Father of Lies Page 11

  The judge is speaking and keeps speaking, I’m not sure how long. He pauses for a moment, starts off again. The prosecution stands up, delivers a speech, which I don’t manage to follow, and then he sits down. The defense stands, argues to postpone the arraignment until bodily fluids tests arrive the following day.

  “We’ll hear the testimony,” says the judge. “We will consider the test results when they arrive.”

  I see from the front of the court someone standing, waving.

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  “What?” my wife asks.

  “That fellow waving.”

  She straightens herself in her chair, tugs down the hem of her skirt. She lifts herself slightly from the chair, peers past the heads in front of us.

  “Nobody’s waving,” she says. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I keep watch but the gesture is not repeated, the man seeming to have sat down. The prosecution stands and says something about the brutality of a man who would rape and kill his own sister. The judge stares down, benevolent but hard, like God. It makes my breath go just watching him.

  I stand and stumble out into the hall. I lean against the wall, outside the courtroom, taking deep breaths.

  “What’s the matter?” someone is asking. “Can I help you?”

  My wife is beside me, touching my back. “Honey?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”

  She will not stand back, stays staring into my face.

  “Some fresh air,” I say. “Some air is all.”

  There is a sort of murmuring and my wife backs away, her face replaced by a man’s legs.

  “I’m a doctor,” the legs say. “Can I help?”

  “Just let me catch my breath.”

  The doctor tries to lift my head, but I will not let him lift it. He tries to draw me over to a bench, but I will not move.

  “All the rest of you should go back in,” he says. “You too, Mrs. Fochs. He needs some time alone to calm down.”

  I hear them leaving, my wife saying something comforting to me in parting.

  “Take a deep breath,” the doctor says.

  “Leave me alone,” I say.

  “I can’t do that,” the doctor says.

  He puts his hand on my face and jams two fingers up my nose, drags them up. It hurts. My head comes up with them.

  “Jesus,” I say.

  “Is that any way to address a doctor?” he asks.

  I try to get his fingers free and he hits me in the throat so I can’t breathe. He sweeps his other arm around and over my neck, pulls me by the neck against his body, in a headlock, the fingers of his other hand still crammed up my nose.

  “I want you to come with me,” he says. “I don’t want to have to break your neck.”

  He pulls me along and I go, shuffling my feet to keep up with him.

  “Don’t drag your feet,” he says. “Pretend you can take human steps.”

  I try to step as he suggests and slip. He ends up dragging me by the neck into another room. Beyond his arm I can see tile on the floor and on some walls too.

  He pulls me into a stall, forces me down so I’m looking into the toilet. Slowly he takes the fingers from my nose. They are streaked with blood and mucous. He flicks them, spattering the seat.

  “I will release your neck in a moment so as to latch the stall door,” he says. “Don’t move.”

  I watch the blood drip from my nose, splash the water, diffuse.

  “Okay,” I say.

  He lets go. I run my forearm under my nose, leaving a streak of blood near the wrist. I hear him latch the door.

  “Sit down,” he says.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  I squat on the toilet. He takes some toilet paper off the roll, wads it, hands it to me.

  “Your nose is bleeding,” he says. “It’s your own fault, of course. You should have come when I asked.”

  I hold the tissue up against my nose. He leans back against the door. “Well,” he says. “Feeling better?”

  “No.”

  “You are going to go through with this?”

  “Through with what?”

  “You know what,” he says.

  I look at the toilet paper in my hand, the blood on it, and press it back against my nostrils.

  “I am doing the right thing.”

  He shakes his head. “You and I know the boy isn’t guilty,” he says.

  “I don’t know anything like that,” I say.

  “You killed the girl,” he says. “There is no way around that fact. Are you going to let that boy be blamed for what you did? Who do you think you are, some kind of reverse Jesus, flitting about dispensing sin?”

  “Who are you, talking like this?” I ask.

  “I am a doctor.”

  “You’re no doctor,” I say.

  “God or the Devil? You’ve got about three seconds. Choose.”

  I hear the door to the bathroom squeak open. “Fochs?” a voice asks. “You in there?”

  The doctor moves into the front corner of the stall, puts his finger to his lips.

  “Fochs?” the voice asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m here.”

  The doctor grimaces, rolls his eyes.

  A knocking comes on the stall, black leather boots show under the door. “Fochs?” the voice asks.

  “Just a minute,” I say. “I’m coming out.”

  I see fingers fold over the top of the stall door, above the doctor’s head. The whole stall shakes and creaks, the boots lift off the ground. A bald, bloody head rises above the stall door, eyes just barely cresting over. The doctor shrivels into his corner.

  “What are you doing?” Bloody-Head says to me. “Your pants aren’t even off.”

  “I’m coming,” I say.

  I stand up, reach for the door handle tentatively, my eyes on the doctor. He watches me but does not move. I open the door against him, as far as it will go, until it is forcing him into the wall, then squeeze my way out.

