Authors: Unknown
‘Sure, anything you say.’ Brice Mack’s light, offhanded acceptance of Hoover’s contempt was contrived to conceal his profound shock and surprise. The accuracy with which Hoover had hit the mark was devastating. Could it be he was always this transparent?
*
Leaving the stuffy environs of the Criminal Courts Building and stepping into the frigid, abandoned streets of late Sunday afternoon, Brice Mack sensed the exquisite irony of the bulging briefcase he was toting, filled with hopes, ambitions, and eight weeks of striving and planning which now, shorn of his power to function, represented a briefcase full of nothing.
The temptation to drop it in a litter bin as he searched in vain for a cab while sloughing his way towards the BMT on the corner of Foley Square was dissipated by a crescendo of confused noise rumbling beneath his feet as he approached the subway kiosk.
The trip home in the nearly empty car was made in the company’ of two frightened women and a vomiting black, which, all things considered, seemed the proper coda to cap off the day’s dispiriting events.
Pressed against the corner of his quaking seat, enveloped by the clatter of wheels and groans and the overpowering stench, the young attorney observed the second hand of his wristwatch sweeping inexorably towards the morrow, producing the disquieting sensation of an unstoppable doom hurtling towards him. It was at this moment that Brice Mack thought of his mother and the night she was sped into the operating theatre with less than a ten per cent chance of making it back out alive. He smiled, remembering the brave smile on her face as she winked her encouragement at him, both knowing it would be the last physical gesture they would ever share together on this earth.
The first inkling of catastrophe greeted Brice Mack’s arrival at the Criminal Courts Building the following morning.
The time was early enough to provide a calming and comforting vista of empty, slushy streets as his cab sluiced up the narrow canyons leading into Foley Square. Four chartered buses parked in front of the court building directly behind a television truck provided the first shiver of anxiety in the young attorney as he paid off the cabdriver and hurried up the freshly sanded steps.
Even in the sealed container of the elevator with its attendant hum, rhythmic sounds could be heard increasing in volume as the car approached the seventh floor, sounds that exploded into joyous chanting, ‘HARE KRISHNA! HARE KRISHNA! HARE KRISHNA!’ as the doors slid open to a corridor packed solid with more than a hundred and fifty Children of Lord Krishna, who, he later learned, had arrived with the dawn from their gurukula in Bronxville to pay tribute to the venerable saint Gupta Pradesh, the first of Brice Mack’s witnesses.
Girls and boys, ranging in ages from thirteen to eighteen, all dressed in saffron robes, the girls’ foreheads daubed with paste, the boys’ heads shaved except for the topknot enabling Krishna to yank them up to heaven at the proper time, were gathered in a six-deep phalanx down the length of the corridor, hopping up and down, beating drums, ringing bells, and chanting ‘Hare Krishna’s over and over, transforming the bleak, sterile surroundings into a gay and vivid bazaar. All under the amazed and watchful eyes of a cordon of helmeted, club-wielding police officers who had been summoned to maintain order.
Brice Mack was literally stunned by the sight and the noise and wavered momentarily before plunging ahead into the mass of exotically scented bodies in a game attempt to reach the telephone at the other end of the corridor. It was important he reach Gupta Pradesh at the Waldorf and warn him to stay clear of the main elevators and to find his way into the building through the service entrance.
With the help of a policeman, who seemed to delight in roughly clearing a path for him through the dancing, swaying, happy mob, the attorney finally made it to the end of the hall where the telephones were situated. There he found the space in front of them occupied by an impeccably dressed and carnationed Judge Langley standing in the centre of a barrage of lights, cameras, and questioning reporters, vainly attempting to add a brick or two to his own national image and reputation.
The reporters, however, seemed of a different mind, for instead of concentrating on the relevant issue of the moment, that of reincarnation, they peppered him with embarrassing questions concerning his Tammany days and his ascendancy in the O’Dwyer hierarchy, wanting particularly to know how he had managed to elude the tentacles of the Kefauver inquisition and, in general, prying and poking into the shadier corners of a past that the aged jurist would just as soon had lain dormant and forgotten.
