William Gaddis: J R

— Yes, Julia played the… where are you going now, Mister Cohen? If you’ll just sit still for a minute, I’m sure we can find some black thread. I can sew that button back on while we’re chatting.

— While I wait to talk with your nephew Edward…

— Whatever that paper is you’ve brought there, I don’t think he’ll be in any hurry to sign it.

— Yes, I remember Father telling us to never sign anything we didn’t read carefully.

— But… ladies! I want him to read it, I urge him to read it. I urge you to read it! It’s only a few lines, the merest formality, a waiver to permit the appointment of the decedent’s daughter, one Stella, Mrs Angel, as administrator of her father’s estate, so that we may submit to the court…

— Mister Cohen, you distinctly said that you hoped to keep us all out of court. Didn’t you hear him say that, Anne?

— Yes, I certainly did. And I’m not at all sure what James will say about these goings on.

— James has a great instinct for justice, Mister Cohen, and in spite of his being a composer he knows more than a little about the law. If we’re all obliged to end up in court in order to settle what’s right and wrong here…

— Madam, Miss Bast, please I… I implore you, there is no such issue at stake, and there is no reason there ever should be. The law, Miss Bast, let me tell you, the law…

— Do be careful of that lamp, Mister Cohen.

— There’s no question of justice, or right and wrong. The law seeks order, Miss Bast. Order!

— Now Mister Cohen, if you’ll just sit still. I’ve found some black thread right here in the basket.

— And an agreement within a legal framework is made for the protection of all concerned. Now…

— Perhaps you would like to take off your jacket. I’m just afraid you will spill those papers.

— Yes. Thank you. No. Now…

— It’s carpet thread, and should hold quite well. It will probably outlast the suit itself.

— Let me assure you that signing this waiver will not in any way affect any claim your nephew may have upon the estate of the decedent. But because of his somewhat equivocal position…

— I got it for Father’s overcoat buttons. It always outlasted the coats themselves.

— I don’t know what you’re inferring, Mister Cohen, but…

— This is I understand it, Miss Bast, your nephew Edward’s position in the family. His mother, who was known as Nellie…

— She wasn’t simply known as Nellie. That was Nellie’s Christian name, even though a lot of people thought it was a nickname. But I see no reason to start prying…

— I think when James is done his memoirs, can you raise your arm a little Mister Cohen? A lot of prying people will have surprises, and after all the gossip that followed…

— Ladies, I am not here to pry! But in the legal disposition of your brother’s estate, his relationship to Nellie and your nephew Edward is extremely pertinent. Now as I understand it, your brother Thomas had one child, Stella, by his first wife, who then died…

— I wouldn’t really say who then died, Mister Cohen. Why, she was still alive when…

— Of course, forgive me. At any rate Thomas remarried, one Nellie, who in due course appears to have separated from him, in order to cohab… ahm, to…

— Yes, to marry James. Precisely. But I would hardly say in due course, Mister Cohen. I think we were all really quite surprised.

— I don’t know, Anne. Nellie was flighty.

— I remember James using that word, now that you say it. It was when Rachmaninoff was visiting, I remember because he’d just had his fingers insured. Hand me those scissors please, Mister Cohen?

— However, yes, thank you, here… now, however, in the absence of any record of legally contracted marriage between the said Nellie and James…

— My dear Mister Cohen…

— Or indeed any evidence of legal and binding divorce between the aforesaid Nellie and the decedent…

— It scarcely seems necessary…

— And although it appears to have been known that this Nellie aforesaid was the, living as the, ahm, the wife of the decedent’s brother James at the time she bore her son Edward, and had been so living for some indefinite time prior to that event, nonetheless in the continued absence of a birth certificate attesting to those circumstances of his, ahm, provenience, Edward is in a position to exert a substantial claim upon the estate in question, and therefore…

— I scarcely understand a word you’ve said, Mister Cohen, and where you got that piece of paper you’re reading from…

— But I wrote it, Miss Bast, it’s…

— His glasses are rather like the ones that James lost that summer up near Tannersville, aren’t they Julia.

— And the idea of digging up all this gossip again. Why, Edward’s been perfectly happy here, and James has been a fine father to him, there’s never been any question at all, why…

— But I don’t question that, Miss Bast. The point is simply that in regards to your brother’s estate, until his position is clearly established, he… what…

— Just a little thread here still hanging, if you’ll hold still…

— Yes, thank you again for the button, Miss Bast, but…

— Are you leaving so soon?

— No I simply hope I think may be… maybe think better on my feet…

— He’s spilling those papers there, Julia.

— Miss Bast, and… yes, thank you Miss Bast, and therefore…

— After Nellie died, Mister Cohen.

— To the contrary notwithstanding…

— James brought him here then, you know, and we’ve practically brought him up ourselves. James’ work has always made such demands. That’s his studio there at the back, you can see it right out that side window, and we’d often miss him for days at a time…

— But the point, the point Miss Bast, the point of law at issue here is…

— Julia, I think I heard something, it sounded like hammering, someone hammering…

— The presumption, you see, the presumption of legitimacy while not conclusive and rebuttable in the first instance remains one of the strongest presumptions known to the law, and will not fail, Miss Bast, yes, where is it, Hubert versus Cloutier, it will not fail unless common sense and reason are outraged by a holding that it abides…

— There’s no question that at the time, Julia, we all thought James’ behavior outrageous…

— In general this presumption is not even overcome by evidence of the wife’s adultery, in regard to your nephew’s claim even when this adultery is established as of about the commencement of the usual period of gestation, as held in Bassel versus the Ford Motor Company…

— Mister Cohen please, Edward has nothing against the Ford Motor Company or anyone else, now…

— I am merely stating the legal position open to him, Miss Bast, in the event he should elect to pursue…

— Hammering, didn’t you hear it?

— Possibly your testimony and that of your brother James regarding the period of his cohabitation with the said Nellie prior to Edward’s birth, since there is merely a prima facie presumption that, just a moment, here, yes, that a child born in wedlock is legitimate where husband and wife had separated and the period of gestation required, in order that the husband may be the father, while a possible one, is exceptionally long and contrary to the usual course of nature, you see? Now in bringing a proceeding to establish the right to the property of a deceased person, the burden is on the claimant to show his kinship with the decedent, where kinship is an issue, of course, as in this instance of basing a claim on the alleged fact that claimant is decedent’s child, and… yes, that while in the first instance, where is it yes, proof of filiation from which a presumption of legitimacy arises will sustain the burden and will establish the status of legitimacy and heirship if no evidence tending to show illegitimacy is introduced, the burden to establish legitimacy does not shift and claimant must establish his legitimacy where direct evidence, as well as evidence of potent… is this word potent? potent, yes potent circumstances, tending to disprove his claim of heirship, is introduced. Now, regarding competent evidence to prove filiation…