Authors: Brian Evenson
“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 floor, 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.”
“That's true,” I say.
“He owes me a lot,” he says. “And I owe him my existence.” He pats me on the shoulder. “I need to speak to your husband privately,” he says. “Can you excuse us a moment?”
She nods, takes a few steps back.
“We've won,” I say.
“No,” he says. “As soon as they have the results of the fluids tests, they'll know it wasn't him. We've just bought a few days.”
“But they don't know it's me.”
He shrugs. “They'll gather a list of subjects. Narrow the pool by blood typing, narrow further by selecting a few from that pool for DNA testing. You probably won't be on the list, but you can never be certain. Of course,” he says, “I could help you.”
“How?”
“Oh, I don't know,” he says. “I'm a man of many talents. If I do help, I would want something from you in return.”
“What do you want?”
“I don't know,” he says. “What do you have to offer?”
I am lying down, my wife is stripping off her hose. She leaves them beside the bed, the two legs coiled into one another.
She comes closer, turns away from me, sits on the edge of the bed.
“Unzip me?” she asks.
I draw the zipper down and watch the fabric part, spread wide. I see her spine seamed in pale knots through the shallow flesh. She stands, pulls her sleeves off her elbows, lets them fall so that the top of her dress hangs deflated around her waist, her bra revealed.
“Who was that man?” she asks.
“What man?”
She parts her bra at the back and rolling her shoulders shrugs it off. She plucks at the fabric beneath her breasts, where it has stuck to her skin, her nipples dark through the white mesh.
“The attorney in court the other day,” she says. “The one who questioned you on the stand.”
“Him?” I ask. “A friend of mine.”
“A good friend?”
“Sure, why not?”
She climbs into bed next to me. She moves beneath the covers, smoothes them over her belly.
“Why haven't I heard of him before?” she wants to know.
“I don't know. Just didn't think of it.”
“Didn't think of it? He said you saved his life.”
I shrug. “He didn't say that exactly. I don't remember what he said. I don't know what he meant by that,” I say. “Just prosecutor. I helped him on a project once. Maybe that's all he means.”
“What sort of project?”
“Hell, I can't remember. Nothing special.”
“I was just asking,” she says. “Don't curse.”
She turns over and away from me. I reach over and turn off the light.
“No need to snap,” she says.
I grunt.
“Something is wrong with you,” she says. “I know you. Something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong,” I say. “Leave me alone.”
She stays quiet for a while, conspicuously not moving.
“I don't want him in our house,” I say. “I hardly know the fellow. We won't invite him over.”
“Okay,” she says.
Later, when I am almost asleep, she says, “Something is the matter with you.”
“Nothing is the matter,” I say. “Open your thick skull and listen for once.”
“I don't want to hear you talk like that,” she says. “I want the truth.”
There is no way I am going to tell her the truth.
“I want the truth,” she says again. “Do you hear me?”
“Go to sleep,” I say. “I am too tired for truth. We'll talk in the morning.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
â¦
I get up early and leave before my wife wakes. I walk to the church and unlock the doors. Entering my office, I shut the door, put my head on the desk, sleep.
My two counselors wake me when they arrive. I slog through our Sunday morning meeting, hardly aware. The secretary reminds me that I am scheduled both to conduct and present the second address in the main service today. I haven't prepared anything.
Before Sunday school convenes, I walk out to the steps, where I wait until my wife's car pulls up. I walk down and open the back door, take my youngest out of her car seat. The twins are already out and rushing up the stairs, my eldest following serenely after, pretending she is grown.
“Take her to the nursery,” my wife says.
“No,” I say. “I can't take her.”
“It's your turn to take her,” she says.
“I'm sorry, I have to prepare my address.”
“This always happens,” she says. “Every week. I guess I should expect it from you by now.”
“Don't be like that,” I say. “I can resign. You don't want me to be the provost? You don't want me to serve the Lord?”
