Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

Dar had told Syd Olson the day before that he enjoyed soap operas. While he almost never watched television, he did tune in to the criminal and civil cases being tried in the old courthouse between his own appearances as expert witness. As he slipped into courtroom 7A and took his place at the rear of the room, he nodded at several senior citizens whom he recognized as fellow courtroom addicts.

It took him only a few minutes to get up to speed. This was a sexual harassment trial…a female employee claiming that the owner of the small company for which she worked had been making sexual overtures. About half the jurors looked heavy-lidded and ready for a nap in the stultifying heat as witness after witness droned on about the employer’s sexist habits. A receptionist in her twenties testified that the boss had more than once stated in her presence that the plaintiff—a secretary in her midforties—“gave good phone.”

Ten minutes later it was the plaintiff’s turn to testify. The woman looked like Dar’s high-school Latin teacher—old-fashioned glasses on a bead chain, a conservatively tailored suit, a huge bow at the neck of her white blouse, sensible shoes, and dull blonde hair done up in a bun. She seemed to be a truly private and modest person, and her expression suggested that she regretted having ever started this proceeding.

Her attorney led her through a series of questions as the defendant, an oily little ferret in a triple-knit suit, sat slumping and smirking at his table. The plaintiff’s answers were so soft that twice the judge had to ask her to speak up to be heard over the creaking of the old fans turning overhead. Several jurors were close to succumbing to afternoon naps. Dar knew the judge—His Honor William Riley Williams—sixty-eight years old and with so many wrinkles and jowls melting into one another that he looked like a wax effigy of Walter Matthau that had been left too close to an open flame. But Dar also knew that Judge Williams had a keen mind behind that somnolent and bored visage.

The plaintiff’s attorney closed in for the kill. “And what, exactly, Ms. Maxwell, was the final incident in your employer’s established pattern of inappropriate behavior which served as the catalyst in your bringing this long-overdue request for legal relief?”

There was a pause while the plaintiff, the jury, and the silent onlookers worked to translate the legalese into English.

“You mean what did Mr. Strubbins do that finally made me bring this lawsuit?” said Ms. Maxwell at last, her voice so soft that everyone in the courtroom who was awake, including Dar, leaned forward slightly.

“Yes,” said her attorney, switching to English.

Ms. Maxwell reddened. The flush started at her neck above the white bow of her blouse and moved up into her cheeks until she was a bright red.

“Mr. Strubbins said…made an indecent proposal to me.”

Judge Williams, his chins and jowls propped on one mottled hand, asked her to repeat the answer a bit more loudly. She did so.

“Would you characterize this indecent proposal as obscene?” asked the plaintiff’s attorney.

“Oh, yes,” said Ms. Maxwell, her blush deepening. She looked down at her hands where they were clenched on her lap.

“Would you please tell the court precisely what this obscene proposal was?” asked her attorney, turning toward the jury in anticipatory triumph.

Ms. Maxwell looked down at her hands for a long moment and then said something inaudible. Dar and the few spectators leaned farther forward. Several of the regular geezers turned up the volume on their hearing aids.

“Could you repeat that a bit more loudly, Ms. Maxwell?” requested the judge. Even his voice sounded like Walter Matthau’s.

“I’m too embarrassed to say it out loud,” said the secretary, blinking rapidly behind her cat’s-eye glasses.

Her attorney wheeled around with a startled expression. This obviously had not been part of the game plan. At the defense table, Mr. Strubbins smirked and whispered something to his poker-faced attorney.

“May I approach the bench, Your Honor?” asked Ms. Maxwell’s attorney, trying to regain his courtroom equilibrium and not lose the moment. There was a brief sidebar during which the defense attorney spluttered, the plaintiff’s attorney gesticulated and ran on in an urgent whisper, and Judge Williams listened with drooping eyelids and a silent scowl.

After a moment, the attorneys were shooed back to their places and the judge turned to the blushing plaintiff. “Ms. Maxwell, the court understands your reticence to repeat what you have characterized as an obscene proposal, but since your case demands that the court and jury know precisely what Mr. Strubbins is alleged to have said to you, would you write it out on a piece of paper?”

Ms. Maxwell paused, then nodded, still blushing wildly.

The spectators groaned and sat back in their hard pews. Dar watched as the bailiff brought a pen and a stenographer’s notebook. Ms. Maxwell wrote on a page for what seemed like many minutes. The bailiff tore that page out of the notebook and handed it to the judge. The judge looked at the page with no change in expression and then beckoned the two attorneys forward. Both lawyers read the page without comment. The bailiff took the piece of paper and carried it over to the jury box.

The juror in the first seat was a woman, also wearing glasses, very tall and thin but surprisingly buxom, dressed in a black business suit and white blouse, her hair also tied back in a bun.

“You may give the paper to the foreman of the jury,” said Judge Williams.

“Foreperson,” said the woman in the first seat, sitting up even more rigidly than before.

“I beg your pardon?” said the judge, raising his chins and jowls from his cupped hand.

“Foreperson, Your Honor,” repeated the first juror, her thin lips almost disappearing as they became even thinner and primmer.

“Oh,” said Judge Williams. “Of course. Bailiff, please give the paper to the foreperson of the jury. Madam Foreperson, please pass it on to the other jurors, including the alternates, after you have read the message on it.”

All eyes in the courtroom were riveted on Ms. Foreperson as she read the note, the muscles around her pursed lips twitching as if she had suddenly tasted something very, very sour. She shook her head as she handed the paper to the juror on her left.

Dar had noted earlier that Juror Number Two—an overweight man wearing a madras sport jacket—had been on the verge of dozing off. Now the man sat with his arms folded above his ample belly, his eyes downcast. He was not quite snoring. Dar knew that dozing jurors was not an uncommon phenomenon in jury trials, especially on hot summer days. He had seen it many times himself, even while he was testifying in what amounted to murder trials.

Madam Foreperson elbowed Juror Number Two, whose head snapped up and eyes opened. Unaware that all eyes in the courtroom were on him, he turned to the buxom professional woman, took the piece of paper, and read it. Eyes widening, he read it again. Then he turned his head slowly back toward Madam Foreperson, gave the woman a wink and a nod, folded the piece of paper, and put it in his jacket pocket.

There was enough silence in the courtroom to carve into cubes and sell to schoolteachers by the pound. All heads swiveled back to the judge and the bailiff.

The bailiff started to walk back toward the jury box, paused, and looked to Judge Williams for direction. The judge started to speak, stopped, and rubbed his jowls. The plaintiff looked as if she were about to slide down out of sight in the witness box out of pure mortification.

Judge Williams said, “The court will take a ten-minute recess.” He banged his gavel and disappeared in a flurry of robes as all the spectators stood, the geezers elbowing one another and wheezing with quiet laughter.