No? Perhaps she should try to avoid injuring people, then. Perhaps her storm needs a few alterations. The lawyer on the other side is expendable, more than expendable — he is droning on at the moment — but his client should be kept safe, if only to be deported, to get the reckoning he deserves.
And then there are the spectators again, what should happen to them? Do they deserve to be carried away in a rush of dirty water? Probably not. And the judge? They need him, he is crucial, there is no one here more crucial than him. It would be difficult to say that the court clerk and the bailiff had done anything wrong either. The clerk is mean-silly, but the bailiff is amiable enough — neither one really deserves a watery end.
She sighs, and her storm begins to fade away. In a minute, the courtroom is dry again.
Inordinate delay, repeats the lawyer on the other side, standing at the rostrum. Excessive delay. Extreme delay.
This is the basis for his motion, his attempt to halt the deportation proceedings.
A man with flabby lips, a protuberant face. He looks like a camel, she thinks.
He grimaces at his notes.
A camel with a toothache.
Delay, delay, delay, he says, as if this were needed to express the sheer slowness of it all.
A fact, Louis had said. Nothing we can do about it.
Not a few weeks, not a few months, but decades before the government woke up from its postwar slumber, decided to find these men, to pursue them. Several years after they had identified this man in particular. A good argument, then, but the other lawyer is making it badly. Instead of speaking with any emphasis, any expression at all, he is reading his notes in a monotone.
Of course, this is a common problem, this reading of notes out loud. She has seen other lawyers do it, as if making the notes alone had drained them, as if they had no more to give to putting these thoughts forward, nothing to convey by the sound of their voices. Perhaps this is true, but she is sometimes seized with the urge to go up to them during a break, to whisper to them: At least try. Take a stab at it. Be bold.
Although she is not in a position to give this advice, or really any advice for that matter. She has done only a few cases on her own so far, small cases where the stakes were low, and in the last one she rose to her feet for the final argument, only to find herself inexplicably frozen. Suddenly, bafflingly, her tongue had thickened, her lungs emptied, her heart was banging in her chest. An isolated problem, she hopes desperately. No doubt only a passing difficulty. A brief stumbling block on the road to the republic of law. Something that will be solved by experience. Who knows why these things happen?
She glances at the man across from them now. What does a war criminal look like? An alleged war criminal, that is. Stefan Drozd, a man in his nineties, his face cross-hatched with lines, the skin on his hands like cracked varnish. Sitting stoically as his lawyer makes his submissions, the whites of his eyes yellowed, his neck pouched out. The man the government — their client — wants to deport. Why now? A deterrent to others, to refugees who lie their way in. Or to keep him from benefiting from his crimes. By a remarkable coincidence, says Louis, also a way for the government to rid itself of a moral dilemma, a black eye.
Not so fast, says the man’s lawyer now, shifting from one leg to the other. Look at the delay.
Louis snorts.
Too much time has gone by, says the man’s lawyer, pulling at the end of his nose, tapping his fingers on his paunch. How can he defend himself? Witnesses are dead or lost, documents have been destroyed, memories have faded. And the man has built a new life in this country — an industrial glassblower until he retired. A maker of bottles, vials, flasks.
How is the nature of his job relevant? says the judge impatiently.
He must be hot too, this judge, sitting up there in his sash and robes. A man who spends his days with every flicker, every blink, every expression under scrutiny. The lawyers watching him intently for clues as to how he is leaning, looking for signs that might help them increase their chances, silently amending their arguments on the fly. Was that a nod? A sigh? Which points are reaching him, which ones are falling flat? What should they play up, what should they play down?
The applicants, the respondents are also watching, besieging their lawyers at the breaks in their cases. Why did he write that down? What did that mean? Did he raise his eyebrows? Did he seem agreeable? they say anxiously, their lawyers turned into interpreters, oracles. The lawyers are noncommittal, though, they know too much about the twists and turns of cases, the unexpected reversals and successes. Hard to tell, they say. Difficult to predict. We have to wait and see. But despite their words, they say this in a manner that manages to suggest that the case is going well in some indefinable way.
The judge looks meaningfully at the clock and back to the rostrum. This is a man who was a lawyer himself once, and not so long ago. A sea change, or at least a lake change — first a life of talking, an unnaturally vocal life, rolling out phrases, endlessly turning thoughts into words. Then a sudden switch to a life of listening, at least during the long hours in the courtroom. Do the judges who challenge the lawyers — who get into debates with them — simply miss their own voices, the use of their former skills? Perhaps their mouths become too dry, she thinks, and they begin to panic in some inner part of their beings.
Well? says the judge. Relevance?
The harm, the prejudice suffered by my client, says the lawyer hastily. The life he has built here.
He knows there is little point in saying: How could a man who works with glass — a substance so transparent, so delicate — how could he have possibly committed these acts, these crimes?
Two grandchildren, he continues, a girl and a boy. How could a man who has grandchildren — so genial, so family-like — have done these things?
