A Statue for Jacob

by Peter Murphy

  Aunt Meg turned back towards me.

  ‘I agree,’ I said. ‘As I said before, there are no guarantees here, but I still think this will bring some closure, because at least the case will be properly investigated, and if there’s nothing in it, then at least you will know. I have a feeling there is something in it, but we won’t know until we do some digging.’

  ‘Why would you feel that way?’

  I thought about it for a moment. That was one question I couldn’t answer entirely frankly. That would have involved me talking about Arya, and about my dreams, and I wasn’t ready to do that.

  ‘I’m not sure. Part of it is that when you have such a long, unbroken family tradition – in this case, going back more than two hundred years – there has to be something in it. Families have all kinds of stories, but you don’t come across such a long consistent narrative very often. Even the courts accept family tradition. It can be used as evidence in some cases. So, I think it’s worth a shot. As for the waste of time and money, that’s mainly my problem. I won’t receive a fee unless we prevail. I think it’s worthwhile.’

  I looked around the table at everyone in turn.

  ‘I mean, just imagine if we were able to prove our case, and the government had to talk to us about commemorating Jacob. Just think about that; just imagine it for a moment. Wouldn’t that be something?’

  No one spoke for a while.

  Joe smiled. ‘It sure would.’

  I turned back to Aunt Meg. ‘I can understand your concern that I haven’t been practicing law all that long, but…’

  To my surprise, Aunt Meg actually laughed, and reached out a hand to touch my shoulder.

  ‘Oh, no my dear, quite the reverse, I assure you. Only a young person could take on something like this. In later life, we all become far too cynical. If you’d said twenty years, I would have dismissed you as a speculator, if not a confidence trickster. No, if anyone can do this, it has to be someone who hasn’t yet become disillusioned with the world; someone who still has her ideals intact; someone who doesn’t shy away from trying something just because it seems impossible.’

  17

  I have no idea where I am. Outside, somewhere. There is a church and a graveyard. The place seems desolate, neglected, overgrown. A young woman is standing silently in the middle of the graveyard, looking down at the ground. She is dressed in black. She has her back to me, so I can’t see her face, but I feel sure it is Isabel. The graveyard is enclosed by a grey stone wall, some four feet in height, I estimate, which once would have been covered by climbing plants. In one place on the wall, opposite to where I stand at the side of the church, a single branch is clinging to life, a single red rose, withered and dying, hanging forlornly down from it.

  There is something odd about the graveyard, and I am trying to fathom what it is. As I turn to go, it comes to me. There are no headstones, nothing to tell me who may be buried here, when they were born and when they died, whether they had spouses or children, whether anyone left any epitaph for them. Nothing. There is something else, too. I am not in a city now, I feel sure. I am in the countryside. Yet I think I hear a sound, a roar of some kind, not loud but steady, and I have a sense of some tall structure behind me. I think perhaps an aqueduct with a great mass of water flowing along it, but I cannot turn my head to see.

  With this, the dreams come to an end for now. But so, too, do the nightmares.

  18

  When I woke up, Sam was standing over with me with a cup of coffee. She was fully dressed.

  ‘Time to rise and shine,’ she said. ‘I brought this for you. White, no sugar, yes?’

  I sat up abruptly, rubbing my eyes.

  ‘Yes, thanks. What time is it?’

  ‘Relax,’ she replied. ‘It’s just after seven thirty. You have plenty of time.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was sound asleep.’

  ‘I know. You looked like you needed to be sound asleep for a while, so I didn’t wake you. Arlene and I got up early because we had stuff to do, but there was no reason to disturb you.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘We wanted to be sure we had enough copies of the Complaint and the forms for signing up as a plaintiff. We want to be able to hand them out as people are coming in. We are also handing out your card, and Powalski’s, so they have no excuse for not knowing how to contact us.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll jump in the shower and get moving.’

  I began to sit up, but she pushed me very gently back down.

  ‘Drink your coffee first. It’s all under control. Just get yourself ready to wow the van Eyck family. That’s your only job for today. Leave the rest to us.’

  Arlene and Powalski had set up trestle tables at the entrance to the conference room, and were welcoming the family members as they arrived, and handing out the paperwork. Sam was also standing at the back of the room, introducing herself to the family members as they made their way to their seats. The committee had reserved places for Sam and me at the top table, which was perched on a low platform, with Joe Kenney and Jeff Carlsen. The two committee members who had got in late the previous night were also to sit at the top table: Susan van Eyck Poulson from Boulder, Colorado; and Edwin van Eyck from Los Angeles, another attorney – and in his case, a sole practitioner, a trial lawyer who did personal injury and fatal accident cases. It was pretty obvious that Jeff had already briefed them about our meeting the evening before, but they weren’t giving away any clues about what they thought about it all.

  It was while I was watching the family streaming in, with their coffees and bottles of water and guides to New Orleans in hand, that I knew how right I had been to file the lawsuit before coming to the reunion. I had knowingly given a hostage to fortune by filing before we had even begun to collect evidence, but, as I had hoped, I had their attention. We were going to be very close to one hundred per cent attendance, which I suspected might be a new record for a business meeting at a van Eyck family reunion. As I took my seat, I saw Aunt Meg sitting in the very centre of the front row, resplendent in a mauve blouse and long grey skirt.

