The Fire This Time

by S. Frederic Liss

  “Frohling says you’re legal aid’s best attorney,” the rabbi said.

  “I say you’re a minor-league All-Star,” Moskovitzky said, “who can’t hit big league pitching.”

  Maddie started to rise. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  “Sit,” the rabbi said.

  “Why?” Maddie replied.

  “Sit. Stand,” the rabbi said. “It makes no difference.”

  “Let’s get one thing clear,” Maddie said. “If you don’t think I’m the right attorney for this case, I’m out of here. I don’t need the aggravation of shoulder-sitters who think I’m second or third rate.”

  “Are you?” the rabbi asked.

  Before Maddie could reply, Moskovitzky said, “I changed my name to Mosca and lied about my religion to get into Harvard College and Harvard Law School. I opened the legal profession in Boston to Jews. I created a law firm worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the Solis-Cohen firm in Philadelphia. And what is my legacy? A grandson whose ignorance of the past condemns him to repeat it.” He spoke with a firmness that belied his age, his voice steady, lacking the quaver and high pitch of the elderly.

  “The only legacy that matters,” Maddie said, “is Levy’s.”

  Moskovitzky ignored her. “Fear and ignorance have blinded my grandson to the consequences of the blood libel accusation.”

  Maddie recognized what she called “set speech syndrome.” In court, she often encountered attorneys who arrived with set speeches, determined to give them regardless of what questions the judge might ask. Those attorneys frequently lost their cases. Perhaps, Maddie thought, she could shorten Moskovitzky’s set speech with a question. “What is a blood libel?”

  “What is a blood libel, she asks.” Moskovitzky’s voice had that blend of sarcasm and disgust Maddie remembered from her catechism classes when she or one of her classmates asked a question whose answer would have been self-evident to the faithful.

  The rabbi answered her question. “For centuries Jews have been accused of draining the blood of Christian boys and using their blood to bake Passover matzoh.”

  Maddie recalled how the kids threatened each other in parochial school, especially around Easter. “I’ll sell your blood to the Jews” was the most common threat. She had had nightmares the first time one of her classmates threatened to sell her blood. She didn’t know then the threat had a name, blood libel.

  Moskovitzky continued. “Who is to say years from now my grandchildren’s grandchildren won’t again be running from Cossacks?”

  Maddie slammed her pen down on her legal pad. “Levy won’t have any grandchildren if we don’t change the subject.”

  Moskovitzky and the rabbi glanced at each other, then at her. She saw condemnation in their eyes. Moskovitzky pulled a tissue from his sleeve. “Is it better I lived in America where Jack Mosca went to Harvard or ancient Egypt where Jacob Moskovitzky built pyramids?”

  “What does this have to do with Levy?” Maddie said.

  The rabbi replied, “Hatred is what this has to do with Avram. Hatred is a spider from whose web few escape. Avram must be defended not only for himself, not only for Jacob’s grandchildren’s grandchildren, but for your grandchildren’s grandchildren as well.”

  “I don’t have the luxury of leading a crusade.”

  “You wouldn’t talk this way if his name were Robert Emmet,” the rabbi said.

  “I would whether you believe me or not.”

  Moskovitzky cleared his throat. “Why are you here?”

  Feigning social concern would be too transparent. Inviting Moskovitzky to be co-counsel would cede the control she needed to work the case her way. Gutting it out would work if desperation sent them to legal aid. She plucked the doctrine of the excluded middle from her bag of attorney tricks.

  “Why do you presume I want to be here? If Frohling orders me to defend Levy and I refuse, he can Section 8 me and have me disbarred, thanks to the Supreme Judicial Court. I bet you didn’t know that, Attorney Moskovitzky. It’s the law. Look it up. Section 8 of my employment contract requires me to accept any assignment made by the director. In Board of Bar Overseers v. Podolec, the Supreme Judicial Court on Frohling’s petition upheld a one-year license suspension for an African-American attorney who refused to defend a member of the Klu Klux Klan for inciting a riot at an anti-school busing demonstration. In dicta, the SJC suggested a second offense would warrant disbarment. If you want me off the case, tell the judge. Without Levy’s consent, I’ll be bounced. I don’t have time for this inquisition.”

