the predominant force in the universe. But Seth's learned otherwise. You stop on a street corner and thirty seconds later the little boy beside you is dead. Listening to Stew now, Jackson Aires chortles in audible disbelief.

  'No?' asks Stew. 'So then, how was it?' He takes a step closer. But Jackson has played dice on too many corners;

  he's been hustled by better than Dubinsky. He simply shakes his head.

  ‘I tell you how it was. Same as it always is. My client's in the penitentiary servin twenty years for murder and the white fella's
runnin round loose. That's how it is.' Jackson again briefly flexes upward to his toes and then, to dispel any doubt about the injustice of all this, adds, 'If that boy wudn't guilty, you gonna have to tell me why he run.'

  With that, Jackson breaks off and Seth goes too. He briefly joins Sonny with her friends, Solomon and Marta. Marta is enormous with child and radiant about it. Even in the spring, the heat of a crowded room is too much for her. When she embraces Seth her cheek is damp. Seth receives their condolences, then moves around the living room thanking others. Dick Burr, one of the honchos from the Tribune, is here, a decent guy, out to woo Seth, but earnest in his consolations. Burr says Dubinsky gave him copies of their eulogies, which they're going to have typeset for Seth at the paper. Together, Burr and his assistant, Fortune Reil, have been speaking with Lucy's older brothers, Douglas - known as Deek - a banker, and Gifford, a manager of pension funds. Both live in Greenwood County and are members of an endangered life-form - the high-born WASP. Seth is enormously fond of each. They have shown unflagging loyalty and good humor through the years, in the face of Seth's columns about their lime-green slacks, their boats and exclusive clubs, and their slavish, sensual attraction to alcohol, which each man experiences as the 'open sesame' to the universe of emotion.

  As Hobie's parents make ready to depart, Seth crosses the room to embrace them again, then stands outside on the stoop seeing them off. Afterwards, he faces his father's small brick house alone. What a strange business this is, he thinks, inheritance, owning the walls you once wanted to escape. He looks through the poor glass of the storm door to the tiny entry. The dim, fusty halls, which his father, in his penny-pinching foolishness, did not repaint in forty years, have now acquired a museum quality, as if some special meaning arises from the simple fact they were preserved.

  He comes down the stairs, feeling a sudden urge to make a proprietary survey. Daffodils are sprouting in the weedy bed on the south side, next to the tiny cellar windows, which in childhood reminded him of his own mouth, with its gapped teeth. It is that magic time in the Middle West. In the distance, the trees are stark and bare, but up close one sees the branches heavy with sensuous buds. A day or two of warmth and the green explosion will occur, the air will be sweet with chlorophyll.

  Across the small back yard, he spies Lucy. Her straight skirt has been hiked fetchingly to allow her to take a seat on the worn steps of the grey wooden porch behind the house. Her eyes are closed and her face raised adoringly to the sky. She looks like a young girl waiting to be kissed.

  'A Seattlite struck dumb by the sight of sun,' Seth remarks.

  Waking to him, she smiles wordlessly and lifts her far hand to reveal a cigarette. After Isaac, she lapsed, secretly. He didn't suspect until she started wheezing after their evening runs. Embarrassed to be caught now, she crushes the butt carefully under heel and, as Lucy would, folds it into her palm for later disposal. Seth takes the step below her. They marvel momentarily about the day, the promise of blue skies.

  i never said how wonderful your talk was, Seth. Your eulogy.'

  'Yeah.' Words. The fundamental medium of human exchange. They're great. And then what? ‘I worried about Sarah. I was afraid she'd think I was profaning the sacred.'

  'Sarah understands.'

  'As much as I do.'

  'Are you really all right with her plans?' Lucy asks. ‘I wouldn't be shocked if she stays with this.' Last night, Sarah, who has talked of grad school, even the rabbinate, told them that she and her boyfriend, Phil, have enrolled in an Americorps program to train teachers for inner-city schools. They expect to stay here or somewhere else in the Middle West.

  'Great by me. I'm proud of her. That she's that kind of person. I never expected her to become a columnist.'

  'You seemed to like the idea of her as a professor.'

  'I've always loved intellectuals. They seem so distant and admirable to me.' He thinks fleetingly of Sonny twenty-five years ago, his thrall with all that philosophy he couldn't really comprehend.

  'Your father was a professor,' Lucy says.

  This is Lucy, always on the nerve. How did he ever miss that? How? He stands to continue his inspection of the back yard. He offers Lucy his arm and she takes it, accompanying Seth as he ambles. This is always there: they like each other so much. Even as their life together has seemed in the last two years unfathomable, impossible, she remains the nicest human being he knows.