Only one ear is required for this baggy argument, only half an ear, she thinks. She studies the courtroom instead — one of the older ones, a certain weary elegance. The oak balustrades, worn to a brown-gold by a thousand hands, the carved tendrils twining around the judge’s dais. The floor — mosaic, the grout blackened around the once beautiful tiles, endless patterns of spirals, hexagons, diamonds. Now they are chipped in places, and in one corner the surface is patched with cement, as if the repairers had given up trying to match the tiles, and thrown up their hands instead.
The murals, though, they still have a faded dignity. Lining the top of the walls, Greek figures in white robes, giving the place a shadow life of its own. They sit under date palms, reading scrolls, gesturing to each other. The colours are bleached — pale greens, tans — and the paint has flaked off in places, leaving bald spots. This means that some of the figures are missing body parts, a hand, half a nose, an ear. Despite this, they are still studying their scrolls, their graceful heads inclined, oblivious to their injuries. Oblivious to everything, in fact, the cases in front of them as well — a majestic indifference to pleadings, dockets, arguments.
Are you hot too? she asks them silently, looking up at the walls, at their long-fingered hands, their curled beards. But they are scholars, musing on some point of law, absorbed in their own discussions — they have no time for material things.
And you? she says to the rearing lion and unicorn on the coat of arms behind the judge. They are indifferent as well, though, lost in their own ancient battle, tongues flickering, eyes on each other.
I know what you’re thinking.
This is one of Louis’s talents, this ability to make people believe him, believe things about him, or at least believe the story of who he is at that moment — a story that he is in the constant process of creating. He talks about himself, the happenings around him, as if he is composing a description of his life, revising as he goes along — even at the same time he is living through it. But this description is not only for the benefit of other people — he seems to be continually describing himself to himse
lf, often with some satisfaction.
And if he doesn’t know what she is thinking, then she does. Now, in this courtroom, sitting beside him, now that she has read the pleadings in this case, the facts, now that she has seen the history of the man they are trying to deport, this is what she is thinking:
Brutality. Torture. Murder.
···
The court clerk coughs. Thin, sharp shoulders, he has an entire vocabulary of coughs, and this one, delivered with a slight pinching around his nostrils, means your time limit is almost up. He manages to convey a trace of spite at the same time, something in his tone.
The other lawyer stretches his neck, first one side and then the other, and continues on with his reading.
His youth, he says. Fifteen, sixteen at the time. A mitigating factor.
I’ve reviewed your motion record, counsel, says the judge. No need to repeat things in the affidavits or materials. It would be more helpful if you could highlight your leading points.
This judge — so incisive, so trenchant.
Of course, Mr. Justice, says the lawyer, I’m in your hands. I’m always in your hands.
Then he begins droning on again.
If you were in my hands, Louis murmurs, I would strangle you.
···
Fifteen-minute recess, says the judge.
Outside the courtroom, lawyers are gathered in knots around the columns in the hall.
Over here, says a friend, waving at her.
What’s new? he says as she comes up, and he means it. What does she know?
Faces turn towards her. They have a weakness for rumours, they are as inquisitive as crows. They long to pass on tidings about judges, cases, each other — an affair, a trust fund, a partnership feud. Surprising, this — the tougher they are, the more seasoned they are, the more fascinated they seem to be.
A war criminal, she says.
They look interested in spite of themselves, their robberies, their assaults forgotten.
But Louis is behind her now, and he needs strong coffee, the client as well.
Any chance of an espresso? says Owen Menzies wistfully. A government official, fiftyish, a long face, licorice-black hair, pale skin. He is their liaison, the bureaucrat with the War Crimes Section in his portfolio. A man who selects what he says coolly, carefully, something that has contributed to the longevity of his career. His views are supple, his thoughts adjustable, all apparently at the disposal of his employer.
So different from the people who usually sit beside her in court — the refugees, the immigrants. All those luckless people who have been caught up in cases, who have stumbled unwittingly into the bear trap of law. Sitting there, dressed in cheap clothing, their faces messy with hope.
If this man has hopes, she suspects he would ensure they were unknown to anyone but himself. Although there is no doubt that there are advantages to a more cool-headed client — he is not someone who requires hand holding, who needs amusing, who demands minute-by-minute assessments of the proceedings. Only an espresso.
A stop beforehand at the Lady Barristers robing room, a name from another era, a name that still makes her laugh. The room is deserted at the moment, a whiff of spicy soap at the sink. She strips off her waistcoat, the shirt and swabs herself down with water. Relief. Although the heat is not the only problem. Perhaps what she really needs is a bottle or two of distilled patience, some elixir for suffering fools gladly — at least long-winded ones.
A swift pat dry, and back into her sticky clothing, this costume. She has to admit she is attached to it, seduced by its quiet formality, the close fit of the waistcoat, the folds of the robes, even the starched collar and tabs — the sheer white and blackness of it all. Other lawyers scoff at it, but she suspects this is only a blind. Who can resist clothing that has the power to transform them, to reshape them into more solemn people? Keepers of archaic phrases, old customs. A barrister and a solicitor.
Perhaps she needs this wrapping more than they do. You’re a lawyer? people sometimes say to her, as if this occupation was particularly surprising.
