Are Snakes Necessary?

by Brian De Palma

  “I’ve never experienced anything like that.”

  “While you were pointing your camera at Rogers, didn’t you flirt with him a little bit? Look at you, you’re a living example of the Heisenberg principle.”

  “The what?”

  “Heisenberg principle. In weighing something your presence is tipping the scale. You’re the antithesis of the fly on the wall.”

  “Well I should hope so. Who wants to be a fly on the wall? I was there to draw him out. Show to the world the true Senator Rogers. Like coaxing a pearl out of an oyster.”

  Nick’s not buying this.

  “You have to kill the oyster to get the pearl. Did you?”

  Fanny leans back in her chair and remembers when they crossed the line. It seemed so right at the time. So natural. Isn’t making love the ultimate communication between a man and woman? Tears start to form in her eyes. She looks back up at Nick. He’s aiming the camera at her. And snaps another picture.

  “A euro for your thoughts?”

  Fanny shakes her head.

  Nick puts the camera down.

  He reaches across the table and takes Fanny’s hand.

  And holds it until she stops crying.

  CHAPTER 34

  Connie is worried. What has gotten into her?

  Is it the illness, the medication? She doesn’t think so. Yes, she’s thin and tires easily. And certain things—walking for a long time, climbing steps—take more effort than before. But really that’s not it.

  Aging is not an entirely pleasant affair. One day Connie was the beautiful Bryn Mawr graduate. The whole world was open in new ways. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Connie had choices her mother never did. Bryn Mawr pushed hard for certain career choices. Connie’s roommates were both going to medical school.

  But medicine was not a viable option: Connie didn’t give a hoot about radiology or endoskeletal whatevers. Numbers weren’t Connie’s strength, so banking made no sense. Anyway, her father had money, so work wasn’t an issue.

  Frankly all Connie really wanted was to get married. She could raise children—and maybe horses—and read great books and have a garden and make wonderful meals and plan nice vacations.

  And oh, she’d love her husband, ambitious, fierce-minded, fair, strong, successful. She’d care for a fabulous house, assemble it in good taste, and have nice parties and interesting friends (from good families). Connie couldn’t tell anyone any of this. It would be too embarrassing.

  That pretty much left law school as the sole viable option.

  Columbia was a bit of a shock when she first arrived. But Connie stuck to her dorm, outlined her cases and generally applied herself. She met Lee in her second year and paid far less attention to torts and contracts after she did.

  “Bring your lunch and meet me by the river. The 114th Street entrance. At Riverside Drive. You’ll recognize me. I’ll be looking for you.” That’s what the note in Connie’s book bag said. She found it there one morning after criminal law class ended. Connie remembers the note vividly, each syllable.

  Professor Simon had called on the handsome dark-haired man next to her. “Mr. Rogers, can you tell us please, what is the issue in Brady v. Maryland?” Mr. Rogers had exactly no idea. “Professor Simon,” he said, “I have exactly no idea what the issue is in Brady v. Maryland.”

  No one had had the guts to say anything like that before. The class cheered. Lee Rogers came as close as a person could come to taking a bow without actually moving.

  Unimpressed, Professor Simon called on Connie Salzman, who quite matter-of-factly delivered the perfect analysis of the Brady rule of exculpatory evidence case. Of course she knew the issue. She’d spent the weekend in her room studying, going through the cases over and over until they practically extruded through her skin.

  Connie brought her lunch (a frisée salad) to the river with some trepidation. Who was this smooth-talking Lee Rogers and why did he want to have lunch with her?

  Rogers, who’d brought a hot dog for his lunch, spread mustard over the bun with his finger. He produced a blue-and-white bag with the Columbia mascot (a lion) on it.

  “Roar,” he said, pulling out a bottle of sparkling pink champagne. “Matches the sunset. And your smile.”

  He pulled two plastic champagne cups from the bag and started to pour.

  “First things first,” he said, and took a bite of his frank. “Yum.”

  Connie smiled. She was charmed.

  But she couldn’t help herself. “Do you know what’s in those?”