  The rabbi cringed at her use of that word.

  “Point two,” Maddie continued. “It is clear to me from Levy’s behavior at the arraignment he doesn’t want me as his attorney. He wouldn’t be the first. So, do I have a client to defend?”

  “Levy will be guided by us,” the rabbi said. “He will do as we recommend.”

  “We don’t question your legal abilities, Ms. Devlin,” Moskovitzky said, “but we have every right to satisfy ourselves about your motivations.”

  “I have one and only one motivation, to get the best possible result for my client. Subject to the Code of Professional Responsibility I will do what must be done to achieve that result.”

  “From the days of the patriarchs and matriarchs,” Moskovitzky said, “Jews have fought for the right to be Jews whether on top of Masada or in the lobby of the King David Hotel. Never, but never, has a Jew committed the crime of blood libel. Punished for it, yes. Many times.” He bowed his head as if his thoughts were too heavy for him. “It has never been a crime in this country to be Jewish; but if Avram is convicted, it will be.” The hum of the fluorescent desk lamp sounded like an alarm warning everyone to the bomb shelters. “My grandson, to him a pogrom is something in a history book. I lived that history.” He placed the cane between his legs, resting his hands on its crown.

  Maddie seized the opening. “Jews don’t have a monopoly on being hated. It took Ireland as long to be born as Israel. Irish historians, especially those of the rebellion, see the Irish as another race of Jews. And James Joyce. He made Leopold Bloom, the symbolic father of Stephen Dedalus, Jewish.” She spoke in the calm voice of a scholar leading a seminar, one of her favorite closing argument techniques. “Joyce saw the Irish and Jews as two heroic races destined to wander the face of the earth and shed their own blood to attain a homeland and then shed more blood defending it. Joyce understood that the bond between the Jews and the Irish was the bond between Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, the bond between father and son.”

  “What of the bond between blood relations?” Moskovitzky spat the question with the disdain of a judge who had dismissed her as fatuous and lacking in credibility, then closed his eyes as if he were unable to bear the sight of her. She glanced at the rabbi who seemed lost in thought.

  “Trish Sullivan and me?” Maddie rushed her words out of fear of being silenced. “In 1916, my da’s da was executed by an Irish Republican Brotherhood firing squad. Accused of being the informer who tipped the Brits about an IRB raid on a Brit weapons arsenal. Implicated in the death of his brother, Seamus, who led the raid. Convicted on the word of his other brother, Clancy, who bore false witness. Patrick Pearse swore to my grand da’s innocence. Produced evidence Clancy sold his birthright for a pint and a bob. But, Pearse was only one vote on the IRB Military Council and the others voted to convict, to execute. Seamus was Trish’s grand da. Her side of the family never forgave, never forgot. My side neither.”

  Moskovitzky opened his eyes, but still looked away. “False witness?”

  “Over an inheritance.” The words vomited from her mouth. “Their grand da’s homestead. Clancy got it in his head Patrick would leave it to him, but Patrick left it to my grand da, who was the oldest. Clancy blamed my grand da for poisoning Patrick against him.”

  “The mark of Cain,” the rabbi said.

  “Except my grand da was innocent.”

  “So you do not seek justice for Avram, but for
your grandfather,” the rabbi said.

  Maddie clenched her jaw. Never had she doubted her grand da’s innocence. Her da had said he was innocent and das never lied to their daughters. Now, the skepticism of these ancient Jews created doubt. What-if her grand da did bear the mark of Cain? It would have passed through the generations to her da, to her, to her daughter. Is this why Elizabeth died an infant? Maddie recoiled at the thought her daughter bore the mark of Cain.

  “Is there a bathroom I can use?” she asked.

  The rabbi pointed to a door bunkered by bookcases.

  In the bathroom mirror Maddie saw the mark of Cain staining her face, bold and ugly like a purple birthmark, the devil’s mark according to the nuns of her childhood. Maddie did deep-breathing exercises for several minutes to compose herself, then flushed the toilet, ran the cold water, splashed some on her face, and swallowed her emotions because attorneys, especially attorneys in her line of work, could not be subservient to their emotions. Her faith in her grand da’s innocence reaffirmed, she returned to the rabbi’s study.

