The Singing Forest

by Judith McCormack

  Sometimes she feels the various parts of herself are crowded into this job, packed in together. She avoids showing any trace of this to Louis, though. For him, she tries to make it clear — in the way she nods, the way she speaks, the way she holds herself — that she is remarkably suited to this position, that if she were plotted out against a diagram of its elements, she would be revealed as the answer for everything.

  Unlikely, says Louis.

  He will take more convincing now.

  ···

  How long have you been with the Ministry? she says, hoping to distract him.

  Owen is calling to find out how the case is going, for a measure of its chances. He is a client, of course she must speak to him. She is tempted for a moment to refer him to Louis, but he will be angry if she shifts this problem back to him, this exercise in tactful evasion. Perhaps even worse, it might suggest that she is unable to handle it, to engage in the footwork required. No, instead, she will be as skilful, as careful as she can be, exceptionally careful. This is only an update, nothing more, no questions on her part, no bids for more evidence, no dilemmas presented. Some small talk, then a quick discussion, circling around the danger spots.

  With the government? he says. A long time, too long, but I’ve been in the Department of Justice four years. My last department was Fisheries.

  And did you catch much there? she says, straight-faced.

  Only a bout of bureaucratic flu.

  She laughs.

  So why did you decide to send this case out? she says. Instead of using your own lawyers.

  We have excellent people, but we’re short-handed. Secondments, a chronic illness, two leaves of absence. And these things can be delicate.

  Is that the flu coming on again?

  He laughs this time, a discreet laugh.

  Perhaps. But with the Director on leave, I’m keeping an eye on things for the moment, so tell me about this case.

  We may not be able to link Drozd to the NKVD through records alone, she says. He wasn’t an officer, he was a clerk, hired locally.

  Ah, he says.

  Certainly the NKVD were involved in widespread torture and executions. It would be difficult to dispute that. The problem is that they did ordinary police work as well, so even if we could show that he was hired by them, that wouldn’t prove much.

  Can we connect him to the incidents in the affidavits? he says.

  A man expert at omissions himself, he can spot them instantly. And incidents — such a sanitized word.

  Much less clear, she says. We only need to prove that he lied, but this is the essence of his lying — that he concealed these things. Or failed to disclose them.

  What about linking him to more widespread killing? The War Crimes Section seems convinced that there is something more to find. They suspect something even worse — that he was involved in other crimes, perhaps executions, perhaps on a larger scale.

  I haven’t seen anything yet, but I’ll keep looking, she says. What do you think about his age?

  We have only his word for it — his documents were all re-created, not unusual after the war. But no one was coercing him, he was nobody’s victim. And sixteen is not so young. Especially in Belarus. Especially at that time.

  Not so young, she thinks. How young is that? And is there a moral discount for age, some sliding measure?

  So our chances overall? he says patiently

  He is very patient, she realizes, smoothing out any irritation, any annoyance he feels. She sees him in her mind as they talk, his narrow face, the dark lines around his mouth, slight hollows under his cheekbones. The trace of humour that he extends to people, vanishing in a second if there is no hint of reciprocation, expanding slightly if there is. Everything about him is finely tuned to the next meeting, the next appointment; his muted suit, his tie loosened but not loose, his shoes polished but not new. If there is any self-importance to him — and she suspects there is — he hides it well, he hides everything well. Was this ability to obscure things acquired through his work, built up over the years? Or was he given the position because it was something he already possessed? Perhaps someone interviewing candidates looked at that calm, sealed exterior and said to himself: perfect.

  Our chances? A complicated question, she says, so many factors involved.

  What are the strengths, the weaknesses, then?

  She talks as much as she can about anything other than the evidence, skipping, deflecting, sidestepping.

  What about linking the specific incidents to him? he says again.

  There is no putting him off.

  Generally speaking, she says, almost under her breath, almost to herself — generally speaking, without the right records, we need better evidence.

  Ah, he says.

  He does know.

  How bad is it? he says.

  Difficult to say.

  A pause.

  We used archival evidence in the Nazi cases, he says, but the Germans were much better at documenting things, including their own crimes. The Russians are less accommodating about the NKVD records, which are far from complete, anyway. No help from Belarus — their records are still closed. And there’s some diplomatic sensitivity here as well.

  She says nothing.

  I suspect that the appetite may be low for pouring more money into a weak case. But we have an MP who’s preoccupied with the NKVD — he has a cluster of expatriate Russians in his riding. He’s been harassing the Minister, so I’ll take a quick reading of the temperature.

  ···

  Why is the sun so hot? she said. So recently arrived, hoping to keep her aunt by the bed, to delay the moment of turning off the lights, the moment of darkness, departure.

  Do I look like an encyclopedia? said her aunt.

  The child was undeterred. All she had to do was find the right question. Where does the music on the radio come from? What makes cars go faster? How do birds stay up in the air?

  How do you think? said her aunt.

  Invisible strings?

  Close enough.

  The girl had been hoping for some instructions about flying, some tips. She had plans — she wanted to fly herself, to take off, weightless, to soar over the trees, to perch on electrical wires. She wanted to watch from above as drivers hopped out of delivery vans, horns honked below, bicycles swerved between cars.