  “Whatever it is, it sure tastes good.” Lee smiled.

  “Have you ever visited a hot dog factory?”

  Rogers’ eyes twinkled. “Was that on the college tour? I didn’t pay much attention after Butler Library.”

  Connie loved it that he was playful. She giggled—something about him brought out the coquette in her.

  “They mix pork trimmings with pink slurry. That’s what you get when you squeeze chicken carcasses through metal graders and blast them with water.”

  Admittedly, Connie’s idea of coquettishness was a little odd. She hadn’t had much practice. But Rogers was not put off. “How about the bun?” he said.

  Connie liked the way he teased. “This is before the bun! Listen. They mix the mush with powdered gunk—preservatives, flavorings, red coloring all drenched in water and then squeeze it through the pink plastic tubes where they cook and package them.”

  “Now the bun?”

  For the life of her, Connie couldn’t figure out why she was talking about hot dogs. Something about Rogers made her nervous. The talk was like a tic. But he was having fun. And she couldn’t help but enjoy herself.

  “Right. Now the bun. I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously.”

  “I’m very serious about my hot dogs. Also I’m serious about you, Miss Brady v. Maryland. You look very delicious yourself.”

  He said this straight out of the blue. Connie blushed.

  “Hey! There’s some pink slurry flushing across your face.”

  Connie blushed more. And giggled. What was it about this guy?

  Rogers lifted his glass. “To exculpatory evidence.” They took a quick sip from their cups. Rogers moved closer. He smelled Connie’s sweet (expensive) perfume. “Mmmm. Delicious, yes! And no plastic packaging?”

  Connie loved this. So much so, that to her enormous surprise, she heard herself say, “Only one way to find out.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Connie lightly brushed her lips against his. “Any sign of plastic packaging?” she said.

  “Nope!” said Rogers. He kissed her again shyly. “What do you think? Will I survive that hot dog and all those toxins?”

  “I hope so,” said Connie and she did. “Take my breath away,” she added. And he did.

  A courtship began. Connie helped Rogers outline his cases and prepare for exams. He took her to jazz concerts at divey bars downtown. She got all As. He got offers from the top firms.

  Rogers clinched matters when he took Connie to Paris right after graduation (she graduated third in her class; he didn’t rank) and proposed to her.

  He did not want to be without this fine-looking, straight-thinking woman. He needed her. He loved her too. There was no question: Connie would be the perfect wife.

  Connie was over the moon.

  You probably want to know what the sex was like then. I’m sorry, Connie Salzman was not the type of girl who talked about things like that. She liked Lee Rogers. A lot. Let’s leave it at that. He made her laugh. She did things with him she couldn’t imagine.

  They were married six months later. Lee had a job at a big Philadelphia firm. Connie had a job at a bigger Philadelphia firm. The job was not interesting. Even slightly.

  Connie did not have to worry much about any of this for long. Two months after she started work, she discovered to her delight—true, actual and complete delight—that she was pregnant. The trouble with Lee might have started around t
his time.

  Connie was dizzy with happiness about the pregnancy and might have lost track. Dinner might have slipped; Connie absolutely did not plan the spring trip to the Alps that year. That she remembers. Lee went instead with a bachelor friend from his firm.

  Connie would never have found out about the stewardess he met on the flight. She wasn’t a suspicious spouse or anything like that. But she phoned Lee in the Alps—the connection was bad and she thought she’d misheard the hotel operator; she asked for Mr. Rogers and the operator said, in thickly accented English, “I em so sorry, Ma’am. Meester and Meesus Rogers just check out now.”

  Connie actually said, “No. Not Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. I’m looking for Mr. Rogers. I am Mrs. Rogers!”

  “I em so very sorry,” said the voice on the phone. “So very sorry.”

  Connie was actually confused and wondering why on earth the operator was so very sorry when the awful truth dawned on her.

  Lee’s homecoming was not so pleasant as previous ones. Connie did not pick him up at the airport, but was instead waiting for him when he got home.

