As we got into the van, Justice Scalia remarked how crowded the temple was. “Is it packed like that every day?” he asked Polly.
“Yes, it stays crowded most days—except in bad weather,” she responded.
“Too many people,” said Justice Scalia. That reminded me of a Paul McCartney song of that name.
“Nino,” I said, “I want you to listen to a song. Perhaps I’ve finally found a rock song you might like. Do you remember when I tried to play ‘Nothing Is Easy’ for you on my iPod?”
“That’s my motto!” he said.
“I know, and when I saw the sign your clerks made for you, I played the Jethro Tull song ‘Nothing Is Easy’ for you in your chambers.”
“Did I like it?” he asked.
“No, you didn’t,” I said, “even though it’s a great song based on your motto. Let’s try another.”
“What is it?”
“ ‘Too Many People,’ by Paul McCartney and Wings.”
Tom was quicker on Google than I was, and he began playing it. Unfortunately, it was a recording of a live performance in which the raucous electric-guitar lead-in was rather extended. With mock-annoyance, Justice Scalia said, “Turn that off! Why would you think I’d like that?” The music stopped.
“It’s called ‘Too Many People,’ ” I said, “and it’s a clever little song with interesting lyrics and a good tune—if we’d only gotten that far. I can see why you didn’t like the guitar in that particular version.”
“Lord, no!” said Justice Scalia. Tom and Karolyne, both smiling, seemed to be enjoying the exchange. He continued: “What I like in pop music is a good tune with a nice lyric. There’s this old song.” He started singing, “You call everybody ‘Darling,’ and everybody calls you ‘Darling,’ too. You don’t mean what you’re saying, it’s just a game you’re playing, but you’ll find someone else can play the game as well as you . . .”
“You’ve got a good voice, Nino,” I said.
“You’re quite a singer,” said Tom.
“Thank you. I was in the glee club in college, you know. Say, Tom, see if you can find a recording of ‘You Call Everybody Darling.’ ”
Within seconds, Tom had found a recording of the song, and Justice Scalia sang along with it on the ride back to the hotel. If he’d miss the beginning of a line, the singers would prompt him and he’d join in quickly, smiling and serenading the rest of us through the simple 1940s-style ditty: “If you call everybody ‘Darling,’ then love won’t come a-knocking at your door. And as the years go by, you’ll sit and wonder why nobody calls you ‘Darling’ anymore.”
When it was over, he remarked, “Now that’s a good song. And it has a good message for people, too.”
“That’s true,” I said.
Divining Words
Still riding in the van, I changed the subject to words—always a favorite for Justice Scalia. I asked him whether he knew the technical term for palm-reading.
“There’s a technical term for it?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “There’s a whole list of words, dozens of them, ending with the same suffix that denotes divination by certain means. You don’t know it?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know it,” he said curiously.
“It’s called ‘chiromancy,’ also known as ‘palmistry.’ Chiro- for hand, as in chirograph, the handwritten legal instrument such as an old deed; and -mancy, meaning divination, or foretelling the future.”
“Are you serious?” said Justice Scalia.
“Sure,” I said. “The ancient Romans had all kinds of divination. With necromancy, they foretold the future by supposedly speaking to the spirits of the dead. With aleuromancy, they somehow used flour to tell the future.”
“How do you know this stuff? Are you an occultist?”
“Of course not! I’m a lexicographer. When I was a teenager, and I first discovered the suffix -mancy, I spent a week or so finding every word I could in Webster’s Second ending with that suffix. I had a language notebook full of interesting things like that.”
“You were a precocious snoot,” Justice Scalia said.
“Tom,” I said, “Google the suffix -mancy, and you’ll find lots of them.”