“No,” she says. “It isn't that.”
I hold our youngest at arm's length, toward my wife. The child tries to turn around in my arms to face me. My wife looks down at her feet, puts her hands behind her back.
“Is it going to kill you to take her?” she asks.
“It is not only the address,” I suggest. “It is the two women as well. The ones harassing me.”
She hesitates, then takes the baby.
“We never talked,” she says.
I shrug. I have nothing to say.
I am sitting down in my church office, writing the address when the two women arrive.
“Sit down,” I say. “Leave the door ajar, please.”
They sit coolly on the far side of the room, their backs straight, their legs crossed at the knees. Women are like dogs, I think. Get them alone and give them a snack and they can be nice enough. Get them together and they develop a pack mentality.
I pass the letter they have written to the apostolic elder across the table to them.
“This has come to my attention.”
They glance furtively at one another.
“Nobody likes someone who can't pull with the team. People who write letters like this lose the faith.”
“We are worthy members,” one says. “We go to meetings, we pay our tithing, we obey all the commandments.”
“Unlike someone else in this room,” says the second, snidely. She is the worst of the two. The troublemaker.
“Whatever you think I am,” I say, “it is wrong for you to be disobedient to your spiritual leaders. Those who malign their spiritual leaders are not for the Church, and whoever is not for the Church is against it. You are against it.”
They become irate, but I pay them little heed. I tell them what they need to hear by yelling louder than them.
“God will discipline you!” I yell. “Both of you!”
They shout some more, all meaningless, and then storm out.
I take out my handkerchief and wipe my forehead. There are, I realize, a few people grouped around the office door, looking in.
“Will you please close the door?” I ask. Then I get up and close it myself.
I start to work on my address again, listening to the voices murmur on the other side of the door. I will speak on obedience, for it has become clear to me that in matters of obedience some of my congregation are severely lacking.
The bell marking the midway point of Sunday school rings. I take a few more notes and then stand. I open the door. A few people are still there, grouped around the door, speaking. They fall silent as the door opens.
“You should be studying the Scriptures,” I say. “All of you. You are going to be late.”
They file reluctantly away. I return to my office. I open the Holy Scriptures, mark some passages I might quote.
I am in the midst of communing with the holy and revealed word when the door opens and two dark-suited gentlemen enter.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“We don't mean to disturb you,” says one. “But we must speak with you.”
“I would be happy to meet with you,” I say, “but I'm in a rush right now. Perhaps we can do this later?”
“No,” the second says. “We must do this now.”
They make their way in, shutting the door behind them. They sit down.
“We've been sent to ask you some questions,” says the first.
“Questions?” I ask. “What right have you to question me?”
“We're here to assess your performance.” The other has taken a pad of paper and a pencil from his pocket and is scribbling on the pad.
“I don't understand.”
“No,” the second man says. “We are the ones who don't understand. Thus, the questions.”
“First things first,” says the first man. He clears his throat. “Do you have any signs or tokens?”
“I don't know what kind of game this is.”
“He doesn't have any.”
“I have them,” I say. “I hold them sacred.”
“You haven't shared them? You've held them sacred, you claim?”
“What I do is none of your business. Who do you think you are?”
“We don't write the questions,” says the second. “We just ask them. Don't blame us.”
“We're not asking about your personal life,” says the first. “Only if you've held your covenants sacred.”
“That is not my personal life?”
“It is much grander than your personal life,” he says.
“Do you perform the sacred rites of the temple outside of the temple itself?” asks the second.
“What?”
“Do you?” he asks.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“Have you taken secret wives and thereby violated the new and everlasting covenant of marriage?”
“Let me ask the questions,” the first says. He turns to me. “Have you ever practiced bigamy?”
“One wife is more than enough for me to handle,” I say.
They just look at each other.
“Are you saying you are not living up to your marriage obligations?” says one.
