The Dark Backward

by D. W. Buffa

  “Tell me, Captain Johansen, before you walked into court today, had you ever seen the defendant, the young man sitting right here next to me?”

  “No, I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “You’re sure of that? You’re sure you didn’t see him on the island when you were there?”

  “I didn’t see him there. I’m sure of it. He wasn’t on the island.”

  Chapter Seven

  If Adam was not on the island when Johansen was there, where had he been? Was that what Adam meant when talked about being sent into exile as punishment for something he had done? But if he had been sent away, made an outcast by his own people, how had he managed to come back when he had also said he could never return? There were a dozen different questions Darnell wanted to ask, but even had Adam suddenly been inclined to answer them, there was not time. Hillary Clark was already calling the next witness for the prosecution.

  Leland Phipps had the complacent look of a public servant of a certain kind, one who acquires a reputation for sound judgment by listening to everyone else’s opinion and seldom giving one of his own. He was always weighing alternatives, examining possibilities, commissioning studies, doing everything he could to get all the facts. If Leland Phipps had never made a decision of any consequence, he had come to every meeting thoroughly prepared.

  Hillary Clark stood next to the jury box, examining her nails.

  “Mr. Phipps, would you please tell the court how you are employed?”

  He started to reply, but remembering his own importance, paused to clear his throat.

  “I’m the High Commissioner for the Western Territories.” Leland Phipps leaned forward, the quiet glow of his own achievement marked plainly in his eyes, listening as the words echoed into nothingness. “I have the responsibility for the various trusteeships in the islands of the Pacific,” he explained. This did not sound quite as impressive as his formal title. He looked around to see if anyone noticed.

  “And is it in that capacity that you first visited the island…?” Hillary Clark furrowed her brow. “Does it have a name yet?”

  The commissioner’s voice had an unusual quality, a kind of background noise, something like the sound of an electric razor. It was almost as if he were humming to himself, a habit he may have picked up listening to the endless discussion and debate that never led to anything but more discussion and more delay. It sounded like a stifled yawn.

  “There has been no decision yet. These things take time. There is some consideration for the one who first discovered it, but there is also the issue of the indigenous population – what name they may have given it. These things aren’t easy.”

  “I’m sure not,” she agreed. “But in the meantime, they must call it something.”

  “Well, on a purely interim basis, without prejudging the question of what it should finally be called, we’ve simply used the name of the man who discovered it: Johansen’s Island. But, as I say, that’s strictly for the time being.”

  Hillary Clark tugged on her ear.

  “How did the island come to be under your – that is to say, American, jurisdiction? Captain Johansen is Norwegian. Why not Norway instead of the United States?”

  Phipps fairly bristled at the suggestion.

  “We have numerous territories in the Pacific. It’s a small island no one else would care about. It’s our responsibility to help these people make the transition to modern life.”

  “And was that the reason you first visited the island – Johansen’s Island – to start that process?”

  “Yes. I wanted to see for myself, determine what had to be done. I knew of course that there were certain things that had to be done right away. I knew that they would need medicine, sanitation, the things that modern science can provide, and of course there would have to be some rules of governance, some -”

  “Objection,” said Darnell in a weary voice. “I’m at a loss to see what any of this has to do with the case at hand. It doesn’t matter what the commissioner went there to do; it only matters what, if anything, he witnessed concerning the crimes with which my client has been charged.”

  A scornful look raced across Hillary Clark’s rose-red lips.

  “He couldn’t have witnessed what he did if he hadn’t been there, your Honor. Even Mr. Darnell must understand that!”

  “I’d be surprised if there was anything Mr. Darnell didn’t understand,” replied Evelyn Pierce with a look that rivaled Clark’s own. “I think what Mr. Darnell was objecting to was….” But Darnell had changed his mind, or rather was on the verge of doing so.

  “A question in aid of an objection, your Honor.”

  “Yes, Mr. Darnell; go ahead.”

  Darnell turned to the witness. “You say you brought medicine?”

  “Yes, medicine and other things that -”

  “And someone to administer it, a doctor perhaps?”

  “Yes, of course, we -”

  “Withdraw my objection, your Honor.” He started to sit down, but then he remembered. “Sorry for the interruption,” he said to the waiting Hillary Clark. “Please go on.”

  She was not seduced by false pleasantries, but neither did she forget that a jury was watching. Her instinct was to fix Darnell with a withering glance and then turn away, but that, as she well understood, was a luxury she could not afford.

  “Thank you, Mr. Darnell,” she said with exquisite politeness. “I’ll be glad to go on, if you’ll let me.”

  Darnell had just taken his seat. He bounced right back up.

  “It’s always a pleasure to watch a good lawyer do her work; especially,” he added with cheerful malice, “when she has so much work to do.”

  She seemed to enjoy it, trading lessons in contempt.

  “It won’t take long, Mr. Darnell, to finish what I have to do. I think I can promise you that.” She did not give him the chance to reply. She spun around and faced the witness. “Tell us, Commissioner Phipps, on that first visit of yours to the island – did you see the defendant?”