  “You’re all right?” asks Bloody-Head.

  “I’m glad to see you,” I say.

  “Of course you are,” he says. “No second thoughts?”

  “None.”

  He pats my shoulder twice. “Good boy,” he says.

  He goes back into the court, me following. He opens the door and the whole court peers up at us, at me. Pushing me in next to my wife, he keeps walking down the aisle.

  “Sir,” the judge says, looking to me, “we are conducting a hearing here.”

  I nod my head, smile, sit down. A few people stay for a time looking back over their shoulders at me, then slowly turn to face front.

  “You should enter with more dignity,” my wife says.

  “What did I do?”

  She just shakes her head.

  The bloody-headed man has kept walking and now stands before the witness box. Nobody is looking at him. He takes the fat, bald witness currently in the box by the lapels, drags him out of the chair and over the edge of the box, dropping him onto the floor of the court. The fat man says nothing, attempts to look at the judge who is speaking to him, then at the prosecution lawyer.

  The bloody-headed man heaves the fat man onto his shoulder, staggering under his weight.

  “Could you see who the boy was in your yard?” asks the prosecution.

  The fat man opens his mouth like a fish, closes it. Bloody-Head staggers with him to the side of the room, grunting. The fat man begins to lift his head and his arm. He points at the boy, the veins standing out over all his face. The bloody-headed man throws him out the open window, closes the window tightly behind him.

  He dusts his hands off, takes his place in the witness box.

  “Was that bastard,” Bloody-Head says, assuming a contrived rural accent. “That one over right there.”

  “Which one?” asks the prosecution.

  “The one with the shit-colored hair.”

  People in the court laugh. The bloody-headed man smiles,
the judge smiles as well.

  “Could you point the boy out again?”

  I wait for the defense to object, but they do not.

  The bloody-headed man lifts his finger, points to the girl’s brother.

  “What was he doing?” the prosecution asks.

  “He was lewd, like I never seen it before.”

  “Could you tell the court how he was lewd?”

  The bloody-headed man looks around. “Got some ladies present,” he says.

  “It doesn’t matter,” says the prosecution. “Tell us.”

  Bloody-Head rises up in the box. He pantomimes for the court what he says the boy did to himself. The court laughs.

  “Why are they laughing?” I whisper.

  “Oh, he’s a harmless old lout,” my wife says.

  “He was just whipping it around,” Bloody-Head says. “And on my property too. Private property. By God, I wanted to sell the land after what he spilled there.”

  There is a noise behind me. I turn and see the doctor there, holding the door open slightly, his head back between his shoulders as if he is afraid of being struck.

  “You’re a sick man,” he says, stretching his hand toward me. “Come with me.”

  “Don’t go with him!” shouts Bloody-Head. “He’s the Devil!”

  “Don’t listen to him,” says the doctor. “I’m not the Devil. He’s the Devil.”

  “Judge, I’m done with my testimony,” says the bloody-headed man in his usual voice. “Can I step down?”

  “Can’t you see what you are doing here is wrong?” asks the doctor.

  “God wants me to do it,” I say.

  “Defense?” queries the judge.

  “You tell him, Fochs!” yells Bloody-Head.

  The defense lawyer nods. “You may step down,” says the judge.

  “You have sold your soul, Fochs,” says the doctor.

  Bloody-Head rushes down the aisle and slams into the door, pushing the doctor out. He returns brushing his hands. Climbing onto the judge’s desk, he leans down to fish a key from the judge’s pocket, then returns to the door.

  “Want me to lock him out?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Yes,” he says, turning the key. “Leave it to me.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “I am the one who loves you,” he says.

  “And God,” I say.

  “Yes,” he says. “Why not? Go ahead and testify.”

  I realize the judge is staring at me. I stand slowly, make my way to the front of the court, climb into the witness box.

  “It’s you,” the judge says. “The disturbance.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t believe you took the oath,” he says.

  “The oath?”

  “You need to take the oath before you step into the box,” says the judge.

  “Oh,” I say. “Of course.”

  I stand up and step down, move to one side.

  “Raise your hand,” says Bloody-Head, from behind the Bible. I raise it.

  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” Bloody-Head winks at me. “Say yes,” he says. “Don’t try to explain.”

  “I do,” I say.

  “You’re not getting married, Fochs,” says Bloody-Head. “Yes will do.”

  “Take your place,” says the judge.

  Bloody-Head goes to the prosecution lawyer, whispers into his ear. The man listens, nods. He stands, crawls underneath the table. Bloody-Head steps forward.

  “I have just a few questions,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “You were acquainted with the girl who was killed?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “How did you know her?”

  “I was her spiritual leader.”

  “In what sense?”

  “I was the minister of the congregation she attended. The Corporation of the Blood of the Lamb. She consulted me about moral difficulties she was having.”

  “What sorts of moral difficulties?”

  “She had serious moral challenges facing her.”

  Bloody-Head walks around a little.

  “Do you know the defendant?”

