The Burden of Proof (60 page)

Dixon's correspondence with Silvia began properly enough with a note thanking his hostess for dinner. It never occurred to Stern to suggest she not answer. Eight months later, when Dixon appeared again, mustered out and enrolled at the U., it had become a romance. Stern had never been Silvia's disciplinarian and he was at a loss as to how to put an end to this disastrous relationship, ,though he bristled with disapproval whenever the two were together in his presence and barely spoke to Dixon. Finally in Silvia's junior year, a crisis erupted.

Stern forbade her to transfer to the U. to be with Dixon. She accepted this edict with typical silent distress, but three months later they announced marriage plans. Silvia and Dixon countered every irate objection Stern raised: Dixon would convert to Judaism; Silvia would not have to leave college; Dixon, indifferent to school anyway, would drop out and take a job with a brokerage house. Stern, longsuffering, denounced Dixon at length: a huckster; a fake; an illusion. They remained resolute. One Sunday night, Dixon appeared at dinner and begged Stern to attend the wedding: he would both give away the bride and be the best man. 'We can't do this without you,' Dixon said. 'We're the only family each of us has got."

When Dixon completed his conversion course, Silvia and he were married beneath a canopy. Stern stood immediately behind the bride and groom.

He began weeping halfway through the ceremony and could not stop. He.had not carried on like that in front bf others before or since, but his circumstances had overpowered him: he was twenty,four old now and utterly alone. His search for a wife, never a matter of conscious priority, started at that moment.

As for Dixon and Silvia, there was no saying years later who was right and. who was wrong. Silvia relished the comforts time provided and Dixon's almost celestial admiration of her; but her pain, particularly with her husband's wandering, was sometimes intense. Given the histoi-y, she never dared speak against him to Stern, except during that short period several years ago vhen Dixon was banished from the household. One evening then, Stern had come home and found Silvia and Clara at the dining table. There was a sherry shifter between them and he could tell from Clara's warning look that SOmething was amiss.

Red-eyed and tipsy, Silvia spoke at once to her brother.

"I always thought it was all because he wanted children so badly," she said, offering her own explanation for Dixon's wanderlust. That barrenness, which the doctors could not explain, was Silvia's heartbreak in those years; she talked of it often to Clara, but only in private, for Dixon was far too humiliated by their failure to bear the thought that anyone else knew. "But he's taking advantage," said Silvia. "He always has.. I did not even realize he had been lying to the rabbi until he took off his pants on our wedding night."

Tlis remark seemed entirely mysterious at first, 'and then deeply shocking. The revelations seemed to ripple off, not around Silvia, but about Stern himself. He was being informed of something deeply telling, yet he could not read the message. By then he had engaged in dozens of athletic competitions with Dixon, stood with him time and again in various club locker rooms. Dixon did no fan dance; the fact, as it was, was plainly displayed. He must have assumed that among men, creatures of the here and now, this cen-turies-old ritual could be disregarded as brutal or pass6.

Who ever knew exactly what Dixon thought? But certainly he would not believe that Stern had simply not noticed that Dixon had never been circumcised.

On a knotty-pine bench by the door--the entire restaurant motif was of a basement tee room--Stern's daughters waited for him, drinking club soda, engrossed in one another.

Stern took Kate in his arms.

As they were seated, Marta offered Peter's apologies. He had been unable to reschedule his late rounds.

"And where is John?"

Kate's dark eyes skated quickly toward her sister. They had struck some agreement.

"He's with his lawyer," said Kate. "You know where. They have him looking at papers all night." Marta, obviously, had encouraged Kate to be plain, but the subject made her quiet and glum.

"This is a hell of a situation," said Marta in a tone that was largely devoid of blame. She had had many of the details from Stern, but clearly had learned more from Kate during the day.

"If there is not a complete resolution shortly, then I shall be stepping out of the case," said Stern. Marta knew this, but he repeated it for Kate's benefit. Seeing her made him more resolute. He took the hand that Kate had laid on the table beside him. Her eyes smarting, she suddenly hugged her father and brought her face to his shoulder in the small booth.

After debating whether Stern or Kate should be the one to take Marta to the airport, they agreed to go down together in Stern's Cadillac. They left Marta at the metal detectors, then Stern swung back to drop Kate at her car.

The parking lot for the Bygone was on the restaurant's roof, and the location offered impressive vistas of the airport, the highways, the hills, and the violet sky being pinched of the last light. Kate kissed her father quickly and was gone, but Stern, sensing he had not said all he meant to, threw open his door and called after her. He trotted a few steps to catch up and took her hand.

"This business with your uncle, Kate--the blame for it does not fall on John. If it is any consolation, you must tell him I said so."

Kate did not answer. She looked all around, in every direction, and for no apparent reason began tapping her foot. Stern's impression was that she was about to cry. She rooted in her purse. It Was not until the flame rose in the dark that he realized what she was doing.

"Katy! You smoke?"

"Oh, Daddy." She looked bout again, all ways, as she had just done.

"How long is this?"

"Always, Daddy. Just a few puffs. Since college. Exams. You know: heavy stressrt;s terrible for the baby. I have to cut it out," she said, but then inhaled deeply and turned her face up into the aura of smoke she released.

"Kate, I realize this has been difficult."

She made a Sound, almost laughter, a bit derisive. "Daddy, I wish it weren't so easy for me to shock you." She spoke almost harshly and stopped herself. They were silent. Then she took a last drag; in the dark he saw the cigarette fall,peated it for Kate's benefit. Seeing her made him more resolute. He took the hand that Kate had laid on the table beside him. Her eyes smarting, she suddenly hugged her father and brought her face to his shoulder in the small booth.