“I found some,” said Tom. “The suffix comes from the Latin word mantis, meaning ‘prophet or soothsayer.’ ”
“Yes,” I said, “as in ‘praying mantis.’ ”
He started calling them out while Justice Scalia, Karolyne, and I tried to guess what the word might mean based on the etymological roots: aeromancy (divination by means of observing atmospheric conditions), arithmancy (by means of numbers), capnomancy (by means of watching smoke rising from a fire), geomancy (by means of configurations of earth), hieromancy (by means of sacred objects), hydromancy (by means of watching water), myomancy (by means of watching the movements of mice), omphalomancy (by means of examining an umbilical cord—although we guessed navel), oneiromancy (by means of dreams), pyromancy (by means of fire or flames), rhabdomancy (by means of a wand), stichomancy (by means of books), and so on. I let Justice Scalia and Karolyne have the first guesses, since I recalled most of them, and they did remarkably well. Only capnomancy, myomancy, rhabdomancy, and stichomancy stumped them, and of those I got only myomancy and stichomancy. How Justice Scalia came up with the correct answer to oneiromancy is anyone’s guess.
“This is amazing!” said Justice Scalia.
“You see,” I said, “there are lots of ways to tell the future, if you believe in that sort of thing. You don’t really believe in chiromancy, do you?”
“No, but I just don’t want to hear people predicting the time of my death. You understand that.”
“Of course.” I hesitated. “I’m surprised Tom didn’t find the one about cutting open animals to examine their entrails. That was a favorite means of Roman divination.”
Tom Googled it. “Hey,” he said. “That’s called haruspicy.” He spelled it out letter by letter. “How do you say it?”
“/huh-ROO-spi-see/,” I said. “Good word. And do you know the word for shaking sticks out of the container?”
“No. What kind of -mancy is that?” asked Justice Scalia.
“It’s not a -mancy word. It’s more of a fancy word: sortilege, which means divination by lots or sticks.”
“Are you sure you don’t believe in the occult, Bryan?”
“Not a bit of it,” I said. “I just love all these words. But I wish I’d had Google in 1974. When I was a kid, I spent probably two weeks chasing down all these words in Webster’s Second and the Oxford English Dictionary. They’re not all collected in a single place.”
“You must have been a nerdy kid,” said Justice Scalia, “like me. But I have to say I didn’t go to those lengths.” He grinned. “Why’d you do it?”
“You’ve never heard the story about how I fell in love with words, and why I was copying words out of Webster’s Second?”
“Oh,” said Karolyne. “Wait till you hear this.”
“I’m sure I’ve heard this before. But remind me,” he said.
“It was an attempt,” I said, “a silly attempt to impress a girl. When I was 15, she complimented me by saying I had a big vocabulary. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘she likes a big vocabulary. Well, I can make it even bigger.’ And so I spent months copying out what I considered interesting, useful words.”
“Did she notice?” asked Justice Scalia.
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you ever call her or send her flowers?”
“No. I was probably too shy. Anyway, I soon forgot about her and realized I was in love with words.”
“Great story,” he said.
Soon we had arrived at the Ritz-Carlton, and we said our final goodbyes to Polly. She received warm hugs, and we posed for photographs with her. We were all a little sad to say goodbye to her.
Karolyne had arranged for us to have lunch at Tosca, a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant at the Ritz. (How wonderful, we thought, that it
bore the same name as our favorite Italian restaurant in Washington, D.C.) It was the only Italian meal we had in Hong Kong, and it was uncanny just how Italian it was. We shared a bottle of Sicilian wine that Justice Scalia picked out—in homage to his Sicilian ancestors.
In the afternoon, we went back to the Central District for our presentation at Thomson Reuters. The format was an interesting one. The local head of the company introduced us, and then we essentially interviewed ourselves about book authorship and how we worked together. We briefly described our reasons for writing the books and our methods.
“What made it easy,” I said, “was that our literary styles are perfectly compatible.”
“Perfectly,” Justice Scalia said. “I can’t imagine a better fit.”
I drew a laugh by saying, “Justice Scalia showed great magnanimity toward me. At the beginning of our partnership, he said, ‘Bryan, I want to make clear that you’re my coauthor, not my law clerk. You and I are equals—for purposes of this book only.’ ” No one laughed more heartily than Justice Scalia himself. He had in fact said all but the last six words.