  I say that I do.

  “How do you know him?”

  “He is in the congregation as well. The deceased’s sister.”

  “Brother, you mean.”

  “Brother. Of course.”

  “Did the brother ever say anything to you about the sister?”

  “I never met with the sister.”

  “The brother, you mean.”

  “Yes, of course. I never met with the brother.”

  Bloody-Head comes close to the box, leans toward me.

  “Slow down. Think about what you are saying,” he says. “God knows you want to do the right thing. Now do it.”

  I nod. I take a deep breath. He steps back.

  Through the side window I see the doctor waving his hands back and forth.

  “Did you ever meet with the sister, Mr. Fochs?”

  “The brother, you mean,” I say.

  “No, godammit,” he says. “I mean what I say.”

  “The sister,” I say. “Yes, I have met with the sister,” I say.

  “How many times?” he asks.

  “Just once,” I say.

  He comes closer to the bench. “I thought we went over this. You should have said two or three times,” he says.

  “Should I say it now?”

  “Excuse me?” says the judge.

  “No,” says the bloody-headed man. “You can’t change the story now.”

  “Did you say something?” the judge asks me.

  “I wasn’t saying anything.”

  The doctor is outside the window, pounding. His eyes are wide. I do not know how he has managed to climb up there.

  “Did she say anything to you at that time about her brother?”

  “I never met with the brother.”

  “Fuck the brother!” Bloody-Head yells. I flinch, but nobody else moves.

  “What did she say?”

  “That she was having sexual relations with her own brother.”

  The whole court seems to moan.

  “What do you mean by sexual relations?” he says.

  “Intercourse,” I say. “Fornication.”

  “Sex?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “And what was the result?”

  “She was made pregnant.”

  “She was impregnated by her own brother?”

  “Yes, by her brother.”

  “That brother over there?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Over there.”

  “Incest, you mean?”

  “That is what she said.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She said she was frightened of her brother.”

  “Why?”

  “She worried what he would do if he found out she was pregnant.”

  “Did she say what she thought he would do?”

  “No,” I say.

  He looks at me hard.

  “Did she say what she thought he would do?” he asks, louder.

  “I can’t remember,” I say.

  “Speak up,” says the judge.

  “I cannot remember,” I say.

  “You are ruining this,” Bloody-Head hisses. “I thought you were ready for a little responsibility. But you aren’t ready for anything.”

  “I’m sorry.” I truly am.

  “If you were really sorry, you would invite me to take a turn in your life,” Bloody-Head says. “You would tell me you want me to take your place.”

  “Take it,” I say.

  “What?” asks the judge. “Sorry?”

  “Step down,” Bloody-Head says.

  I climb down, go down the aisle back to my seat with my wife. She will not look at me, does not seem to know I am there. I watch Bloody-Head first speak from the floo
r, then step into the witness box, then speak from the floor, playing both prosecution and witness. My wife is nodding, smiling.

  “That’s showing them,” she whispers.

  Then the people in the court are on their feet, shouting, the judge raps the gavel. The court quiets down, the people slowly return to their seats.

  The judge points his gavel at Bloody-Head, sitting in the witness box.

  “One more time, Fochs,” he says. “Just one more. I am warning you.”

  Bloody-Head nods, slowly smiles.

  “Excuse me,” I say. “I am Fochs.”

  I stand up. “Excuse me,” I say. “I don’t mean to interrupt. He is not Fochs. Fochs is me.”

  The judge does not even turn his head. The bloody-headed man just smiles, winks at me, keeps talking.

  I close my eyes and when I open them I am in the front. The whole court is standing, moving out.

  “You were wonderful, honey,” says my wife.

  Other people are shaking my hand and patting me on the shoulder, congratulating me. I see the accused and his family flash past, looking deliberately away. Then Bloody-Head is there, shaking my hand.

  “Well done,” he says. “That last bit of testimony sealed it.”

  “Did it?” I ask.

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” he says. “Especially when you have the right friends.”

  He leans in closer, whispers in my ear. “You’ve been meeting with the psychoanalyst,” he says. “Does that make you feel better?”

  I shrug. “I think so,” I say.

  “Be careful what you say,” he says. “It only takes one slip.”

  He turns, sees my wife.

  “Is this your wife?” he asks. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

  “My wife,” I say.

  “Hello,” my wife says.

  “Charmed,” he says. “A good friend of your husband’s, Mrs. Fochs. A great admirer as well. You have children?”

  “Four,” my wife says. “Two girls, two boys.”

  “Lovely,” he says. “Perhaps I will meet them sometime.”

  “Perhaps we can have you over for dinner,” she says.

  “No!” I say. They both look at me. “Not now, I mean,” I say. “Too busy.”

  “What a shame,” says my wife. “Perhaps some other time,” she says. “Soon.”

  “Soon, then,” he says.

  “I don’t know your name,” says my wife.

  “I am a friend of your husband,” he says. “A good friend.”