  The rabbi nodded at Moskovitzky who asked, “What of your vow never to defend someone accused of murdering a child? How did you avoid being disbarred for refusing those cases?”

  Maddie felt like a witness caught in a lie on cross-examination. “Those cases were not assigned to me. This one has been because I am the only legal aid attorney capable of handling it.”

  “It is a terrible thing,” the rabbi said, “when a mother buries a daughter, but it is more terrible when after so many years grief still warps the mother. Grief can destabilize a mind from within.”

  Was her struggle with her impacted rage that obvious, Maddie wondered. Grief had destabilized her from within, but she had wrestled with her grief, sometimes with more success, sometimes with less; but she had channeled her grief so that now her infant daughter lived in her memories and in the Elizabeth Fund. Would she have had my face? My coloring? My temperament? Would she have looked like a Devlin? Or her father? No, the Devlin genes ruled. She had seen that in her daughter’s eyes moments after her birth. Now, what remained? Grief and memories in all their fallibility; and, a crusade against child abuse.

  “Yes,” Maddie said. “A terrible thing. But the director holds Section 8 over me like a death sentence.” She cursed herself for the sophistry, the circularity, of her argument.

  “So, quit work,” Moskovitzky said.

  “Hanging out my shingle takes courage, more than I have.”

  “Yet, you would have us believe you have the courage to defend Levy,” Moskovitzky said.

  His accusation shredded her composure. She struggled to maintain self-control. Judges who acted as inquisitors were not new to her; nor were judges who dismissed her arguments as lacking foundation in law or fact. On the contrary, judges respected her for being fearless in court, unlike attorneys cowed into subservience by a judge’s raised eyebrow or off-the-cuff comment. She counted to three, then said, “Nothing I say will still your doubts.”

  “Perhaps, Jacob,” the rabbi said, “a time such as this requires an act of faith.”

  “Faith has murdered too many of our people.”

  “Yes, but without faith, would Abraham have entered into the Covenant? Would Moses have led his people into the Red Sea? Would our people have survived the destruction of the First and Second Temples? The Holocaust?”

  “Faith did not win the Six-Day War,” Moskovitzky said.

  “Without faith there would have been no Israel to fight that war.”

  “How often does our worst enemy come disguised as a friend?”

  “As often as a friend comes disguised as an enemy,” the rabbi replied.

  Rabbi ben Reuben massaged his knuckles. His entire life had brought him to this moment. Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh., one of the ways pious Jews referred to God, had demanded of Abraham an act of faith. Now Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh. demanded the same of him. But what was that act of faith? Blessing Attorney Devlin? Dismissing her? If he acted out of faith, would that prevent him from making the wrong choice? Would Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh. ordain his making the wrong choice? He had to believe, he had to have faith, that his choice, whatever it was, was Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh.’s choice and that it was the right choice. That was the essence of faith, the essence of belief. He felt so inadequate, so unprepared.

  The rabbi looked Maddie in the eye. She did not blink. She did not turn away. Her expression remained unchanged, frozen, her lips pressed together. Moskovitzky rested his chin on the head of his cane, his eyes closed. The rabbi was alone, but not alone. Reason would not guide him. Nor emotion. Only faith. Faith in Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh. who had let him down, let His people down, so many times before. An old Jewish folk saying came to mind, one he had used in many sermons over the years: A drowning man will grab even for the blade of a sword. Once again Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh. had hurled His people into the raging waters and once again extended to them the blade of a sword. Refuse it and they will surely drown. Accept it and they may be saved. The rabbi closed his eyes to trap the tears he felt forming, then opened them. “Will you represent Avram, Attorney Devlin?”

  “If he will have me.”

  “He will have you,” the rabbi replied.

  “Do you concur?” Maddie asked Moskovitzky.

  “If I do not?”

  “You will have to leave,” Maddie replied, “as your presence creates a waiver of the attorney-client privilege.”

  “I feel like Moses at the Red Sea before he stepped into the water.” Moskovitzky took a deep breath. The air in his lungs rattled. He looked down at the handle of his cane, then whispered, “I concur.”

  “Good. Let’s get to work. What do you know about Mr. Levy’s background?”