  When everyone was in place, and the waiters had refreshed the supplies of coffee and iced water at the back of the room, Joe Kenney rose to his feet. There was a microphone. It was a close call whether it was needed in a room of that size, but if it was a close call it was probably a good idea. I decided I would use it. It seems to be a rule that, when people who are not used to microphones are confronted with them, there is always an outbreak of feedback. Today was to be no exception. Joe got far too close to it, and then for some reason, tried to remove it from its stand. It was pretty loud and jarring, and Aunt Meg had a finger firmly in each ear. But a waiter came and whispered in his ear, and calmed things down. After that, Joe stood back a bit and left the microphone alone, and all was well.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the city of New Orleans for this reunion of the van Eyck family. I know you are all going to have a fine time, seeing people you probably haven’t seen for quite a while, and catching up with the latest news. I’ve already seen a few people myself that I haven’t seen in… must be five or six years at least. And I hope you will all feel that the program allows you enough time to talk and catch up, as well as giving you time enough to enjoy New Orleans. I am told – I can’t verify this from personal experience – but I am told that there are a few acceptable restaurants and other places of entertainment in the city.’

  He paused for a ripple of laughter.

  ‘Laissez les bons temps rouler!’ someone shouted from the back.

  ‘Yes, indeed – whatever that may mean. Now, I want to keep this part of business meeting as short as possible, because as you all know, we have one particular item of business to deal with that’s causing some excitement. But before we get to that, as we always do, I do need to share with you the names of those members of the family w
ho have passed since we last met.’

  This put a bit of a dampener on things for a few minutes, as Joe read out a litany of the departed, and invited a moment or two of silent reflection. The list included Sam’s father, and she bowed her head as his name was read. I touched her briefly on the back of the hand. She looked up at me and smiled, quickly brushing away a tear. Mercifully, the moment or two of reflection did not last too long, and people sat up in their seats as Joe announced that he was now handing the meeting over to Sam.

  Sam and I had both decided on business suits for today. Mine was the lawyer’s traditional black. If I had harboured any doubt about that choice, it had evaporated when I met Aunt Meg the previous evening. Sam, however, had settled on a bright yellow suit with an orange scarf and shoes. She looked spectacular. But it was what happened next that stopped me in my tracks. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. She’s an actress, and she was on stage now; she was in her element, and it looked effortless. But still, it was the closest thing to magic I had ever seen. The atmosphere in the room changed in an instant.

  19

  How she did it, what were the mechanics, if that’s even the right word, I can’t begin to say. For what seemed like a long time, she simply stood in place silently and I watched her hold her audience without saying a word, by the sheer force of her presence. She drew every eye in the house to her, mine included, and the room fell utterly silent. I know it’s a cliché, but truly, you could have heard a pin drop. Even when she must have known that she had complete control of the room, she was in no hurry. She waited until she was ready, and when she was ready, she smiled and began to speak. They listened, spellbound. As did I.

  ‘Good morning, everyone. My name is Samantha van Eyck, but I hope you will all call me Sam; everyone does. Most of you knew my dad, Gerry. Joe read out his name just now, because, sadly, he passed a few months ago. If you knew my dad, you know that he was a regular at these reunions. As far as I recall, he never missed one. He looked forward to them. He looked forward to them because it meant a lot to him to be a member of this family, and because he valued his friendship with you. He wanted to be here with us today. If he could have been here, he would; and he would have told you, more eloquently than I ever could, how much it means to him that we have begun the fight to have Jacob recognised as the hero he was.’

  She paused.

  ‘Like most of you, I was brought up on the story of Jacob van Eyck and the loans he made to keep George Washington’s army supplied long enough to defeat the British. I learned about Jacob from my dad before I could read or write, and I have never forgotten the story. My dad laid it on pretty thick. To hear the story from him, you would think Jacob saved the War of Independence from failure pretty much single-handedly, kind of like Superman swooping down to save the day. Well, OK, when I grew up, of course I figured out that it wasn’t quite like that, that Jacob didn’t rescue America all on his own. Apparently, there were a few other people involved, not to mention our French allies, so OK, maybe my dad gilded the lily just a little bit.’

  She waited for a ripple of affectionate laughter to die away.

  ‘But if he talked the story up, he talked it up out of love and pride. And he was right about one thing. Maybe Jacob’s loans didn’t win the war by themselves, but they played a big part in winning the war. They set Washington free to win.’

  Applause.

  ‘And in my dad’s eyes, that made Jacob an American hero.’

  More applause, louder and longer. She stopped and once again held the audience in silence for a while.

  ‘The great heroes of that early time in our history – George Washington, Paul Revere and our founding fathers, they all have their memorials, don’t they? If you go to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, there they are for all to see. But you can travel the length and breadth of this country and, search wherever you will, you will find no monument to Jacob van Eyck; not a statue, not a portrait, not a plaque on a wall; nothing.

