Forgiving Ararat Page 3

  Q. I’m sorry, Mr. Mijares. Please continue.

  A. Thank you, dear. And, please, call me Jorge. You know, I simply must say this. You remind me, Miss Brek, of a statue at one of our most famous museums in Santiago. It is of a young princess beseeching the moon. She is, how do you say it...? Ravished? No, no...ravishing. And do you know, forgive me, the arm is missing and this makes her all the more alluring.

  Q. Oh, my, how you flatter me, Mr. Mijares. I see now why you’re such a powerful and well respected man in this community. Alan warned me that if I wasn’t careful, you would end up deposing me. But we should continue or we will be together all night. [Jorge’s eyes widened when I said this, like a child tempted with a piece of candy.] These business dealings are so confusing for a woman. I hope you can help explain them to me. Alan wanted to buy stocks with the loan, is that right?

  A. Now who is flattering whom, Miss Brek? Yes, of course, I will help you with these things. It is very simple, really. You see, Alan told me he had a tip from his broker and wanted to buy some stocks, but he was a little overextended at the time and needed to finance the purchase...excuse me, do you know what I mean by “finance”? You know, to pay over time, just as you would use your husband’s credit card to buy yourself a nice dress or something? You see? It’s all the same thing, it’s not so difficult. He wanted to buy the stocks on credit and we gave him the loan. Alan and I have done business together many years. Until this unfortunate incident, he had been a very good customer.

  In truth, neither Jorge Mijares nor I understood the significance of his testimony at the time; but Stephen Russ, who had represented the bank for many years and knew all the banking regulations, understood all too well; he jolted forward in his chair as though the building across the street had just exploded and immediately asked for a recess. I thought maybe his lunch didn’t agree with him and he needed to use the bathroom, but I was happy for the break because damp spots were beginning to form on my blouse and I needed to pump. And so, while Stephen Russ squeezed the bad news from his client in one room, a small battery-operated milking machine squeezed the milk from my breasts in another. I kept up this torture and humiliation for a couple of months after returning to work from giving birth to Sarah before switching, mercifully, to baby formula most of the time; I read all the studies saying breast milk is best—and I believed those studies and did my best for as long as I could—but I was a lawyer, not a milk cow; I had survived on formula and so could she.

  Back in my own office now a few months later, I finally realize that Jorge’s testimony is fatal to the bank’s case and cinches our defense. I take the transcript and the regulation over to Bill’s office and lay them on the last open patch of mahogany on his desk. He’s buried in a file and doesn’t look up as he speaks.

  “Yes?” he grumbles.

  Bill’s always irritable in the morning, and this morning even more so because he’s preparing for hearings in two cases at once; his large frog’s eyes dart from file to file as if hunting insects, fingers snapping at the papers like a sticky tongue. He’s wearing a conservative gray suit and matching vest, white shirt, and maroon tie. He’s old school and never takes off his jacket in the office, even in the middle of the summer.

  “Read it,” I say proudly.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s how we’re going to win a case we’re supposed to lose.”

  He glances up at the regulation. “What’s this got to do with anything?”

  “Alan used the loan to buy stocks and pledged stocks as collateral. Regulation U says the stocks had to be worth at least fifty percent of the loan. Alan’s stocks were worth only thirty-five. Mijares testified he knew. The loan’s void and unenforceable as a matter of law. We win.”

  The frog eyes dilate and the fingers snatch the transcript from the desk. There’s silence as Bill reads the testimony, then he starts laughing. “Jorge got a little carried away with himself, didn’t he?”

  “He’s very charming,” I reply.

  Bill puts down the transcript, picks up the regulation and reads it. “He won’t be so charming when he finds out you outfoxed him in the deposition,” Bill says. “I’m glad to see you know how to handle men like that.... By the way, I’ve seen the statue he’s talking about; I went to Santiago when I represented the grape growers in the cyanide case.”

  “You handled that case, too?” I ask, always amazed at Bill’s remarkable legal career. I was in college during the public scare over red Chilean table grapes being laced with cyanide; when the news stories broke warning people not to eat them, my dorm roommate promptly started snacking on them by the bunches. She hated red grapes but her boyfriend had just broken up with her; she said she didn’t have the courage to slit her own wrists and figured grapes would be the easier way to go.

  “I thought you only represented plaintiffs back then, not defendants,” I say.

  “The growers were the plaintiffs,” Bill replies. “There was no cyanide. The scare was a hoax but the Chilean farmers lost everything—thousands of tons of fruit was embargoed and destroyed. Jorge’s father, Professor Mijares, asked me to take the case; the Mijares still own vineyards in Chile. We sued the government to lift the embargo and we sued the insurers to pay the claims.”

  Outside the window beside Bill’s desk, the morning sun strikes the bright yellow fall leaves of a maple tree, making the tree appear as though it has burst into flame. A small sparrow lands on a branch, risking immolation.