  Even now, even as an adult, the desire to fly sometimes nags at her, the urge to swoop and glide, to hang in the air dizzily, unhindered by machinery. She wonders whether there was a time when humans were able to fly, some long-forgotten detour or dead end in evolution. Did we lose this, she thinks, like flightless birds? Are there small, vestigial wings hidden in our bodies somewhere? Why would this yearning for flight be so strong, so widespread? Why is it so bittersweet?

  ···

  This is the truth about glass, she says to Nate. It has the molecular properties of both a solid and liquid, something in between. An amorphous solid, they call it.

  Why is that the truth? says Nate.

  ···

  She has read most of the affidavits now and they all have weaknesses, serious problems of proof. For the moment, she is out of ideas. Perhaps if she leaves the case alone for a day or two, lets it settle, some silt will drift to the bottom, some wisdom will float to the top, something will emerge.

  But the spiders are awake again, making elegant gestures with their legs.

  No, no, they say. No, no, no. Don’t give up.

  Don’t give up, says her aunt.

  I’m not giving up, I’m letting it settle. A different thing, entirely different. But there is something I have to tell you, something you should know. A caution, a warning. Whatever it is that you want to happen, whatever it is you think will happen, this is the distorted universe of law. A garbled reflection of real life. The chances are that nob
ody finds what they want here.

  But the spiders are not listening.

  ···

  She rubs her sandy eyes. Up late the night before, she had allowed herself to sink into her Der Blaue Reiter painters again, to become her old self for a little while in their soothing arms. Her friends, these paintings — sunlit terraces, men rowing skiffs, people in the rain, holding umbrellas high. Now her thoughts seem to be sliding away from her, the warmth of the room making her sleepy. She puts her head down on her desk.

  I did my best with Owen, she says to Nate. I did my best with him, but he’s too quick, too shrewd, there was too little room to manoeuvre. At a certain point, I began sounding evasive.

  But Nate is not there, he has been replaced by the judge on the case, busy unnailing a crate of doctrines and principles. See that? he says, pulling out a doctrine. See that? A robust vintage, this doctrine. A perfectly aged law.

  And then he is gone as well, and there is Drozd, staring at her with hatred in his eyes.

  Why are you obsessed with this case? he says. What is wrong with you that you want to persecute an innocent man? To destroy a life, a life I have created from nothing, from less than nothing.

  It’s not a question of persecution, she wants to say. It’s a question of justice. But her tongue has folded up.

  What is this justice, what does it look like? Whose justice is it? How can it be justice, if I am innocent of these things?

  How can we know that you’re innocent unless we hear the evidence? she says thickly. Nemo debet esse judex in propria sua causa. No man can be a judge in his own cause.

  Because I tell you so.

  But a guilty man would say the same.

  Lawyers. I am sick of lawyers.

  She says nothing.

  You want to tear down a decent man, Drozd says. A man who survived the war as well as he could, who did what was necessary, and now you want to impose some twisted view of justice decades later. You have no idea what justice is, what it means in reality. You want to destroy a good man, on the basis of nothing. Nothing.

  That’s your story, she says.

  ···

  Under Norman law, says Nate, if a person wrongly called someone a “manslayer,” he was required to pay damages and to publicly confess that he was a liar, while he held his nose with his fingers.

  No, she says in disbelief.

  It’s true. But if you prefer this, under ancient English law, a slanderer would have his tongue cut out.

  ···

  Get in here, says Louis, dangerously calm.

  Before you say anything — she begins.

  You’re fired, he says.

  Four

  For that which is without a beginning, a final

  cause need not be sought.

  Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed

  The weather is harsh, the winter long, a dusty cold. He grows slowly, his body stunted, almost night-blind from malnutrition, although his mind is sharpened by the ever-present fear. By ten, he has learned how to avoid some of the blows, to dodge and duck and hide. Curled up inside the fear, though, something is growing, something bitter is filling his chest. And then his hard world begins expanding awkwardly, in small jolts.

  Jolt. Piles of beets, eggs, garlic, radishes, pickled cabbage, handwoven shawls. He fingers the wrinkled sausages, entranced, before the seller shoos him away. The market is crowded, people pushing past him, blocking his path, their bundles knocking against him. He runs a furtive hand over the shawls as he passes by another stall. The smells — sheep hides, seed bread, bunches of dried thyme strung up on a line.

  Men in rough linen shirts, girls in kerchiefs, mothers with red-faced babies, the babies wailing in the clear air. More people here than he has ever seen together before. He is overwhelmed by them, almost reaching out to feel the dark hair of a child, shining in the sun, to touch the skin of her older sister, so close to him.

  While his father is haggling with another farmer over the price of barley seed, the boy wanders from stall to stall. At the end of the line of stalls, a girl — fifteen, sixteen? — has set out a collection of things on a blanket on the ground: bunches of onions, a bowl of eggs, some mismatched dishes, old lace curtains, a wool vest. She has a broad brow, dry lips, a chipped tooth, fair hair falling in a tangle across her face. A baby is crawling around her, over her in the sun, pulling at the front of her blouse.