Yes, she says shortly.
Really? they say, as if she might be mistaken about this.
Do they see too much, the traces of jobs to pay for school still clinging to her? Ghost marks of a research assistant, a bartender, a clerk in a bookstore. Then again, perhaps they merely sense her own doubts. There are moments in which she believes in herself utterly, and moments when this fails her, when she starts to wonder if the parts of herself add up to little more than a subtle confidence trick.
Is it possible we bluff ourselves into existence? she thinks, looking into the mirror. Is that how it works? She searches her face, her eyes — yellowish brown, flecked with green and grey — for proof of something, anything.
But the person looking back at her is silent.
She shakes herself, and sets off in search of espresso.
On the way, she passes a stained glass window, the sun throwing patterns on the floor. The light stripes her, the other people walking by for a second or two — their faces, their shoulders briefly lit up in rose, gold, violet.
A burst of laughter from one of the knots of lawyers; most of them are good mimics, polishing their anecdotes. Then she has the coffee in hand, another minute, and she delivers it to Owen and Louis. A few gulps and they are back in the courtroom.
All rise, says the clerk, and they bow as the judge comes in — the lawyers deferential or ironic, the spectators awkwardly or not at all. People are still fanning themselves, the smell of hot bodies floating off them.
Louis begins his argument, his hands holding the rostrum, a pen in one. He does this because otherwise he moves his hands too much, they rise and dip, the palms turned down for emphasis, turned up in disbelief.
Distracting, he says. All that movement. So he keeps them fixed on the rostrum or holds them behind his back in an effort to ensure that the judge will be doing more listening than watching. And listening to Louis is unusually satisfying, his voice has its own liquid intelligence.
Now this, she thinks, this is an argument, something worthy of the name. How does he do it, the shades of tone, the shifting rhythms? She wonders for a moment if it could be set out in a form of musical notation, as if it were some sort of undersong, only with a smaller octave.
Usually he exudes a lazy self-possession, but the laziness drops away when he argues, leaving only the assurance. Once in a while, away from a courtroom, she sees a threadlike crack in this confidence, this presence — a hesitation, a tiredness at the back of his eyes — and she wonders if there is some cost to it, whether it has a weight of its own. But then the crack is gone and he is looking at her, amused by her inspection.
Think about it this way, he says now, setting out his points, his voice rising and falling. Or think about it that way. The value of justice, the meaning of justice. Do these things diminish with time? Surely a delayed justice, an old justice, is better than none at all.
He makes the word justice sound as if he had some intimate knowledge of it, as if it were a crony of his. Someone — a little testy — sitting beside him at the counsel table, looking annoyed.
Even the spectators are paying attention now as he goes on, describing the impact of the case, the implications, the consequences. Describing the bigger picture, the smaller picture, offering sharp pinpoints of clarity.
This is what the other side is really saying, this is the gist, he says, beginning to wind to a close. That however terrible the crimes, the passage of time has dehydrated them into a piece of history. But think about the dead now, the tortured, the victims. Imagine them lined up silently against that wall. Too much? Too dramatic? But they can’t be here, surely they should have standing, surely they deserve faces. Delay? Delay? For them, the harm is never-ending — the lives they never led, the children they never had.
He allo
ws a hand to escape for a moment, to make a gesture towards these phantom people.
And delay? This man himself, Drozd, is the real cause of the delay, disappearing into the chaos of Europe during the war. Disappearing, then emerging later into a new life, his history gone. Someone who hid his past thoroughly, but not forever.
Suddenly, the man himself is up on his feet, shouting, harsh-sounding syllables — Belarusian? Russian?
Probably Russian, says Owen. More common even in Belarus.
In any language, his anger crackles across the room. The indignation of an innocent man? Or the deeper outrage of a guilty one?
His lawyer puts a hand on his arm, the bailiff starts towards him. A moment, please, says his lawyer. He whispers urgently, insistently to the man, who whispers back, clearly uncowed. More whispering, and the man begins to droop slightly — reassured? Placated?
We’re ready, Mr. Justice, says the lawyer, although the man’s fury is still hanging in the air.
Louis takes up his argument again. They want to convince you that deporting him, sending this frail old man — harmless now — will do no good for anyone. Not so frail, he says. Not so harmless.
The outburst has been a piece of luck.
Louis. If he has his faults — many, says Nate, the other junior — he also has this gift, this ability to weave strands of words around a reluctant judge, coaxing him, luring him into one thought after another. This is something she hopes to learn from him, something she wants above all from him. Perhaps it will be contagious — rather than learning it manually, studying his techniques, perhaps she will simply catch it if she spends enough time with him.
A minute later, though, his voice starts to falter, and she looks up. He seems lost for a second, as if he had suddenly found himself somewhere unexpected, somewhere unknown. He sways slightly, steadies himself on the edge of the rostrum, and then sits down abruptly at the counsel table.
A moment, Mr. Justice.
He pushes his scribbled notes over to her.
Go on, he hisses.
The Singing Forest Page 2