  “There’s an interesting myth behind that statue,” Bill continues. “Legend has it that when the princess was a young girl, the king forced her to eat her vegetables. To spite him, she shoved the arm she used to hold her fork under a millstone and it was crushed. Now she pleads with the heavens for forgiveness.”

  I consider this strange tale for a moment. “I think the heavens should plead for her forgiveness,” I say.

  Bill arches his bushy eyebrows. “The king only made her eat her vegetables, Brek; he didn’t force her to marry the old pervert running the kingdom next door.”

  “What law says she has to eat her vegetables?”

  Bill smiles and shakes his head. “Let’s have this conversation again when Sarah turns six.” He waves the regulation at me. “Any cases on point?”

  “None,” I say, but I’m unwilling to drop my defense of the one-armed princess just yet; I know how much she’s suffered and how she’s been judged by every person who sees her, because it’s human nature to assume that another person’s misfortune must be some form of divine retribution. “You know,” I say, “maybe it had nothing to do with eating vegetables. Maybe her father was ignoring her and she was just trying to get his attention.”

  Bill doesn’t respond and an awkward silence follows. I realize I’m rubbing the stump of my own right arm and he’s watching me. The bird in the maple flies away having survived the inferno.

  “When can you finish the brief?” he asks.

  “Rough draft by Tuesday.”

  He puts down the regulation and starts in on one of the files in front of him. “I’ll be in court all afternoon and then I have a board meeting,” he says. “Have a nice weekend.”

  “Thanks. You too.” I gather my materials and get up to leave.

  “It’s a creative argument,” he says without looking up. “Few lawyers would have thought of it.”

  “Regulation U or the princess?” I ask.

  “Both.”

  I turn to leave but stop. I’m gratified by the rare compliment but suddenly remorseful about the outcome. “So, Alan Fleming keeps five hundred thousand dollars that don’t belong to him because of a technicality?”

  The frog’s mouth frowns as if the insect it has just swallowed tastes bitter. “Yes, and with any luck this afternoon I’ll put an arsonist back on the street. But next week I’ll have an innocent man freed on the same technicality, and a legal technicality will win an injunction against the landfill that’s discharging dioxin and killing all the bass in Rayst
own Lake. You can’t have one without the other, Brek; justice wears a blindfold because she isn’t supposed to see who’s loading the scales.”

  “Or with what.”

  Bill ignores my wisecrack and goes back to his work.

  “See you Monday,” I say.

  4

  * * *

  I return to my office and begin outlining my summary judgment brief on a legal pad, stopping to look outside at the pale green film of the Juniata River dappled with the reflection of scarlet and jasmine leaves on the trees, each a unique frame of autumn. Bill’s right. I’ve done nothing wrong; in fact, I’ve done my job perfectly. The system is working exactly as designed, which is more than can be said for the system that maimed the princess in Santiago—or the system that allows someone like Piper Jackson to do weather forecasts. Which reminds me to telephone Bo at the studio.

  “Hi,” he says. “I was just getting ready to call you.”

  I yawn, rather loudly and unexpectedly. “Wow,” I say, “sorry about that. It’s been a long morning.... So what’s the latest? Did they ever catch that samurai warrior who attacked the northern coast of Japan? I heard he did a lot of damage.”

  “Very funny,” he says.

  “Sounds like he really sakéd the coast.”

  Bo groans. “I’ve heard that one three times already this morning—interestingly, all from women. You people can be so jealous and mean—or you just love making puns out of rice wine. How did Sarah’s drop-off go?”

  “You people? Jealous and mean? She’s a babbling idiot! How can you stand her?”

  Bo hesitates, pretending he’s trying hard to find a reason. I know he likes her even though she’s an embarrassment. Finally he says, as though helpless before an irresistible force: “Well, she does have beautiful...weather forecasts.”

  “You’re a pig, Boaz,” I respond. He hates it when I call him by his first name. His parents named him Boaz after King David’s great-grandfather and the American soldier who rescued his mother’s family from the Nazis during World War II. “With all the money the little weather tart is bringing into the station, you’d think they could find her some clothes that fit and maybe arrange to give her another shot at elementary school since the first time didn’t seem to take. Sarah was fine. She spilled formula all over my suit.”

  “She loves doing that. I’m on my way to Harrisburg. Holden Hurley is being sentenced this afternoon. They want me to cover it since I broke the story.”

  My secretary, Barbara, sticks her head in to tell me Alan Fleming’s on the line. I tell her to take a message. “When will you be home?”

  “Around six unless things get crazy,” Bo answers. “I should still be able to fix dinner.”

  “What are we having?”

  “Any requests?”

  I start glancing over the outline of my summary judgment brief again and don’t hear his question.

  “Hello?” he says. “Food? Any ideas? I can tell you’re working on something.”

  “What? Yeah...the brief in the Fleming case. Sorry. No, I can’t think of anything, whatever you want.”

