Scott Turow - Identical

Peering at Georgia Lazopoulos every time he turned on a TV filled Paul with clotted emotions, mostly horror and guilt. The brute fact that clobbered him was that she would have been someone else if he’d made a different choice. Sofia had added to his life as much as he’d subtracted from Georgia’s, if not more. But romance wasn’t ordinarily a zero-sum game.

“Cass, it looks bad. That’s all I’m saying. So why hang in and worry about the test?”

“Dropping out won’t stop Hal. It’ll motivate him, in fact. Hal would do the DNA even if you announced tomorrow that you were leaving the US and becoming a citizen of Belarus. And besides, now that Camaner has taken over, he’ll get his arms around the campaign, and we’ll win, once the focus is back on the actual issues.”

“We’re running out of cash, Cass. The crowds are thinner at every event, especially the fund-raisers. You’re seeing the same thing. And we agreed when we started that we’re not running this campaign on debt.”

“I don’t think we make this decision now. Camaner has to get a chance. A campaign is a rodeo ride. We both know that.”

Paul nodded. He was ready to sleep. He stood up and hugged his brother. “ Hron-yah poh-lah ,” he said in Greek as he held him. ‘Many happy years.’ This was still one of the greatest feelings he knew, hugging Cass, lingering with the solid fact of his presence.

Sofia and he went to the garage, where her Lexus was parked.

“You’re trashed,” she said. She took the car key out of his hand.

“No,” he answered.

“You’re trashed,” Sofia repeated. When they came up to the street, there was a sleety rain falling and the asphalt reflected the lights, making it feel as if it were Christmas again.

“You know the basic problem, don’t you?” Paul asked. “He likes being me more than he likes being himself.”

“God, Paul. That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

“I should never have agreed to this. The fact that he can pass himself off as me doesn’t mean he has the right to do it. I should have drawn a line. It was crazy.”

“Are you forgetting the last twenty-five years?”

“Hardly. That’s why I said yes. It was a horrible, hard time and we hung in together, no blaming or recriminations, and I couldn’t imagine ending that period with all-out war. But truth? I was shocked that he didn’t want to go back to his own life.”

“That’s naïve, isn’t it? You’re one of the most important men in this county. This state. Cass Gianis is an ex-con. And a convicted murderer.”

“But you know, as adults, when the world went to hell, he’d become so determined to be himself. He was proud of all the differences between us. He was funnier and more spontaneous than I was, less disciplined. That was the whole thing with Dita. Even if it was stupid, he insisted on making the kind of decisions I never would have. I’d always taken it for granted that come January 31, 2008, he’d be in a heat to get on with his life, have kids, all of that.”

“You liked this idea, Paul. When we first discussed it.”

“Because I thought it meant time off. Instead, Cass has added events to the schedule and we’re both working like we’re in chains.”

“It’s been incredibly convenient at times. You can’t deny that. He loves the fund-raisers, squeezing dollars out of every handshake. And you can’t stand them any more.”

“I can’t stand any of it,” he said. “I can’t. If we lose, this is the end.”

“Wanna bet?” When she sneaked a glance his way, she was smiling.

“You haven’t heard me say this before. Hal has changed my perspective. Politics won’t be the same. I’m not the first. This is just a grander version of what they did to John Kerry with the Swift Boat thing. So now the rich nuts call you a murderer. But what I believed in, building coalitions and organizations, is out the window. It’ll all be about how fast you peddle your ass to some billionaire, so you can counteract the guy on the other side who’s done the same thing. A pox on all of it. Honestly, when I think of the future, I’m more excited about the idea of working with Cass on that charter school for ex-cons-something simple and within our control, where I can be sure I’m actually leaving the campsite a little cleaner than I found it.”

“Paulie, we just need to get through the election. That was what we all agreed to start. You’ll be less exhausted and you two can figure it out.”

“What is there to figure out? Something has to give, baby. You got two guys and one life. I love Cass, but I can’t put up with this a lot longer. My mother always worried about the brothers in the bible, Jacob and Esau, and Cain and Abel. Cain is always the bad guy, but I’m beginning to feel for him, with his brother moving in on him.”

“What do you mean moving in on you?” Sofia asked. The light from the streets was on her eyes when they shifted briefly in her husband’s direction.

“You know what I mean,” he answered quietly. There was so much he had failed to anticipate by living one day at a time until Cass’s sentence was over. He never had to weigh his relationship with his brother against his marriage. Now the geometries seemed confusing to them all. In the month before they rented the apartment, Paul had returned home frequently from late-night events to find his brother and his wife together, padding around the house in their socks, still lingering over a meal, or side-by-side watching TV or a movie. Their familiarity with each other, and especially the physical aspect of it, which he had somehow never imagined, had been disquieting. The speed with which Sofia placed her hands on Cass to restrain him tonight, and even the way his brother received it, had troubled him again. Why hadn’t he realized what would confront him?

He was too tired for all of this. His mind was spinning down to dark places. It was past midnight and he’d be up at 5:30.

“I’m trashed,” he said.

The young colleague of Dr. Yavem’s with whom Tim had deposited the evidence surrendered by the state police left a message on his cell saying that they had concluded the tests and wanted to talk to him or Evon at 2 this afternoon. Tim met Evon at ZP and they taxied to the hospital. They were at the U in ten minutes and then walked in circles on their way through the med school to Yavem’s lab. The hospital, famous as a cancer treatment center, had itself grown like a tumor, spreading in all directions. Sometimes you had to go half a block to find an elevator. All in all, the hike to Yavem’s lab was longer than the drive out here.

Dr. Yavem emerged to greet them and brought both back to his small white office, with its long window into his laboratory. Tim realized that he might as well be looking through the glass at something occurring fifty or one hundred years from now, because the work taking place there was that far beyond what he would ever comprehend. DNA identification had not even been invented when Dita was killed in 1982. He’d heard the term because of Watson and Crick, and a book he’d read. Tim thought for a second about his father’s father, a sour, silent man who’d been born on a farm near Aberdeen and hadn’t even seen a railroad train until one started him on his journey to America. The old man lived to the time of television but refused to watch the set, convinced it was possessed.

In the taxi, Evon had described Yavem as a merry little guy, but to Tim he seemed pretty grave behind his spare moustache. There was barely room for two of them on the other side of Yavem’s desk, which ironically made Tim like him more. It meant Yavem had given up the space to his lab and his research and not his ego.