  In her mothering years, he lived in undying amazement of Lucy. She looked at every paper, bored in until she'd heard every question the teacher asked at school. She knew by heart what was on the lunch menu, the name of every friend and whether she or he was a good influence, even if the kid had never set foot inside their home. She'd memorized every trumpet note or ballet turn. She hit the laundry room at 6 a.m., because she knew what clothes they'd want to wear, right down to the undies. Her children's lives were so thoroughly understood, digested, imagined, so thoroughly her own, that other women often seemed to freeze over in shame.

  But all of that allowed Lucy to avoid wondering about herself. Coming here, seeing Sonny up there on the bench, so positive about what's right, sure about the fate of others, he realized again that was one of the things he wanted, someone whose desires were less frightening to her than they are to Lucy, who is always somewhat oppressed by her need to please, and even past the age of forty can look primitively pained by the question What do you want? Isaac's death somehow fit in with that and drove him often to the point of rage. Didn't she know there was no accepting this, that it was not part of some universal harmonic? It made him crazy, crazy because he was not enough, not big enough, positive enough, to give her what she required. He has often predicted to himself, in solitary moments when he thinks he's given up, that Lucy's next husband will be an oracle of some kind - a clergyman, a visionary. It was no accident she started out hooked up with the likes of Hobie.

  'Are you holding up?' he asks her, as they turn the outer boundary of the small yard. An old hedge here is gnarled at its joints with an arthritic thickness that brings to mind his father at the end.

  'I guess. I still find death amazing, don't you? It seems so contrary to all of my assumptions.'

  He smiles toughly. For him, it's always present now. You build a foothold in the world in the first half of life, and then watch it slip away. But he didn't mean to exchange philosophies. He was daring to ask about her life at present. Shortly after he left, Lucy took up with a twenty-six-year-old, the associate director of the soup kitchen. But that fizzled. People - other women, especially - were unbearably cruel. One neighbor asked Lucy if she was going to give Moe a graduation party when he finished school. She's lonely now, Sarah says. To that observation Seth made no reply, even though he'll always feel the impulse to tell Sarah everything will be all right. He really didn't want his kids growing up in one of those screwed-up American fin de siecle families, where Dad's married to his former secretary, a great gal for a transsexual, and Mom is taking dope and sleeping with the bishop on the sly, and Brother gets off handling snakes and robbing convenience stores, and everybody joins hands at Thanksgiving and says, 'Thank God we have our family.' He wanted his daughter and his son to know there was a true center, that some things are enduring, and healing. And then Isaac died.

  As they walk, as Seth thinks about these things, his mind turns to the piece he'll write tomorrow. His work is always with him, a part of him forever lodged in that mainframe in Seattle where the man known in 167 daily papers as Michael Frain seems to exist. That Michael, in Seth's mind's eye, has a somewhat distinct physical appearance, shorter than Seth, fuller in body, perpetually young, with a wry, unflappable expression, probably the physical self he idealized when he was, say, a freshman in high school and still thought anything was possible for him.

  The column he'll take up tomorrow is one of half a dozen he dredged from his months visiting his father in hospitals and rehab facilities. It's about marriage. The piece concerns a lean bald-headed man from Kewahne
e who donated a kidney to his wife. Seth didn't know that was possible. He thought it was like bone-marrow transplants, where you faced problems unless you were bora with a twin. This man, an engineer at Dunning, a defense outfit, is not particularly articulate, not the kind of fellow who can say much about motives. But this couple now lies together in the same room in Sinai-Cedars Hospital, getting different IVS drugs and the same painkillers, with matching fourteen-inch incisions on their left sides. It seems like an act from mythology, reaching inside yourself, an organ from him now an organ in her, an echo of Adam's aboriginal rib.

  The magic of what Seth does is the interviews, asking people to account for things like that. He can be 1,500 miles away, no more than a voice on the phone, someone whom they know at best by reputation, and usually not at all, merely somebody trying to let his soul crawl down the saying ‘I want to know you, would like to tell your story,' and folks, in their hunger to be understood, will tell him almost anything. In his hospital bed, his hand bruised by the I Vs, this man took a sip of water first. 'Well,' he told Seth, in that slow Midwestern drawl, 'well, it didn't really occur to me there was anything else I'd like to do.' The line was a killer. Lucy and he once had that kind of autonomic commitment, and would still do anything for one another, he thinks, whether out of habit, or gratitude or admiration. But listening to that man he was suddenly unsure that what's growing up between Sonny and him will flower that fully. There's been peace, humor, sensitivity -and amazing sensuality. But he doubts Sonny, in the face of sacrifice, could ever really convince him there's nothing else she'd like to do.