Even as the carnation wilted under the extreme heat of the lights, so did Judge Langley’s disposition and temper erode under the onslaught of punishing questions, until at last his replies and rejoinders descended to a brash, monosyllabic level better suited to the gutter than to the august environs of a courthouse corridor.
Finally, with a display of temper, Langley pushed his way past his inquisitors, shouting, ‘Out of my way, goddamn you,’ and, calling for a police escort, ordered him to clear a path through the mob of caterwauling children to his chambers.
The area cleared of paraphernalia, Brice Mack put through his call to the Waldorf and learned that the maharishi, in the company of Fred Hudson, had already left. Bullying his way through the Hare Krishnas to the elevators, the attorney hurried down to the main entrance to intercept his witness.
Tall, lean, ascetic, garbed in the simple orange-coloured robe of one who has thrust aside the world of material delights, the Holy Maharishi Gupta Pradesh allowed Brice Mack and his assistant, Fred Hudson, to usher him through the dark and tortuous basement of the Criminal Courts Building to the service elevators, which they found stacked high with overflowing trash bins and with scarcely enough room for the operator. Only by huddling together in a tight knot, with their faces pressed through the grillwork of the elevator gate, were the three men able to make the slow trip up to the seventh floor.
Booming, rhythmic cadences from within the courtroom informed them that the Children of Krishna were inside, awaiting the appearance of their master.
At the first sight of Gupta Pradesh, a deep, reverent hush fell over the courtroom as all eyes strained to absorb the form and countenance of the saintly man. The purity and intensity of their consciousness of him flooded the courtroom so strongly that even Brice Mack could tangibly experience the high level of awareness the children radiated.
With a smile both serene and loving, Pradesh raised his hand in greeting towards the Children of Lord Krishna and then proceeded to the defence table and Elliot Hoover, who had risen and was awaiting him with outstretched hand.
Judge Langley remained speechless, his face contorted with incredulity as he silently observed the genteel passage of salutations between witness, audience, and defendant.
With a taut rap of his gavel and seething voice, he addressed the defence attorney.
‘Mr Mack, you have kept the court waiting a full five minutes, and I don’t mind telling you we are fast losing our patience! When I say, ‘Court will convene at a certain time,’ I mean it, and I make a point of personally being in the courtroom at that time!’
‘I apologize to the court for our tardiness, Your Honour,’ Brice Mack said with a small bow of the head. ‘With your permission, I am ready to call my first witness.’
‘All right, proceed.’
As Brice Mack slowly turned around to the defence table, he quickly scanned the room, momentarily dwelling on the look of assured indifference on Scott Velie’s face; noting that the reporters’ row directly behind the railing was packed solid with an assortment of familiar and unfamiliar faces, including one Catholic priest and several dark, turbaned gentlemen probably representing some foreign or religious press; and also noting with some surprise the absence of Janice Templeton, her husband being the sole occupant of the witnesses’ row.
Brice Mack cleared his throat and in a loud, clear voice trembling with chivalrous politeness declaimed, ‘It is my honour to call His Holiness Gupta Pradesh to the stand.’
The silence in the courtroom deepened as the maharishi, who was still standing alongside Elliot Hoover and the guard, who had also risen and was attending his prisoner with a watchful eye, inclined his head towards the bench and slowly advanced to the witness stand at Brice Mack’s direction.
The bailiff, Bible in hand, stood by the chair and waited patiently to administer the oath; however, upon seeing the book containing the revealed truth of the Christian faith, the old Hindu came to a sudden halt and, turning to Brice Mack, engaged him in a whispered conference.
After a few seconds of this, Judge Langley craned forward in annoyance and demanded, ‘What’s wrong now?’
‘It’s the Bible, Your Honour,’ the attorney explained. ‘The maharishi informs me that he cannot swear an oath on the Christian Testaments.’
‘Well, does he possess his own Bible?’
‘No, Your Honour, the Hindu faith subscribes to neither a founder nor a sacred book.’
Judge Langley turned to the bailiff.
‘Administer the substitute oath.’
While the bailiff foraged through the back flap of the Bible for the correct slip of paper, Gupta Pradesh ceremoniously ascended the stand and turned to confront his audience. His long, curly hair encompassed a face of purest tranquillity. His eyes, which seemed to be gazing into eternity, brimmed over with warmth and compassion for all they beheld.