  “Hurley’s skinhead buddies from The Eleven will be protesting at the courthouse. Did you shave yours this morning?”

  “No, but I’m very cute bald,” I reply. “You’ve seen my baby pictures.”

  “You know,” Bo says, baiting me because Bill and I are members of the American Civil Liberties Union, “I value free speech as much as the next guy, particularly because I’m a reporter, but rallies advocating the subjugation of ethnic groups go a little too far, don’t you think? Why should they have the right to use public property to incite hatred and violence?”

  I lose my train of thought and have to go back to the top of the outline.

  “Really, I want to know,” Bo presses, actually sounding agitated. “How can you defend them?”

  “We’ve been through this before,” I explain. “It’s fascinating how you liberal Jews suddenly get conservative when the subject is anti-Semitism.”

  “Hurley’s not just any anti-Semite; he diverted public school funds to finance a white supremacist group intent on starting a race war. Would you defend a group of men who come out to demonstrate in favor of legitimizing and encouraging gang rape?”

  “Oh, you mean the financial industry...? Look, I would be among the first to organize a counter-protest to shout them down; but, yes, I would defend their right to say it. Who decides what speech is okay and what speech is forbidden? Using your theory, Jews should be banned from demonstrating in favor of Israel because Israel subjugates the Palestinians. That it’s a state instead of a small group of extremists is only a matter of degree. Your mother lived through the Holocaust and even she thinks anti-Semites have the right to express themselves. Maybe you should listen to her once in a while.”

  “My mother’s biased. And crazy. She tells everybody you’re a better Jew than I am because you went to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services with her this year. Do you have any idea how difficult you’re making life for me?”

  “I like challah bread. Besides, it’s the Day of Judgment and the Final Appeal; there’s nowhere else a lawyer would rather be: the most important cases before the highest court in the universe and lots of desperate clients willing to pay anything to get off. For lawyers, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are like the Olympics, Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup, and Stanley Cup all rolled into one.”

  Bo muffles the phone and I hear him talking to someone.

  “Sorry,” he says, “the crew’s waiting for me in the van. I’ve gotta get going. When are you finishing tonight?”

  “Around six.”

  “You’re pushing it kind of close with the daycare, don’t you think? Even with two salaries I don’t know how much longer we can afford the five dollar per minute penalty for picking her up late. At some point, they’re going to kick her out and then what will we do?”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be there on time.”

  “Okay. Bye. I love you.”

  “Have fun. I love you, too.”

  I hang up and look at the photograph on my shelf of Bo and me at his sister, Lisa’s, wedding. He’s wearing a yarmulke and looks so sweet and happy.

  I had actually assumed Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, would be a festive and gay celebration, like New Year’s Day, but it turned out to be just the opposite—brooding and ominous, the day God judges the lives we’ve lived during the previous year. The shofar blasts calling the congregation to worship inside the synagogue were terrifying—the voice of God condemning the entire human race—but the liturgy for the day, the Musaf tefillah, had the effect of reaffirming my belief that God and justice are inseparable and one, and that as a lawyer trained in pursuing justice I had an inside track on redemption.

  Still gazing at the photograph and recalling the Days of Awe, as the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are known, I acknowledge to myself for the first time that I married a Jew for the same reason I had become a lawyer: to be closer to justice. I suppose I had always known this, but I concealed it from myself and from my Irish-Italian Catholic family—who were not particularly pleased with my selection of a mate, but not unbending either. In arguing with them that I loved Bo as a man and that religion shouldn’t matter, I had been less than completely honest; religion did matter—very much so—just not in the way they were thinking. For a Catholic girl raised in a community of fundamentalist Protestants, Bo’s Jewish heritage, with its stories of struggle and heroism and promise of being chosen by God, glittered like an exotic jewel; I found myself attracted to him in the same way I would have found myself attracted to a rock star, an actor, or a professional athlete—because he could give me inner access to a rare and alien world and the status in life I desired. I fell in love with Bo Wolfson for all the normal and best reasons—because he was incredibly handsome, wonderful, sensitive, and caring, a man who made me feel special, loved, and complete, and who even accepted my disability as a charming a
ttribute rather than a cause for fear and revulsion. It’s just that his religion made the package, for me, irresistible. The Catholic Church and Jesus’ teaching of turning the other cheek—which, to me, formed the bedrock of Christianity—made no sense in a world filled with warfare and violence, a world filled with people like Holden Hurley, a world that allowed an eight year old girl to lose her right arm. I thought Moses had it right with “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth;” this rule better reflected my personal experience and understanding of the way the things worked. I sometimes thought I was a Jew trapped in a Christian’s body, like one of those poor souls who believes they’re a woman trapped in a man’s body or vice-versa; only in my case I was not a transsexual but rather a “transspiritual.” Marrying Bo enabled me to experiment safely with being a member of the opposite religion without having the theological equivalent of a sex-change operation—a full religious conversion.