After debating whether Stern or Kate should be the one to take Marta to the airport, they agreed to go down together in Stern's Cadillac. They left Marta at the metal detectors, then Stern swung back to drop Kate at her car.

The parking lot for the Bygone was on the restaurant's roof, and the location offered impressive vistas of the airport, the highways, the hills, and the violet sky being pinched of the last light. Kate kissed her father quickly and was gone, but Stern, sensing he had not said all he meant to, threw open his door and called after her. He trotted a few steps to catch up and took her hand.

"This business with your uncle, Kate--the blame for it does not fall on John. If it is any consolation, you must tell him I said so."

Kate did not answer. She looked all around, in every direction, and for no apparent reason began tapping her foot. Stern's impression was that she was about to cry. She rooted in her purse. It Was not until the flame rose in the dark that he realized what she was doing.

"Katy! You smoke?"

"Oh, Daddy." She looked bout again, all ways, as she had just done.

"How long is this?"

"Always, Daddy. Just a few puffs. Since college. Exams. You know: heavy stressrt;s terrible for the baby. I have to cut it out," she said, but then inhaled deeply and turned her face up into the aura of smoke she released.

"Kate, I realize this has been difficult."

She made a Sound, almost laughter, a bit derisive. "Daddy, I wish it weren't so easy for me to shock you." She spoke almost harshly and stopped herself. They were silent. Then she took a last drag; in the dark he saw the cigarette fall, the lighted bit tumbling end over end and splitting in three on the pavement. She made a long business of crushing out the embers, twisting them repeatedly under her foot.

"Look, Daddy, we'll get through this. We have Inches taller than he, she brought her soft cheek against his, then hiked off toward her car her high heels clacking, her keys jingling in her hand. He stood in the parking lot, poorly lit, watching as she backed her car out quickly, then gunned the Chevy into a turn, leaving behind a ghost of dark smoke.

Who was that, he wondered, that woman? Of all things, the image that remained with him was of the way she had crushed out that cigarette, with her toe pivoting so' harshly on the asphalt. There was a certain fierce purpose in that which he had never been certain existed in her.

He thought of her tonight and as he had seen her at the ballpark and suddenly had the clearest intimation of how it was with Kate. Her whispering. Her murmurs with John. She was a person with secrets, with a secret life. And the greatest secret of all, perhaps, was that she was someone else-someone different from the beautiful innocent thing her parents wished her or allowed her to be. Stern's deepest impression, that she was a person very much like her aunt, like Silvia --lovely, capable, kind, but limited by choice-was merely the impression she had found it easiest to leave, so that she could otherwise elude them, with no trace. Who was she? he thought again. Really? He stood in the mild summer night and turned back to where she had been, but even the smoky cloud of exhaust had cleared away.

Stern slowly drove home. Approaching the dark house, he was tense. If he had anywhere else to go, he might not have gone in. The weeks, months really, he had spent overcome by various women and the ether of sexuality were, if not at an end, at least in abeyance for the night.

Without that, he felt in some ways more familiarly himself--round, solitary, solid like a stone. As he knew it would be, the large house was as wholly empty as it had been full the night before with that spirit of visitation. Now he was alone. The silence loomed about him with the power of some wayward force; he felt his own figure somehow dwindling in the unoccupied space. He stood in the slate foyer, where he inevitably seemed to tune in on his own soul, and thought quite distinctly that his life had gone on without Clara.

It was an absurd notion; what he meant was well beyond expression. The fact, such as it was, had been clear at one level from the instant he stood here months ago, white with panic, yet still able to draw breath.

But it seemed that it was not until this very moment that he actually had believed it. Yet he felt it now, his own life, that particular strand drawn out of the intricate tangle of mutual things he and his wife had created and shared. It was like electrical work, finding the line that drew power-he could feel the hum of his peculiar, isolated existence, which had continued with the persistent unmusical rhythm of a beating heart--his own heart, lugging on. He was by himself, neither pleased nor embittered, but aware o1 the fact. His mind lit somehow on Helen .then, and he closed his eyes and worried his head a bit, full of regrets.

He slept again that night in the bed he had shared with Clara--solid dreamless sleep, if brief. He was up by six and, reverting to old habits, was at his desk by seven. He went through piles of mail that had gone unread foi weeks.

He felt calm at the core, purposeful. But in the office something was amiss. It took him at least an hour to notice.

The safe was gone.

"'lnHIS isn't funny," Marta said whe, n he reached her I 'in New York on Friday. "You ve got to get it /back. I don't know how much of this is privileged, .1. but even if you told the whole story, no one will ever believe he just took the thing without your help. You're going to end up in jail."

Stern, at the end of the line, made a grave sound. Marta's analysis was much the same as his.

"This scares me," she said. "I think you should get a real lawyer."

"You are a real lawyer," said Stern.

"I mean someone who knows what they're doing. With experience."

What kind of experience might that be? asked Stern. There were no defense attorneys expert, so far as he knew, in explaining the disappearance of critical evidence.

"Tell him he's a big fucking asshole," offered Marta near the end of the call.

"If I can get him on the phone," answered Stern. Dixon avoided Stern until Monday, but when he came on the line, after Stern had made repeated demands of Elise, he was as innocent as a coquette. "I'd file an insurance claim," Dixon suggested. "Notify the cops. There's important stuff in there." With Stern broiling in silence, Stern's brotherin-law pressed on with this shameless routine. "You're not blaming me, are you?"

Stern spoke into the telephone in a mood of absolute violence.

"Dixon, if you insist on convicting yourself with ludiCrous antics, so be it. But it is my livelihood and my reputation at stake. The safe must be returned promptly." He pounded down the phone.

The next morning, he came to the office hopeful. But the safe was not there. The Berber carpet where it had rested for weeks was now permag. ently dimpled with the impress of the four heavy feet.