Scott Turow - Ordinary Heroes

This, then, was the story I told Bear Leach immediately after first meeting him in the front sitting room of Northumberland Manor. Bear extracted the complete tale with adroit questioning and accepted my rueful second thoughts about the change with a sage smile.

"Well, Stewart," he said, "I sometimes think that's everything that goes wrong between parents and children. What's rejected. And what's withheld."

In the latter column I could count my father's manuscript, which I eventually thought to ask Leach about. At that point, I assumed Dad had carried through on his threat to burn it. When I said as much, Leach struggled to his left and right, muttering until he located a Redweld he'd rested against the chrome spokes of his wheelchair. Inside the expandable folder he handed over was at least an inch and a half of jumbled papers, but thumbing through them I instantly recognized my father's lovely cursive hand on several interlineations. Big goof that I am, I sat there on the little love seat where I was perched and cried.

I'd read every line by the time I returned home, finishing by spending three hours in the Tri-Cities Airport after stepping off my plane, unable to endure even the thirty-minute drive to my town house before reaching the culmination. I was a sight, I'm sure, an economy-size fiftysomething guy bawling his eyes out in an empty passenger lounge, while travelers on the concourse cast worried glances, even while they went on hustling toward their gates.

The day Bear had given the typescript to me, I eventually asked how he had ended up with it.

"I have to say, Stewart, that I've always regarded my possession of this do. Cument as the product of ambiguous intentions. As I told you, your father said he was intent on burning it after my reading, and once I finished, I felt strongly that would be a terrible loss. I held on to the manuscript for that reason, claiming that I needed it in order to clarify little matters connected to his appeals. Then in late July 1945 your father was released quite unexpectedly and left Regensburg in haste, with other things on his mind. I expected to hear from him about the document eventually, but I never did, not in Europe, and not when we returned to the U. S. I thought of looking him up from time to time over the years, especially as I moved the manuscript from office to office, but I concluded that your father had made a choice he deemed best for all of us, and certainly for himself, that he go on with his life without the complications and memories our renewed contact would raise. The typescript has been in storage at the Connecticut Supreme Court among my papers for several years now, with a note informing my executors to locate David Dubin or his heirs for instructions on what to do with it. I was quite pleased to hear from you, naturally, since it saved my grandchildren from making that hunt."

"But why burn it?" I asked. "Because of this stuff about murdering Martin?"

"Well, of course that was my suspicion, at least at first." Bear stopped then, something clearly nagging him, perhaps a thought about how close he was to the boundaries of what he could properly disclose. "I suppose all I can say for certain, Stewart, is what David told me."

"Which was?"

"Oddly, we never had a direct conversation, your father and I, about what he had written. Even once I'd read it, he was clearly disinclined to discuss the events he'd described, and I understood. The closest we came was a day or two after the sentencing. Your father was going to remain under house arrest during the pendency of his appeal, but he was beginning to accommodate himself to the idea of five years at hard labor. I told him what criminal lawyers always tell their clients in this predicament, that there was going to be another day, a life afterward, and that he might look back on all of this, years from now, with different eyes. And in that connection I brought up the manuscript, which at the moment I'd conveniently left in the safety of my new office in Frankfurt.

"`I think you should save it, Dubin,' I said to him. `If nothing else, it will be of great interest to your children. Surely, you can't pretend, Dubin, you wrote something like this just for me. And certainly not to reduce it all to ashes.' He pondered that, long enough that I thought I'd struck a chord, but in the end he stiffened his chin and gave his head a resolute shake. And at that point, Stewart, he gave me the only explanation I ever heard about his determination to destroy what he'd put on paper.

"My most desperate hope,' he said, Is that my children never hear this story.

November 16, 1944, still in Nancy Dearest Grace-

Sorry for the silence. As you can tell from the news reports, the troops are on the move again, and the pace of our work has picked up, too. There are battlefront incidents that by their nature are often urgent, and we know that the move to a new HQ may not be far off. Our hope is that it will be in Germany-better yet, Berlin.

I'm feeling more myself now than when I last wrote. You must be wondering about those letters I dashed off a couple of weeks ago, bracketing my little detour into "action." With the distance of time, I have decided to put the entire experience behind me. That is what the old soldiers tell you to do: take the past as gone, and realize the chasm between war and normal life is wider than the Grand Canyon and not to be crossed. Darling, believe me, one day when this thing is over, I want you sitting beside me, so I can stroke your hair while I think over some of this. But please don't mind if it turns out that there's not much I care to say.

On a happier note, your most recent package, no. 15, arrived today. Only two of the sugar cookies were in pieces and I enjoyed them that way, too, believe me. Even better was the bottle of Arrid you sent, which I know is in short supply and thus made nie the envy of many. Because of the lack of fuel, hot water is a rarity, meaning few showers and baths. Let your brother know how much I appreciated the deodorant. Say what you like, but sometimes it is an advantage having your own department store. On that score, I'd like to request a favor. If George sees any film pack, size of 620, I'll take whatever he can find. My sergeant, Biddy, is quite the photographer and is having trouble getting film. He's probably the best fellow I've met in the service and I'd love to help him out.

Winter has come. The weather has gone from dank to bone-chilling. It is still raining, at least in name, but what falls now are icy pellets that sting the skin and freeze solid within hours. I wear my woolen gloves when I am sitting at my desk, although the courtroom has a little heat. The cycles of rain and ice are far worse for the boys in the foxholes. Trench foot has become a plague. Estimates are that a third of the troops are suffering from it, many with cases so severe they have to be hospitalized. Patton has ordered 85,000 extra pairs of socks and is rumored to have lectured troops that in war, foot hygiene is more important than brushing your teeth. Overshoes are coveted. The boys out there continue to amaze me with their courage and determination.

Their hardships are at great remove from me, as I continue with the safe but dreary life of a lawyer in court. I do have one piece of news. My promotion came through yesterday (only four months overdue). I am now Captain Dubin, with the word "acting" removed from my title as Assistant Staff Judge Advocate. I put on my silver bars immediately and walked around all day feeling great satisfaction every time a lieutenant saluted as I passed.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, my love. I expect to be with you, by the fire, this time next year.

I love you and think of you always, David

One afternoon in the second week in December a clerk dropped my mail call on my desk, three letters and a card. I was stuffing them inside my tunic, to be savored in privacy later, when the postcard grabbed my attention. On one side was a black-and-white photo of a gabled structure, with narrow variegated spires and two concentric arches over the door. The tiny legend on the reverse identified the building as the synagogue at Arlon, the oldest in Belgium. But I was more astonished by the handwritten note there.