“I never could have written these books without Bryan. He’s absolutely tireless, and both books required a great deal of research.”
An audience member asked a question: “What are the two of you collaborating on now?”
Justice Scalia said: “We’ve almost completed a second edition of Reading Law. And Bryan is helping me assemble my speeches into a three-volume set.”
“Yes,” I said, “Justice Scalia has a great storehouse of excellent speeches he’s given over the years. It’s going to be a great set of books. Otherwise, we’re going to be doing new editions of our two books.”
As part of this “self-interview,” I mentioned that we’d been musing about what we might say to the constitutional framers if we could time-travel for five minutes to speak with them. How would we try to influence them to make some adjustment to their planned Constitution? Justice Scalia said he would advise them not to make the Constitution so very difficult to amend. “It shouldn’t be easy to accomplish,” he said, “but the fact that it’s so very difficult has made people impatient with the process, so today we’ve gotten into the habit of asking the Supreme Court to amend it under the guise of ‘interpretation.’ That’s very bad. Anyway, the Constitution should be somewhat easier to amend.”
Final Fittings and Family Fete
After the post-talk cocktail party, we rushed from Thomson Reuters to Yuen’s Tailors for our final fitting. When we arrived, brothers Johnny and Bonnie were all smiles, and so was Justice Scalia as he tried on his half-made jacket. It was perfectly fitted. For the trousers, we encountered a problem: the tailors’ shop was so cramped that there was no dressing room. So Tom, Karolyne, and I formed a visual barrier at the front window—a kind of human curtain—so that Justice Scalia could take off his trousers. Karolyne kept her back to him.
But of course I peeked. “Nino, you wear sock-garters!” I had never seen that before, on anyone.
“You bet I do! Keeps the socks up.”
The trousers fit just as well as the jacket, so Johnny and Bonnie got the go-ahead to complete the suits and mail them. They wanted photos with the Justice, so I took them.
“We’ll hang your picture on our wall,” said Bonnie. Justice Scalia seemed flattered and amused as we left the shop.
This was our last evening in Hong Kong. A family dinner had been planned to celebrate the Chinese New Year. It was a joyous event with 20 of us at Prince’s restaurant in the Elements mall below the Ritz-Carlton. It was Justice Scalia’s first time to meet many in the Woo family, including Karolyne’s eldest uncle, Stephen, who had long before taught English in Hong Kong. Stephen’s brand of English was old-fashioned and hyperformal. He would say to a waiter, “We shall have the fried crab. And furthermore, we shall have fried rice.” Justice Scalia sat between Stephen and me, but there was a good deal of shifting of seats at dinner—so at various points he was sitting beside Karolyne, Tom, and Anton Maurer. The musical chairs made the dinner more fun.
At the end of the evening, as we were walking through the huge mall back to the hotel, Justice Scalia said: “You know, what really strikes me about Karolyne’s family is how much they like each other. They don’t just love each other; they genuinely enjoy each other’s company. That’s a great thing to see in a big family. I’m so glad to have been a part of this. It’s just like my kids. When they’re together, it’s as if they haven’t missed a beat. They really like being together.”
Goodbye, Tom
Over breakfast the next morning, Justice Scalia said, “I’ve joined a hunting society—an ancient and noble group called the International Order of St. Hubertus, who was the patron saint of hunters.”
“You have?” I said with only a moderate degree of interest. I’ve never had any passion for hunting.
“Yes, I have. I think it’s going to be rewarding. They promote hunting ethics and wildlife conservation. I don’t join many new things, but I think this’ll be good for me. We have a hunt coming up soon. You know, it’s based in Europe.”
“You’re going hunting in Europe?”
“No, this hunt is in Texas. But the organization is a European knightly order—with connections to royalty in Spain, Austria, and Hungary.”
“Wow. I’ll be curious to know how you like it,” I said noncommittally, looking down at the harbor. “Look at those barges. It’s going to take that tug forever to move them very far.”