  “Yes, yes I did.”

  “Would you tell the court exactly what you saw?”

  “It was on the evening of the third day I was there. I saw a thin spiral of smoke coming from somewhere a few hundred yards from the village. It was a fine evening, the sun was just setting. I decided to see what was going on. I thought some of the natives might be cooking a meal out on the beach. But when I got there, that wasn’t what I saw at all.”

  “What did you see, Commissioner?”

  “I saw that one there,” he said, pointing at Adam. “He had a fire burning, and he was carrying something wrapped in a white cloth, holding it in both arms. I didn’t think much about it at first. I was new on the island and didn’t know its customs. Then, as I got closer, I realized what he was carrying and I was horrified. It was a child, a baby, and he was taking it to the fire. I called out, tried to stop him, but it was too late. He didn’t hear me, or if he did, he ignored me. He placed the baby on top of the fire, stretched out his arms like someone praying to heaven and then stepped back and watched the fire consume the child’s body.”

  Hillary Clark stared at him with anguished eyes

  “What did you do then?” she asked in a whispered voice.

  “Strange as it sounds now, I thought to offer him condolences. I assumed that I had just witnessed a burial ritual, that the poor child must have died of some disease – a disease we might well have cured – and that he must be suffering awful grief. I was surprised that he spoke some English. When I started to offer my sympathies, he stopped me with a look. And then he said something that even now makes me shudder.”

  Hillary Clark took a half-step forward, slowly, like someone about to open a door, afraid of what they will find inside.

  “What did he say? What did he tell you?”

  The commissioner’s head snapped up.

  “That he hadn’t had any choice: that he had to kill it.”

  “‘Kill it’? That’s w
hat he said? That he had to kill it?”

  “It’s something I’ll never forget. He said it without remorse; he said it as if not only was there nothing wrong with what he had done, but that it was – not right, exactly, but, well, for lack of a better word – fitting.”

  “Fitting?” The look of surprise on Hillary Clark’s face was genuine. She was not sure what to make of it. “I see. Yes, of course: he told you that he hadn’t had a choice, and that’s because….What else did he tell you?” she asked with sudden urgency. “What did he tell you about the mother?”

  The commissioner did nothing to hide his sense of moral outrage at what he had heard. It had shocked him to the core, as it would have shocked anyone with normal, western, sensibilities.

  “He said that she also knew that there wasn’t any choice. He said she was his sister.”

  It was as if the air itself was infected with evil and things unspeakable. No one moved, no one spoke, everyone afraid to breathe, as the courtroom waited for what would happen next.

  “Did he tell you how he did it, how he killed the child?”

  “Strangled it, strangled it to death.”

  With a mournful glance, Hillary Clark turned to the jury.

  “Strangled it, strangled it to death,” she repeated, as if, even now, she could not believe it possible that anyone could have done something so awful and barbaric.

  The silence in the courtroom had become heavy and oppressive, broken only by the sound of a throttled cough. Darnell got to his feet, but, instead of immediately asking a question, walked slowly to the other side of the counsel table, a pensive expression in his eyes. He started toward the jury box, but then stopped and looked at the witness. Phipps curled his fingers around the arms of the chair and got ready. Darnell only shook his head and moved within arm’s distance of the jury box railing. He gazed at each juror in turn.

  “That is a very grim scene you’ve described to us, Mr. Phipps,” he said as his eyes continued to move down the two rows of jurors. “It’s not the kind of thing any of us are likely to forget. The body of a child, an infant, placed on a funeral pyre – that’s what it was, wasn’t it?” Darnell turned his head just far enough to see the witness. “It wasn’t just a fire burning on a beach, the way you first described it. It wasn’t that at all, was it?”

  Darnell turned until his shoulders were square in front of the witness stand. He stood there, one foot half a step in front of the other, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, boring in on Leland Phipps as if he, William Darnell, were the prosecutor and Phipps the one who had done something wrong.

  “It was a funeral pyre, a place where this child’s last mortal remains were to be disposed of, offered to whatever gods these people pray to.”

  “I doubt that’s what -”

  “You said – I can have the court reporter read it back to you – that you saw the defendant place the body on top of the fire. That has to mean that there was something there, material of some sort – a structure, if you will – that would support the body. Not just a fire, then, but a funeral pyre – That’s what you saw, isn’t it, Mr. Phipps?”

  “I suppose you could say that,” Phipps replied, unconvinced.

  “You suppose? But you’re the one who told us, Mr. Phipps – and I’m quoting you again – that the defendant then ‘stretched out his arms like someone praying to heaven.’ That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but that isn’t what it was, not after -”

  “You said, ‘I assumed that I had just witnessed a burial ritual.’”

  A thin, condescending smile stretched tight across Leland Phipps’ proper mouth.

  “Precisely: I assumed. But, as you will also remember, I soon realized my mistake, when I heard from his own mouth what he had done.”

  Darnell smiled back.