“Are you saying that if the Lord asked you to take a second wife, you'd have difficulty following the Lord's command?” says the other.
“No,” I say. “I'm not saying that at all.”
“What are you saying?” asks the second. “Perhaps you should think before you speak.”
“I'm saying I am willing to serve the Lord,” I say. “Heart and soul.”
“That was not what you said.”
“I don't know what it sounded like I was saying, but that was what I was saying. Write it down.”
“I will write down things as I hear them. Not what you tell me to write down.”
“Let's talk some more,” says the first man. “There is more left to ask.”
“I don't want to talk anymore,” I say. “I'm busy. I don't even know who you are. I don't have to take this from you.”
“Who's taking what?”
“Just a few more questions. We'll go away after that.”
I calm down. I show these gentlemen the kind of self-control the Lord's anointed have, to teach them a lesson.
“Go ahead,” I say. “I will indulge you.”
“I want to ask about the girl.”
“What girl?”
“The one you killed.”
“I don't know who you mean.”
“That's what this is all about,” says the second. “It all comes down to the girl.”
“I won't answer anything about any girl,” I say.
“We can't force you, but it will be better for you to tell us.”
“You cannot hide from God,” says the other.
“I love God,” I say. “God is the last one I'd try to hide from.”
They look at each other, break out in peals of laughter.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
They wipe their eyes.
“What about the law of chastity?” says the first.
“What about it?” I say.
“Do you live it?”
“I am one of its adherents,” I say, “in my own way.”
“What way is that?” says the second.
“You keep out of this,” the first says to him. “You only make this worse.” He turns to me. “We are merely trying to obtain a clear picture of how things are,” he says. “Personally, we don't care. We're only messengers.”
“Messengers?”
He and the other man look at each other, smirk.
“Back to the matter at hand. The law of chastity.”
“I answered that,” I say.
“What did you mean, in your own way?” he asks.
“I mean I live it,” I say. “I am chaste.”
“Why in your own way?” the second asks. “What about the girl?”
“No,” I say. “I won't speak about her anymore.”
“All right, that's fine.”
“We can help you. Don't you want help?”
“I don't need help from anybody,” I say.
“What about God?”
“Except God,” I say. “I was forgetting God.”
“That's been your problem all along.”
“You obey the commandments, Fochs?” says the first.
“I obey them,” I say.
“In your own way?” says the second.
The first one coughs, looks down at the floor.
“What about
Thou shall not kill
?” he asks.
“That one I certainly obey,” I say.
“You obey that?” asks the second, shaking his head.
“I am a good and faithful servant.”
“I can write that down?” asks the second.
I shrug. “Sure,” I say. “It's the truth, isn't it?”
“Whatever you say,” says the second man.
“Get out.”
“One more question,” he says.
“I am through with questions. No more questions.”
“One more question,” he says, standing.
He reaches into his pocket, removes a photograph, an older one. The edges are cut wavy, like the edges of a paper plate, the surface of the image itself cracked. He puts it on the desk.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks. “Do you recognize the face?”
I examine the photograph. It is a man wearing a business suit, carrying a valise, his hair neatly parted down the center line of his head and slicked down the sides. I do not recognize him at first, then see in him, under the hair, the bloody-headed man.
I look up and know I have seen the two men before, on the bus chasing the bloody-headed man, then again dragging him away during the girl's funeral.
“Well?” they ask.
I take the notes for my talk and fold them in half, slipping them inside my Scriptures. I get up from my chair.
“We know you know him,” says the second. “We know. All we need to know is how well.”
“Are the two of you friends?” asks the first. “Would you call yourself close?”
“God help you,” says the second.
“Do you even know who he is?” asks the first.
“Are you collaborating with him? God help you if you are.”
I push by them.
“I won't have you in my church!” I shout.
“No, you wouldn't want us here, would you?”
“We're going,” says the first. “Don't worry.”
“Tell your buddy hello,” says the second. “Say hello from us.”