  Here, she says to the boy, gesturing towards the blanket. Bring your mother to buy. Bring your father.

  The baby begins pawing at the onions, tries to put one in his mouth.

  No, no, no, says the girl, laughing, pulling it out of the baby’s fingers. He begins to howl, and she sighs, picks him up, and tucks him firmly in the crook of her arm. Then she brings out a small white breast, and the baby settles down to nurse. Her body relaxes, the baby relaxes, asleep in a minute.

  The boy is mesmerized by this breast, by the tracing of blue veins, the fawn-pink nipple lodged in the baby’s mouth. The girl catches his eye, smiles at him, showing her chipped tooth, and shrugs.

  Pick something out, boy, she says.

  But he has no money. He tries on a sneer, and walks away.

  A fragment of music. Three people standing together, playing a ragged melody. The piping is reedy, underlined by the jangling of the timbrel. One of them gestures to the pile of kopecks on the ground in front of them, and he backs away.

  A burst of laughter from a group of young men, slapping each other on the back, their shirts belted with rope. He draws closer to hear what they are saying.

  We have a mouse with big ears, says one of the young men, reaching out to the boy and shaking the back of his neck. The boy is so startled he almost bites him, but jumps back instead, and they laugh again.

  Jolt. A few months later, the river. Black water surging around, clear sheets of it sliding off rocks, the light reflecting across them. He wades in, barely keeping a foothold, clinging to a rock to avoid being swept away.

  There, says his father. That one. And that one.

  The boy struggles to lift a stone, then to wade back, fighting the drag of the chilly water. He is almost at the bank when he drops it. His father swears. Back he goes for another one, his small chest heaving. He manages to push this one onto the grass, and his father loads it into the cart. Another and then another, black rocks speckled with grey, they will use them to shore up the crumbling foundations of the barn. Stones worn smooth by the river. How long does it take for water — the softest of things — to shape stone, the hardest of things?

  Half an hour later, he is exhausted. A last trip, he slips and the current seizes him, rushes him away, his legs, his body scraping against the rocks. Panicking, he splashes wildly, trying to keep his head from going under.

  A rotten log, sticking out of the water a few yards downstream. He grabs at one of the branch stubs and manages to hold on. Hand over hand, stub over stub, he pulls himself over to the bank.

  On the way home in the cart, he is shivering, dripping, his sides, his legs bruised. But his head is piercingly clear. For the first time, he thinks: this river goes somewhere, somewhere else. Past other farms, yes, he knows this, but somewhere else. More places. Other places. A water road.

  Jolt. Sunday morning. His grandmother combs out her grey hair and rebraids it, wrapping the braids around her head. Next her blouse embroidered in red and black, a shawl, her best head scarf. She rubs her lips and surveys herself in the black-spotted mirror, satisfied.

  Backward superstition, says the government. The stupefaction of the working class.

  But these services are comforting, elemental — the chanting, the singing, the candles. A familiar solace.

  His father usually drives her to the wooden chapel — bleary-eyed, cursing, his head aching from samahon. This morning, he rolls over in the iron bed and says: the rat can do it, he’s b
ig enough to handle the horse.

  The boy is indignant, he handles the horse every day, putting on and taking off the collar, the girth strap, attaching the cart shafts, leading it out to the field to spread muck. But he is still small and skinny, and the horse is a draft horse, heavy — driving the cart requires more strength, strength and weight. Hovering in the background, too — their suspicion that if the horse doesn’t take off, out of control, the boy might.

  Where can he go? says his father to his grandmother today, his throbbing head wiping out everything else.

  The horse is balky, but the boy understands that this is a battle he must win. He jerks the animal’s head back with the reins, wrestling it for control, whipping it over the flanks and neck until it settles down to sullen obedience.

  Twenty minutes later, they are at the chapel — a small building, painted white, the three-barred cross on top.

  Inside, she says.

  She doesn’t trust him to wait, she doesn’t trust him to return for her. And it will do him good.

  The smell of stale incense envelops him as he steps inside. In the dim light, he can see the icons on the wall, the altar covered with brocaded cloth. His grandmother crosses herself, bows, and motions him to do the same. A quick nod to some of the other congregants, and then she waves him over to the men’s side while she joins the women. They stand for the service, no pews or benches — only a man with a lame leg has a chair.

  The others are singing already, a hymn, low, haunting. People drift in, light a candle, move over to stand in position. Then the singing stops — some signal given, received — and the priest emerges, inclining his head with its cylindrical hat. His voice sonorous, he starts the liturgy. Now and then, he fingers the silver cross on his chest.

  The boy is mystified by the words, but he watches the others closely and mimics them as they chant, as they sing, as they cross themselves again and again. The procession starts, the painted chalice held up, some of the people kissing the hem of the priest’s cassock. Not his grandmother, though, so he stays where he is. But then he follows her to line up for a piece of wine-soaked bread. Some of the others look at him questioningly, but his grandmother waves him forward.