  Without pausing, the rabbi related how Levy joined the congregation the previous fall after moving from New York, how he was studying Talmud and supporting himself by working in a Jewish funeral home, how he held life so sacred he would let the fly flit across his bread rather than swat it.

  “I’ll visit him in the morning.”

  “On the Sabbath?” the rabbi said.

  “A case like this, every day’s a work day.”

  Rabbi ben Reuben and Moskovitzky glanced at each other. Now they understood why Levy did not want her to represent him. He had intuited this about her, that she would raise the profane above the sacred. He would resist their recommendation, resist her. Levy’s future depended on his resistance being overcome. The rabbi nodded. Moskovitzky returned the nod. Maddie rose and shook their hands. She wanted to leave before either or both of them had a change of mind, a change of heart. Good trial lawyers knew better than to overstay their welcome before the jury.

  As she walked to her car, Maddie felt trapped inside the past, her past, Ireland’s past. Today descended from yesterday in as never-ending torrent of “begets” as any found in the Holy Bible. Robert Emmet begat Robert Michael Arthur Devlin, named Devlin rather than Emmet to hide him from the British, Michael and Arthur being two Devlin cousins, both veterans of the Rising of 1798 and the Rising of 1803 which begat the Easter Rising of 1916 which begat the Republic of Ireland. In 1829, Robert begat Brian Winifred Devlin who begat Richard Luke Devlin, who begat Patrick Hugh Devlin, who begat Michael Parnell Devlin, who begat Brian Arthur Devlin, Maddie’s da, a poor soul imprisoned in the provenance of his name. Patrick Hugh Devlin also begat Brian’s brothers, Clancy Richard Devlin, the informer, and Seamus Emmet Devlin, da of Tommy Devlin, grand da of Beatrice “Trish” Devlin Sullivan, First Lady of Boston, Maddie’s second cousin, mother of Charles F. “Bumper” Sullivan, III.

  Since ancient times, Finn mac Cumaill lay within an unremembered Irish hillock. Today, Finn mac Cumaill and his band of mercenary warriors marched through the streets of Boston. What of today? What of this infernal April day? And the next day? And the day after that? What of these days? In her name and blood, in her memories and deeds, Maddie had entered upon the burning sands that bridged the chasm between the old and the new, the new and th
e old, condemned to sift through the grains for the courage to answer the call as so many Devlins had before her. But whose call? God’s or the devil’s?

  Was this the second step to her winning the fight with her impacted rage? She had reached her car before she realized she had crossed her fingers. She laughed at herself for adopting a silly superstition, then remembered that humor, Dr. Przystas had counseled, was one of the coping mechanisms for dealing with impacted rage.

  -9-

  Later that night, Rabbi ben Reuben brought a kosher dinner to Avram Levy at the Charles Street Jail. The temperature was high enough to boil the moisture in the air and weather forecasts offered no prospect of relief. In the history of weather records for the Boston area, one meteorologist reported, no high-pressure system had been so stationary for so long. The jet stream had a stranglehold on Boston, the northeast, the North Atlantic, with a malevolent anger that put to shame the anger Moses felt upon seeing the golden calf when he descended Mount Sinai with the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. Unable to park near the jail, the rabbi left his car at the foot of Beacon Hill and pulled himself up the staircase of the footbridge that spanned the Charles Street rotary.

  In the evening, pedestrian traffic to and from the neighboring hospitals, Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear, made the walk safe, but visiting hours had ended and he was alone. Age intensified his apprehension as did the incessant talk of blood libel on television and radio, especially talk radio where the ignorance and prejudice of the callers rivaled only that of the hosts, the nationally syndicated shows being more virulent than the local shows. A shard of memory stirred, then vanished before coalescing into something recognizable, another of the tricks his mind now played on him since he first heard the phrase “blood libel” on the television news the morning after the Sullivan boy’s blood-drained body had been discovered.

  The rabbi struggled to climb the staircase while balancing a Styrofoam plate on his palm, its warmth radiating through the bottom. Since coming to America, the rabbi had prided himself for not falling prey to the debate of why a benevolent God permitted such evil as the Holocaust. Nor did he believe this benevolent God would correct His mistakes and make everything all right. Many of his colleagues in the rabbinate indicted him for lacking faith.