  “Words that made you forget the evidence of your own senses!”

  “He confessed to murder!”

  “No, he confessed to doing what you just testified he thought fitting – necessary for some reason we have yet to understand!”

  Darnell marched back to the counsel table, hesitated, and turned around.

  “You had him arrested, taken into custody, brought here, to America, because of what he said and because of what you thought it meant?”

  “He admitted he murdered a new-born baby. Would you suggest that is something that ought to go unpunished?”

  Darnell’s eyes were cold, immediate.

  “I would suggest that in this courtroom, sir, you don’t ask questions, I do.”

  They stared at one another until, finally, Phipps looked away.

  “Let’s begin at the beginning. You graduated from Yale University some thirty years ago, correct?”

  “Yes,” replied Phipps, curious that he would ask.

  “And you went to law school at Yale as well, correct?”

  “Yes, I went to law school there as well,” he said, as he shifted position in the chair.

  “But you didn’t practice law, did you?”

  “I pursued a career in public service.” Phipps turned to the jury, expecting, as it seemed, some show of approval for the sacrifices he had made, a man who could have been rich, but instead was only comfortable. The jury did not seem to understand.

  “And did that include any military service?” asked Darnell with a blank expression. “Were you in Vietnam?”

  Phipps turned to Darnell with anger in his eyes.

  “No, I wasn’t in the military.”

  “That must surprise people.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “You’ve written a number of articles about the use of military power, have you not?”

  “I’ve held various positions in both the State and Defense departments. I wrote those articles to broaden the discussion about certain policies.”

  “Articles with titles like….” Darnell reached for a document he had left on the counsel table. “‘The Use of Power in the American Century;’ ‘The Role of the Military by a Dominant Superpower,’ ‘The Rule of Law in Lawless Places.’ Or titles like ‘Changing Autocracy: Three Strategies to Introduce Democracy.’” Darnell tossed the list of titles back on the table. His eyebrows shot straight up. “I’m afraid we’ve all become a little too familiar with the effort to establish democracy at the point of a gun. But tell us this, Mr. Phipps: your appointment as High Commissioner, that wasn’t exactly a promotion, was it?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  Darnell began to thumb through a thick file of newspaper clippings.

  “Would you like me to read into the record the stories written at the time, stories about how you had been sent to the Pacific to get you out of Washington, stories about how the appointment was just another indication of the failing influence of the people with whom you had long been associated?”

  “Everyone has an opinion in Washington, Mr. Darnell. Anyone can say what they like.” He said this with an air of defiance, but he said it without the arrogance, the sense of entitlement he had had before. He had not suddenly become a beaten man – he had too much vanity for that – but he could not any longer pretend that his life and career had always been a steady march from one success to another.

  “You must have gone out there, out to the Pacific, more determined than ever to prove that you were right. That’s what a man of your background and intelligence must have thought. You would have taken it as a challenge, a way to turn banishment – because that’s what everyone thought it was – into redemption, a new opportunity to show what you could do. Isn’t that the reason you were so intent on turning this unknown speck of land, this island no one had ever heard of, into a part of the great American experiment?”

  Hillary Clark was on her feet.

  “Defense counsel isn’t asking questions, he’s giving a speech. Worse yet, he’s giving a speech that doesn’t have anything to do with the trial.”

  “It has everything to do with th
e trial, Ms. Clark, everything,” replied Darnell. “But you’re right: I sometimes do have a tendency to get a little carried away.” He looked from Clark to the bench. “May I proceed, your Honor – if I promise to stay on point?”

  With a smile that seemed to say that she knew what a lawyer’s promise was worth, Evelyn Pierce told him to move things along.

  “What I want to know, Mr. Phipps, is whether that was the reason you made that first trip to the island: to make it over in the image of America?”

  The commissioner did not disagree.

  “I believe we have an obligation to bring progress when we can.”

  “Progress? I wonder. What is it you thought these people were missing?”

  “Missing?” asked Phipps with a caustic laugh. “Everything was missing. They had no education. They couldn’t even read a newspaper.”

  It was Darnell’s turn to laugh.

  “You consider that a disadvantage? What news exactly is it that you think they missed?”

  “What news? - News of the outside world, news of what is going on, news of all the changes that are taking place.”

  Darnell remained steadfast. His only chance at a defense was to challenge assumptions.

  “I’ll repeat the question: What news have they missed? Let me be more specific: What news have they missed that would have somehow improved their lives?”

  “Everyone is better off if they know more about the world.”

  Leland Phipps said this with complete and unyielding conviction; only a fool would think differently about something so obvious. The world, the western world, ran on information. Everyone needed it, and everyone had a right to have it. In the passion of the moment he had forgotten the failures of his own career, forgotten how many of the grand schemes with which he had, if always in a supporting role, been associated had ended in disaster, forgotten how many people had been told that the price they had to pay, the sacrifices they had to make, was worth it because of the bright prosperous future it was sure bring, if not for them, for their children. He looked at Darnell, incredulous that anyone could question what he had always tried to do.