With that abrupt change of topic, we never again discussed his new hunting society.
After breakfast, on the elevator ride up to our rooms, I asked whether he was all ready for the trip back.
“Not yet. Lots of packing to do.”
“I could help you,” I said.
“I’ll be fine,” Justice Scalia said. “I need to do it myself.”
“Tom,” I said, “I need to get the Reading Law manuscript back from you. Did you look at it?”
“Yeah,” said Tom. “It’s amazing all the additional work you’ve done.”
“We’ve been working hard,” said Justice Scalia.
Because Justice Scalia’s room was on the same floor as Tom’s, and closer to the elevator, Justice Scalia invited us in while we waited for Tom to retrieve the large binder with 700 pages of proofs.
“I’ve got to pack up my C-PAP,” he said. It was on his bed. “Hey, Bryan, did you ever get tested for sleep apnea?”
“Yes, I did, but the results were inconclusive.”
He looked at Karolyne. “Does he snore?”
“Yes!” she said. “Keeps me awake sometimes.”
“Bryan, you’ve got to get one of these.” He came toward me and stuck the two curled tubes up his nose. “It fits in just like this. It’s easy. You’ll sleep like a log—and Maureen says I don’t snore anymore.” He looked a little funny speaking with the device on.
Then he removed it from his nose and came closer to me. “Here, try this.”
I moved back in resistance.
“No, really, try it!” he said, gesturing that he wanted to insert the tubes into my nostrils.
“Nino, I’m not sticking your tubes up my nose! I love you, Nino, but . . . Come on, you know I’m a germophobe.”
“Oh yes, the great germophobe,” he said sarcastically while stepping back. “Always washing your hands! ‘Oh, don’t let me get any germs!’ You know you’re weakening your immune system.”
“I think I’ve saved you from many colds by sharing my hand sanitizer, after we’ve shaken hundreds of hands. Why expose yourself needlessly to other people’s germs?”
Just then Tom knocked at the door, and Karolyne let him in. He handed me the big binder containing the manuscript for the second edition of Reading Law. “Thanks for letting me see this,” Tom said. “It’s great. You think it’s ready to publish?”
“We’re ready,” I said.
“We’re ready,” Justice Scalia agreed.
“
We’ve added lots of new material—all the text highlighted in yellow,” I said.
“Then I’ll get the gears working at Thomson Reuters,” said Tom. “What do you see as the publication date?”
“We can have final proofs to you in May, with the redone index and bibliography, all ready to print,” I said. “So an August 2016 pub date is entirely workable.”
“I can do that,” said Justice Scalia.
“Good,” I said. “Now Tom’s going to the train station downstairs. Lyne and I are going to see him off. We leave here for the airport in two hours. Do you want to come downstairs and see Tom off?”
“You bet I do,” said Justice Scalia, grinning. “Tom, you’ve been an excellent travel companion. I’m glad that you came along.”
“It’s been such a privilege for me, Justice Scalia.”
He was still using that formal title—but then again, so was Karolyne. He never told either one to call him “Nino,” so they didn’t.
After saying goodbye to Tom, we rode the elevator back to the top of the Ritz-Carlton. “You know,” he said to Karolyne emphatically, “I don’t want to go back. I resent having to go back. I just can’t see going back to Washington. This has been the most remarkable trip. I really don’t want to go back to work.”
“That’s so sweet,” said Karolyne.
“Do you often feel that way after a vacation?” I asked.
“No. Not really.”
Now we were at his floor. “Rest up a little, Nino, and we’ll see you at 11 o’clock.”
The Chinese VIP Lounge
Soon we found ourselves back at the Hong Kong airport, in the same VIP lounge where we’d waited en route to Singapore just 12 days before. Once again we had green tea, and some servers brought us an assortment of Chinese dumplings.
Justice Scalia was now dressed in a button-down shirt and a blazer. I asked him why. He said he was returning to his home turf, where people would recognize him. He smiled and said, “I’m a Supreme Justice, you know.”
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