Scott Turow - The Burden of Proof

"Am I going to catch this?;' "I am afraid that it depends."

"On what?"

"Your contact."

"Contact?" Fiona did not get it and looked at him with irfitation.

Stern awaited the fight words. Oh dear, this was difficult.

Divorce lawyers must ask all the time. Probably, they were crude and direct. 'When was the last time you let him plug you, honey?"

"I do not mean to be indelicate-"

"Are you talking about our sex life, Sandy?"

"Just so."

"Not much."

"I see."

"It's not as if I don't like it, Sandy, I do," she added quickly, fearing, as always, the poor judgment of others.

"But you know how that can get. I haven't let him come near me since I saw that thing." She gestured toward the floor, the family room, the television set. "Not that he seemed to care."

"And when was that, Fiona?"

"March?" She dipped a shoulder. "I don't take notes, Sandy."

"No, of course not."

"Frankly, I think he'd given up trying by then. He gets like that." She smiled again, grimly.

Stern imagined that Nate had given up long before. He had his own predicament. Not that it was much excuse.

Nonetheless, here in Fiona's precise bedroom, Stern was overcome by the mystery` of anyone's marriage. It was like culture or prehistory-a billion unwritten understandings, Nate and Fiona. What an unlikely couple, he mild and casual, and she so severe. She was always pretty, however.

Her good looks must have mattered to Nate, been his pride.

His treasure was at home while he went tomcatting all over: the neighborhood, catching infections and fucking every.body's wife-Stern's wife, too. The recognition brought him to a kind of momentary delirium.

Always reluctant to consciously anger, he felt drilled by the urge for revenge, high and mighty, powerful as a prizefighter. The thought f fever. Was he really capable of this? Oh, yes. He felt excited, inspired, and nasty.

"So am I?" asked Fiona. "Going to catch this?"

"I see little chance of that, Fiona, given what you describe."

She pondered. "I suppose I should be grateful he left me alone."

Still seated beside her, Stern slowly said, "I should say he did a great injustice, Fiona."

Her head listed to a dubious angle, as if he had gone loony. Stern smiled bravely.

"A great injustice," he repeated and gradually lifted his hand. He grasped the top button of Fiona's knit dress and leaned over to kiss the brown area at the top of her chest.

She drew back at once. But she was smiling. "San-dy,'? she said..

His own look was intent; he meant serious business. He opened the button he had grasped and pulled the garment back slightly to caress her again.

"Oh, my," said Fiona, and laughed out loud. "I don't believe this."

Fiona, it seemed, found it hard to contain herself; this was screamingly funny. The choices here, he; knew, were entirely his own. She would not stop him. Fiona was a weak person. Her only resilience was in her brittleness of character, but she had no convictions. Taken by surprise, she would laugh her way along, not knowing what else to do.

And he? How did he feel now? Odd, very odd, my American friends. Oh, this was wild and improbable and absurd. But sexual dating was more exciting than flying. He quietly touched her breast and felt blessedly, remarkably, fantastically, that he was no longer himself.

He opened another button and pulled her brassiere down. Her breast, small and white, seemed as startling as a fish darting by in water, and he bent to kiss her on the small button of her nipple-Someone was looking at him!

On the bedside, Stern jolted. He actually found himself standing halfway, his arms raised defensively. The collie, cowed, had also jumped back, dragging its front paws, but did not utter a sound.

When he looked back, Fiona had risen and stood directly before him; her brassiere remained pushed down, so that her white breast looked like a package partly unwrapped. When he met her glance, something happened-perhaps his fear, even momentary, had dissuaded her, or, more simply, time had brought her back to herself. But he saw a point of contraction sharpening in her eyes, and then her hann moved. He knew what was coming but it seemed undignified to defend himself. There was a flash of pain as she struck him open-handed on the side of the face, and he felt instantly that one of his front teeth, which had knocked together, might have chipped.

"You're not any better than he is," said Fiona. "You son of a bitch."

Her back to him, she fiddled with her clothing. He felt obliged to respond, but for the time being was not capable.

He sat on the bedside again, suddenly melting in shame.

"Forgive me," he said. "Jesus," said Fiona.

He was going to tell her she was an attractive woman, but that sounded the wrong note.

"i was overcome," said Stern instead, one of his usual ambiguous formulations. "YOu were taking advantage." This thought, when ut-'tered, caused her, with as little warning as usual, to cry once more. She sat down in a white wicker chair by the window and crushed the ball of tissue to the center of her face. She'd found her drink, and she drained it for comfort, then stood, probably wanting another.

She gave Stern a fiery look--one more unspoken curse-but, without further words, departed. The collie loped along behind her as she disappeared down the hall.Listening to her clump down the stairs, he looked up at the Cawleys' bedroom ceiling. Cobwebs hung from the stylish fixture. Oh God, he was full of loathing and self-reproach.

He had that underwater feeling of being very drunk, so that he knew it would be even worse whenever the adrenaline passed and a feeling of normality returned:. What in the world could he have been thinking? Oh, he was going to despise himself. He did already.

He walked over to the chair Fiona had sat in. Through the mullioned window, he could see his own house. In the twenty years he had lived here, he had never viewed it from this angle, and he looked down for some time on the variegated slate roof of thebedroom wing, taken by the sight. When he recogfflzed the gable of his own room, he actually tried to imagine Nate and Clara enwrapped about each other there, but the image, mercifully, refused to flourish.

What about the money? he thought suddenly. What in God's name did Nate need with 850,000 bucks? But Fiona had given him the answer to that weeks ago: for years she had threatened Nate with financial ruin as the cost of a divorce. She would fight like a terrier for every penny, for the sheer sake of vengeance. But with Clara's fortune squir-reled away, Nate could afford Fiona's wrath. Did that mean there was a pact between them, Nate and Clara? Were they each to abandon their spouses? Did she mean to leave Stern lonesome, wandering-the way he was?

Downstairs, he heard the front door slam. Fiona was gone-perhaps to take a drunken drive about the city, rattling on to herself about the viciousness of men; or simply to give him a moment to slink off in shame. The collie, deserted by his mistress, trotted back into the room. The animal tilted its head, gazing with luminous greenish eyes.

Imagine the dog's life, always on the seeming verge of comprehension.

This time, with the new thought, Stern was unable to move.

This truly was Clara's legacy to him, instants of horror as he made out the hidden forms in the mess she left behind.

In his line of work, he was always attempting to puzzle out precisely what had occurred in the past. The participants, clients or government witnesses, rarely provided reliable accounts. They were knocked off course by winds of fear, blame-shifting, self-justification. But occasionally, as he worked over a case, Stern himself would recognize what had happened. A word, here or there, a piece of paper. The jigsawed pieces fit.