  “Lee. We have to talk,” she said.

  Rogers had never seen such a stern look on Connie’s face. Pregnancy, he thought, makes animals of all of us.

  “Who were you with in the Alps? I know you weren’t alone. I know you were with a woman. Lee. What. Are. You. Doing?”

  Lee Rogers was on his knees so quickly Connie thought he’d had a heart attack. It took him just a few tearful moments to tell her, choking back tears, that yes, he was with a stewardess, someone he’d met on the plane.

  He was scared of being a father, he said. Just scared in a way he’d never been before. “I lost my mind, Connie. I was so afraid. I wanted to be a man for you, a strong man who wasn’t afraid, and I wanted to be a strong father for our baby, and Connie, Connie, Connie,” he choked back more tears, “can you forgive me? Ever? Oh god, Connie! Please help me to be worthy of you—your love, our baby.”

  This could’ve been the end of all that Connie had ever dreamt. She wasn’t going to let it slip quickly out of hand.

  Determined to save herself, her baby, and the family she dreamt of, Connie got in the car and drove to Bucks County, to the small country house her father had given her and Lee for a wedding present.

  Connie had planted a little garden there and it was there that she would find the peace she needed to survive this glitch on the long road she knew would lead to a happy ending for her, for Lee, and for their unborn child.

  It was high spring. Connie knew just what she’d do. She’d plant a cherry tree like the ones that had just blossomed in the capital. Sweet, pink and fragrant, the trees represented all of nature’s promise.

  Trees with sour fruit last longer—up to two hundred years. As a statement about her conviction and the promise of this pregnancy, Connie chose one of these.

  She loaded the sapling into her car, ferried it to Bucks County and planted it before she even went inside the house.

  Twenty years later, worried about herself and her odd behavior, Connie drives the familiar road to Hillside Lane. There, in front of the house, the first thing she sees is the cherry tree she planted all those years ago.

  Now fully mature, it blossoms magnificently over the drive. For Connie the tree is a horrible sight. Each bright pink bloom is a reminder of that time, of what happened with the stewardess.

  What happened happened—a long time ago. And then it was over. Lee said it was.

  And it was.

  And it was awful and unspeakable to have accused him again, to have impugned his integrity with her crass inquiry about the video girl.

  It was weak to have questioned him. Rogers made a promise all those years ago: if Connie could forgive him—and she could, she did—never again would he violate their vows or give her cause to worry, ever. A simple exchange: absolution for fidelity, forever.

  And she had sunk to questioning his veracity, his honesty. She had violated their trust.

  She goes to the shed. On a neat pegboard hang all the tools you’d need to build a new world—hammers, drills, saws. Connie surveys the tools and, at last, sees the hatchet she is looking for.

  She picks it up. Weaving just a little, she carries the hatchet to the front of the house and plants her Size 5 feet onto the earth and then she takes a wild swing—not one, in fact, but six— and she does not stop then but continues to hack, chop chop chop, at the twenty-year-old tree that bears with its fruit the bitter memory of Lee’s twenty-year-old sin.

  The tree falls. The crash is loud. Connie is satisfied. Gone is the tree that memorializes Lee’s one and only transgression. She will not question him again. She goes inside and dials her husband’s cell. “Lee, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree.” He has no idea what she’s talking about.

  “I know you kept your promise to me, Lee. After what happened twenty years ago. I know you did, and I do not want any living reminder of the one, twenty-year-old breach in our lives together. I cut down that tree.”

  Lee laughs. “Darling, you are so silly. Don’t be a nut. I’ve got to go. Committee meeting prep. See you for dinner tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The doorbell at the service entrance to Rogers’ Georgetown townhouse rings.

  Lee Rogers, in casual gear—khakis and polo—answers. He is surprised to find a very large man, wearing black clothes— turtleneck, trousers, parka, all solid black—standing on the step.

  Dark shades sit on the man’s nose. And his shaven head, stark in the D.C. twilight, adds an extra ominous cast.

