William Gaddis: J R

— Mister Cohen, I assure you there is no need to go on like this, if…

— Ladies, I have no choice. In settling an estate of these proportions and this complexity it is my duty to make every point which may bear upon your nephew’s legal rights absolutely crystal clear to you and to him. Now.

— It’s kind of him, Julia, but I must say…

— You understand that to proceed without taking into consideration your nephew’s possible rights in this estate would be to jeopardize the status of everyone concerned, since to hold a child a bastard is not permissible unless there is no judicial escape from that conclusion…

— Mister Cohen!

— And it is incumbent upon the party assuming the fact of illegitimacy to disprove every reasonable possibility to the contrary, and as apparently obtains here, in the case of a child conceived or born in wedlock, it must be shown that the husband of the mother could not possibly have been the father of the child.

— Crystal clear indeed Mister Cohen!

— Crystal clear, and while I am aware that you ladies may find certain legal terms somewhat obscure, nonetheless in pursuing other evidence tending to support illegitimacy, a declaration of the deceased mother, for example, might be admissible, or any similar characterizations of family relationships tending, as part of a series of res gestae, to throw light…

— Nellie was never one to write letters.

— Or photographs, he came on in a flourish of papers at the wall behind him — for the purpose of comparing the physical characteristics of the child with those of the husband and such other man…

— Just behind your left shoulder Mister Cohen, that’s always been my favorite picture of James. There, the two men sitting in the tree, the other one was Maurice Ravel. It shows James’ profile off so nicely, though he always felt that our Indian blood…

— I don’t think that’s anything to get into now, Anne.

— It’s quite all right, ladies. I have it here somewhere…

— Really, Anne…

— Yes, here, even where territorial statute provides for the legitimacy of the issue of marriages null in law, the issue of a white man and Indian woman has been held illegitimate…

— It is Cherokee blood you understand, Mister Cohen. They were the only tribe to have their own alphabet.

— Notwithstanding that the alleged marriage may have been conducted in accordance with the customs of the Indians on an Indian reservation within the territory and that, I think, should settle that. It’s not an area to meddle in, Miss Bast.

— He might like to see that picture of Charlotte in the headdress, when she was touring with…

— Now. There appears to be another sister somewhere. Carlotta.

— That’s precisely who Anne is talking about. She’s right behind you there, Mister Cohen.

— She what? who…?

— Do be careful, you’re going to break something. She’s there, just above the building with the dome. That’s one of James’ Masonic lodges. Charlotte’s wearing a green felt hat, but of course the color doesn’t show in the picture. She bought it to get married in.

— She did this place over you know, Mister Cohen. After her stroke, which was why she left the stage. She made quite a name on the Keith Circuit where she introduced… what was that song, Julia. I know the sheet music is around somewhere, probably over in James’ studio. She’s wearing a hat made to look like a daisy. That was why she took the name Carlotta, of course.

— And she died of the stroke?

— Why, certainly not. She carried right on, with a beaded bag on her withered arm, and except for a slight limp when she was tired you’d never know what she had gone through. She spent most of her winters in Cairo.

— Cai… ro? that… that would be, Egypt? Perhaps… The tremor seemed to pass through his voice right out his arm snagged in mid-air upon his wristwatch, — when I’ve talked with your nephew Edward, will he be down…

— If Mister Cohen would just come to the point here, we might not need to bother Edward at all.

— Yes, Mister Cohen. If you’ll just tell us how we can work things out for him…

— Work things out for him? He’s not an infant, is he?

— Infant! He’s bigger than you are, Mister Cohen, and you scarcely need shout.

— Taller, Julia, but I wouldn’t say bigger. I just took in the waist on those gray trousers…

— By… by infant I meant merely a, an infant in law, a, someone under the age of twenty-one.

— Edward? Let me think, Julia. Nellie died the year that James finished his opera, and…

— No, she died the year he started it, Anne. Or rather he started it the year she died, and so that would make…

— His opera Philoctetes. Maybe you know it, Mister Cohen?

— There’s no way he could, Anne. It’s never performed.

— Well, there was the winter when James was in Zurich. Perhaps Mister Cohen has…

— Ope! dropped his glasses…

— I hope they didn’t break? That’s a good way to take off weight, Mister Cohen. Bending up and down from the floor like that. I met the woman who told me about it in the ladies’ room at A and S’s. She was doing it with a deck of cards. She threw the whole deck out on the floor, and then stooped to pick them up one by one. I’m sure some of the weight goes in perspiration, but perhaps Mister Cohen…

— Mister Cohen seems to perspire quite freely…

— If we’re patient with him a little bit longer, I think that all he really is after is Edward to sign this piece of paper.

— You have nothing else up your sleeve, Mister Cohen?

— I… thank you for your patience, yes all I need is a copy of his birth certificate.

— There. You see, Anne?

— To establish his parenthood and his age. I had, I assumed he had passed his majority and fervently hope so, so, so that I won’t have to deal… to inconvenience you ladies further, the validity of his signature, you see, of course, on this waiver, depending upon his legal capacity to contract, although of course a minor may be emancipated…

— Emancipated! I assure you Mister Cohen…

— Which entitles him to keep his own earnings, but…

— Every penny that Edward earns…

— In no way enlarges his capacity to contract, as in Masus vernon Manon, I mean Mason versus Wright, yes, the contracts of an infant being voidable by him but not void, though this may not apply to necessaries, these however being relative. Now, comparing the voidable contract which is in itself not void to that of a lunatic, when of course his contract is made before he has been judicially declared incompetent, you ladies deserve…

— Oh Julia.

— Poor Edward.

— You see? You ladies deserve every protection, because the infant himself is the only one who can take advantage of infancy. The defense of infancy is not available to the adult, and this infant may disaffirm any time he likes. His mere intention to disaffirm is sufficient. In an action brought against him by creditors, assignees by purchase or in bankruptcy, sureties, or anyone else with a collateral interest in the contract, the mere setting up of infancy as a defense is sufficient, and none of them has available the defense of the infant, which is that of infancy.

— As far as his age goes, Edward himself…

— For your own protection, ladies. This birth certificate. Because this infant, ladies, this infant may disaffirm any time he wishes to, even if he has misrepresented his age in the first place in order to get the other party to contract with him, remember that ladies. Remember Danziger versus the Iron Clad Realty Company.

— I think he’s going for a glass of water, Julia.

— That door, Mister Cohen.