  ‘My dad believed that wasn’t right, and he wanted to put it right. Now, I know the family has made efforts in the past. Some of you here today have been involved in those efforts,’ she looked down at Aunt Meg and held her gaze for a while, ‘and I know you must be discouraged that those efforts didn’t meet with more success. But what’s important is that you tried. The fact that you tried must mean that you agree with my dad. You believe, as he did, that the government must do something to recognise Jacob’s place in American history.’

  Applause again.

  ‘That’s why I am here speaking to you today. I’m here because my dad asked me to continue the fight, and I’m asking you to join me in making one more effort. I’m not asking you to go back over the same ground. In the past, we relied on politicians. We tried that, and it didn’t work. They ignored us. It’s not the kind of thing politicians will go out on a limb for. So my dad believed that we needed to do something they can’t ignore. I believe that too. If we can bring the government before a court, they can’t ignore us any more. I’m not saying we’re bound to win; I can’t promise you that. But at least they can’t ignore us. And at least, this way, when we look back and tell our children and grandchildren about Jacob, we can say we tried everything there was to try.’

  She was silent again. Suddenly, I envied Sam for having no fear of silence; for her embrace of silence as a source of strength, not a sign of weakness. I saw myself in the courtroom: dreading silence; doing my best to talk non-stop; constantly filling the void with sound; experiencing the way the fear of silence stretches time, so that every second feels like a minute; desperate never to allow silence to descend as long as I had power to stop it. And I saw myself in conversations with Jordan when I had felt the same fear. Why? I had never asked myself that. What was I afraid of?

  A man in the third row back, to my left, raised a hand. Sam smiled and pointed to him.

  ‘I’m Ben Stevens from Atlanta, Georgia. Sam, when you talk about making the government do something for Jacob, it seems to me you’re preaching to the choir. We all want to see that. But the problem is, we’ve been let down so often in the past, it’s hard to believe it could be any different now. It seems the government doesn’t give a damn. We need to know why you think it might be different this time. We’re going to need to know a lot more about this lawsuit. How much chance do we have of winning? How does it all work? And how much is it going to cost?’

  There were many heads nodding in agreement, and murmurs of assent all through the room.

  ‘I know, Ben. And for that, I’m going to hand over to the expert, someone who knows far more about it than I do, our attorney, Kiah Harmon.’

  20

  I would have loved to flirt with silence, to see if some of Sam’s presence was still out there, hanging in the air, to see if I could harness it for myself. But this wasn’t the moment to indulge myself. The stakes were too high. Unlike Sam, I had no right to speak to this audience. I wasn’t a member of the family. I had no personal interest in what bound them together. I was here on sufferance, and that sufferance would wear thin unless I could justify my existence to them. I had to stick with what I knew for now.

  ‘Let me cover the basics,’ I began as soon as Sam had introduced me, ‘and then I will answer any questions you have, for as long as I need to.

  ‘First, why a lawsuit? As Sam said, it’s the only way to make the government listen and make them at least address our concerns. Now that we’ve filed, they have to give us a written response, and if they’re not prepared to agree to what we want, they have to explain why. In addition, the court can order the government to search their records for any evidence in their possession that proves that Jacob made the loans and was never repaid.

  ‘So I have filed suit in the United States Claims Court in Washington DC, which is a court the government set up in the nineteenth century so that citizens could sue the government to recover money they are owed. I have
filed the suit as a class action. All that means is that anyone who can prove that he or she is a descendant of Jacob van Eyck is entitled to join in the action as a plaintiff.’

  I had expected to get through the basics before the inevitable interrogation began, but that wasn’t the way it was to be. The interruptions began almost straight away. Sam shot me an anxious glance. But it was OK. I didn’t mind interruptions at all. I might be afraid of silence, but questions and argument hold no terror for me. They are my bread and butter. I’d had enough experience of arguing before appellate courts to know that questions are a good sign. That’s rather counter-intuitive, I admit. To most people it might not seem encouraging that the three judges begin bombarding you with questions as soon as you have told them your name and who you represent; that they tear up the neat plans you had laid so carefully to present your arguments in logical order; that they eat into your time to such an extent that you think you may never get to present your arguments at all before the clerk flashes the red light. But to me, that is a sign that the appeal is going well, and it has always made me relax in the courtroom.

  As long as the judges are asking questions, you know they have read your written brief; you know they haven’t made up their minds yet; and you know you are still in with a chance. Their questions give away what they are thinking; you can see the way their minds are going, what problems they see with your case; and you have a chance to answer them. It’s not the judges who pepper you with questions that scare me; it’s the judges who sit there without saying a word, who don’t give you the first clue about what they are thinking, or even whether they are thinking at all. Those are the ones who scare me.

  It was Ben Stevens again.

  ‘Miss Harmon, what makes you think you can win this case?’

  ‘Good question,’ I replied. ‘In all honesty, I don’t know whether we can win or not. The only thing I know is that we can’t win without evidence. That means that we have to find one or more loan certificates with Jacob van Eyck’s name on them. We can ask for the court’s help in ordering the government to produce what they have, but we are going to have to look for ourselves too.