  “Yes, what can I do for you?” Rogers might as well be welcoming a witness who has come to testify at the Committee on Foreign Relations. He knows his lines. He knows statesmanlike manners.

  The man extends a hand. One that is sheathed in a black leather glove. Odd since it’s not cold out.

  “Where is she?” says the voice attached to the hand.

  Rogers finds the question jarring, partly because the man’s lips don’t move, but also because he recognizes the voice.

  “Brock? What is all this?”

  “What do you see, Lee?”

  “A big guy. Wearing a lot of black clothing. With a strange, grizzled-up face. Brock, what the fuck are you doing?”

  Rogers looks at Brock. Jesus Christ, he’s wearing a mask! Some sort of rubber thing, the kind you pull over your whole head, like on Halloween. In the half-light it looks almost real.

  “Right,” Brock says. “A big guy in black clothing—with an unrecognizable face. Guess what will show up on the Neighborhood Association’s surveillance tapes. You got it: An unidentifiable man. I don’t know, Lee. Maybe you want to carry her out yourself.”

  Rogers shakes his head.

  Brock walks through the townhouse door.

  “She told me Fanny is my daughter.” Lee wants his fix-it man to fix this one. Fast.

  Brock is not impressed.

  “There’s one thing I know about you, Lee. You make mistakes. But that is one mistake you don’t make, in bed. She probably made that up to guilt you into finding her kid. Who, incidentally, I discovered is queen of the one-night stands.”

  Brock would quite literally say anything so long as it advances his chief task, which is to keep the senator on track.

  Not only did Brock not hear anything about Fanny, he knows absolutely nothing about her or her one- (or any-) night stands. Brock himself has not gotten laid in months, and the very words “one,”

  “night,” and “stand” make him dizzy.

  Maybe the faux report on Fanny will counteract whatever bogus bit about paternity her mom dropped on the senator to guilt him into caring about the lost intern. That’s all Brock is thinking.

  “Where is she?” he says. Back to being all-business.

  Rogers leads his associate upstairs, to the guest bathroom.

  Jenny is on the floor, her handbag spilled open beside her. Her eyes are glazed. There’s a slight split of skin
on her forehead where she hit the basin and where, in the fullness of time, there will likely be a bruise.

  Brock takes out a penlight. “She’s out. Looks like a stroke. Probably a cerebral embolism.” He wouldn’t know a cerebral embolism from a barrel of horseshoes. But speaking with confidence has gotten him through tougher spots in the past.

  Rogers feels as if he is in a very bad dream. “She’ll be alright?” he says.

  Brock pretends to feel for her pulse. “Her vitals are strong. But it looks like she’s out cold, maybe in a coma. For now. Let’s get her out of here.”

  He returns to the bedroom, grabs the blanket off the bed. On his way back to the bathroom, glitter catches his eye. On close inspection, Brock sees that it is neither an earring nor a stray jewel but a sliver of glass, coated crimson in one corner. Blood?

  Brock picks up the shard and shows it to Rogers. “What’s this?”

  Rogers studies it for a moment. He’s distracted. You would be too if you were talking to someone who was about to carry a live body out of your house in a blanket.

  “When Fanny was here, she cut her foot, I don’t know, Brock. Let’s wrap this up.” (Funny how the mind puns even in the most somber moments.)

  “Yeah, yeah, could you get me a plastic bag or an empty pill bottle?” says Brock, as he lays the blanket down beside Jenny.

  “Why?”

  “Just get it.”

  Rogers, numb and tired, finds it comforting to follow orders. He rummages through the kitchen drawer, finds a Ziploc bag, returns to the guest room, and hands it to Brock. Brock drops the bit of glass into the bag and puts it in his pant pocket. “What are you going to do with that?” says Rogers.

  “This is Fanny’s blood, right?” says Brock as he finishes rolling Jenny up. She makes a tidy package. Only her feet are sticking out. “You want to know for sure about what the mom told you, I’ll get a DNA test.” He reaches over to the sink, grabs a Q-tip from a glass jar. “I’m going to need your DNA too. Swab your cheek with this.”