Sol Stein - Other people

"That's right," said Thomassy. "Now I remember."

"You ever meet the man?"

"No. Damn, it's a small world. I give you something to read, and your daughter ends up on his couch. How long has she been seeing this Dr. Koch?"

"Maybe half a year or more. My wife and I encouraged her."

"Why is she seeing an analyst?" Insomnia.

"A lot of people have insomnia," he said impatiently.

"Not like hers. She'd go weeks without a good night's sleep. Deep circles under her eyes. On only two or three hours' sleep some nights, you get desperate. She did. I suspect she was taking at least three Seconals a night for a month when Priscilla and I found out."

"Who's her doctor?"

"She didn't get them on prescription. Someone at the U.N. was selling them to her. Anyway, it was a palliative, not a cure. We encouraged her to see Dr. Koch to get at the source of her restlessness."

"Was she that way as a child?"

"Not at all. It started right after college. George, you sound like an analyst."

"Any analyst who sounds lilce me ought to be fired. Did you ever witness a rape trial?"

"No."

"Read a transcript?"

"No."

"Everything gets dragged out."

I hated the seamy things adversaries seemed to have to pull out of witnesses in criminal trials. It violated my sense of privacy to open boxes that should have stayed shut.

"Ned, when it comes to cases of this sort, your daughter — and you, too — may bump into surprises. You don't like surprises."

"I'm glad you understand," I said.

"Sure you want to go further?"

"I'm merely the Miles Standish here," I said. "It's not my choice."

"You know Cunham?"

"Only by name."

"He's interested in cases that'll keep him in the newspapers."

"I don't want this in the newspapers."

Thomassy's forefinger circled the rim of his martini glass.

"Cunham's looking for corruption or multiple murder these days. He thinks rape is petty cash."

"Could you talk to one of the assistant D.A.s, perhaps one of the younger ones who might be sympathetic to a woman's point of view? I've really had no contact with those people."

Thomassy looked at me with what I thought was sadness. To him, I suppose, those of us who didn't know the D.A.s were businessmen, not lawyers. He had settled back in his seat, and so I leaned forward as if to bridge the chasm.

"Will you try to help her?"

"If I believe your daughter's story."

I could never say anything resembling that to a client to his face.

Thomassy went on, "Why doesn't she just move out of the building and be careful from now on."

"Not Francine."

"Tell me about her."

"She's part of the new generation, George."

"What does that mean?"

"She doesn't live by our rules. George, you know what Wasp families are like. We read people's expressions, but we don't comment on them. Francine does."

Thomassy smiled.

"Saying what you think all the time," I told him, "is very like high treason in our world. I've accommodated myself to her rebelliousness because it's temporary. Her children will revert to type."

"She might end up with a Sicilian."

It was my turn to be amused. "I can't believe she'd carry things that far," I said. "Although I must say she tried to quit Radcliffe in her last semester as a protest against the degree. I made her go back on grounds I was ashamed of. I told her how much I had already invested in that degree. She mocked me, but finished up. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have gotten her job."

"Where?"

"The U.N."

It made me nervous that Thomassy hadn't taken a single note. When a client first briefed me about a situation, I always had my long yellow pad in front of me, getting the details down. It gives them security, and me as well. Was Thomassy expecting to remember all this? Or did it not matter?

"Boy friend?" he asked.

"From time to time."

Thomassy laughed. "Surprised you haven't got her married off already."

"Young women don't get married off today, George. Judging by her friends, most of them don't get married even on their own initiative. No contracts."

"Tough for lawyers. Like you, I mean."

I wanted to respond to him, but I didn't want to get embroiled in a side issue. I had promised her a lawyer who could advise her how to go about getting the rapist convicted. But I abhorred the idea of being trapped in the middle. I wanted Thomassy to see Francine, not to question me.

The food came. Thomassy was tolerant. He let us eat. Then he said, "Tell me about the rape."

"George, I'd really prefer that you asked her."

"I'm asking you."

"She just said she was by the man who lived upstairs."

"No details?"

"I'm her father."

"If she doesn't have a current boy friend, who else would she tell the details to?"

"No one. Not even her sisters. She's like that."

"The details are important."

"Yes, I know."

"She'll have to tell me."

I nodded.

"Will she lie?"

"Francine tells the truth even when she should give other people the comfort of white lies. The original wild duck." It occurred to me that Thomassy might not know Ibsen.

" The Wild Duck …" I started to explain.

"I know," said Thomassy, cutting me ofiF. "Who's going to pay?"

"I said she works at the U.N."

"This could cost a lot more than a young secretary can spare."

I was pleased to have caught him in a prejudice. "Francine," I said, "is the research assistant on the staff of the American Ambassador. Her compensation is quite adequate. She's very bright," I added. "I'll stand behind her bill, of course. Just in case."

Thomassy waved the offer away. Which meant he accepted it. It was a great relief to me to pass the ball to him. In over twenty years of practice, I've never had a client's wife or daughter involved in an incident of this sort. Statistically, it would seem that some must have been. Is it the subject that makes it impossible for them to broach? Or is it me?

His full nomenclature was Archibald Edward Widmer III. No one was about to call him Archie or Eddie, and Edward sounded like the Duke of Windsor so everyone in our crowd called him Ned.

What was the chemistry? He looked good in white suits. He was clean. His forearms were muscular. He blew into my ear on our first date. From the start, I trusted him to look out for my interests. He made me feel safe. Men weren't adversaries in those days. We didn't put excessive weight on orgasmic response or subject our feelings to psychoanalysis. We aimed for wedlock.

My friends thought Ned prissy. Edith's Brock concealed something behind his facade of shyness I didn't want to get in bed with. And Alison's Peter — what ambisexual lusts were camouflaged by his toothsome flash of condescension at every man, woman, and pet that came into view. My Ned was not prissy once our bedroom door was shut.

Most men say they want sons. Ned wanted daughters and got them, Joan, then Margaret. He turned into a talented coddler of little girls, a fanny patter, body hugger, all in the guise of warm fatherhood. Then Ned went through that brief berserk period, announcing he was ready to resign his partnership and shoot off to Tahiti or somewhere with or without me. He'd make love everywhere except in bed. And during that wild time, Francine was conceived. What a beautiful thing she turned out to be. Blond hair that would never turn dark like her sisters' and mine, and two Indian touches, high burnished cheekbones, and eyes that were almost almonds in shape. Her pupils were a strange blue, as if Wedgwood could glisten. She never had to experiment with make-up, as her sisters had. She shot up there at a very young age, taller than any of us except Ned. Joan and Margaret went through the same gawky period I had, but Francine could have been a ballerina the way she moved. I found it difficult to connect her graces to our genes.