At last, the bailiff found the right passage.
‘Do you solemnly affirm that the testimony you may give in the cause now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, this you do under the pain and penalty of perjury?’
‘To the extent that the power and the ability is given me to do so, I do solemnly affirm,’ intoned the maharishi, for the very first time lifting his deep-chorded English-accented voice to the heights and depths of the immense chamber, filling it so entirely as to produce an overflow of reverberations at the conclusion of his statement.
It was a voice that thrilled, that sent shivers even up Bill’s spine, and that stimulated an immediate reaction in the Children of Lord Krishna, who rose from their seats as one and in perfect unison started to chant and hum and sway in an excess of joy.
‘Order! Order!’ Judge Langley’s voice was a whisper in a hailstorm. ‘I’ll have order in this courtroom!’
As Brice Mack stepped up to the railing and waved his arms in a desperate plea for silence, his face was as abject and distraught as Scott Velie’s was filled with amusement and delight.
‘Hare Krishna! HARE KRISHNA!’ The bedlam of voices grew and built, setting up a vibration that caused the water glasses to rattle on their trays.
There seemed no way to bring the situation under control short of sending for the police, which Langley was about to do when, suddenly, in response to a gesture from the venerable Hindu, the mere raising of his hands to the Children of Krishna, the chanting immediately stopped.
‘My children,’ appealed the maharishi in his melodious, commanding voice. ‘It is not necessary to visit and pay homage to my physical being when to find me you have only to look within your spiritual sight.’
The statement, meant to calm them, only served to rekindle their ardour and bring on a new wave of chanting, different in sound and pattern from the previous one: a formless, seemingly wordless humming, ‘OM! OM! OM! OM!’ producing a deep, bell-like vibration of ear-shattering power and intensity.
‘Order,’ Judge Langley shouted, ‘or I’ll have this courtroom cleared!’
‘My children!’ the maharishi beseeched, to no avail.
Then, as if obeying some wordless, inner-inspired signal, numbers of the Children began drawing out small pots of incense from within the folds of their robes and setting them aflame.
Judge Langley shot to his feet in a rage and spluttered his final warning. ‘There’ll be no damn smoking in my court!’ And turning to the bailiff, ordered: ‘Bailiff, I want this courtroom cleared! Send for the police, and eject these people from the building!’ And with a final rap of the gavel: ‘Court will stand in recess until order has been restored!’
Pressing his way through the ranks of singing, laughing, chanting children, swaying amid clouds of incense, drumbeats, and recitations from the Bhagavad Gita, Bill hurried to outpace the reporters to the main door before the police arrived and the ensuing turmoil sealed off the route of escape. His single aim was to get to a phone and report the disaster to Janice, who had remained at the Candlemas Inn in Westport to care for Ivy.
The connection to their room made, he counted twelve rings before the desk clerk switched in to inform the operator that the party didn’t answer and offered the message desk. Bill then asked to have Janice paged, as it was still early enough for them to be at breakfast, but with no success.
Hanging up the receiver, Bill retraced his steps to the courtroom in bewilderment, augmented by a tinge of anxiety. It was more than odd not to find Janice at the inn, not only because of Ivy’s illness, which he felt Janice had been disposed to exaggerate, but because she knew the importance of staying close to the telephone. The decision for Janice to remain in Westport had been made with Scott Velie’s knowledge and concurrence. His only warning was to keep herself available for any summons from the court since failure to appear at the defence’s request would be construed as an act of contempt. Why would Janice have chosen to ignore Scott Velie’s warning?
Perhaps, he reflected gloomily, Ivy had taken a turn for the worse.
*
It was ten twenty before peace and quiet was at last restored and court reconvened.
The spaces vacated by the Children of Krishna, who had been boisterously carried off in the four buses to their gurukula in Bronxville, were only partially filled as Brice Mack opened his examination of the badly rattled Hindu sage, commencing with a series of questions concerning the rudiments of his background, his name, place of birth, education, place of current abode, and the general character of his life’s calling, and of the faith to which he had dedicated the sum and substance of his seventy-two years.