“She lifted her head, a lost look in her eyes. ‘He’d leave.’
“We were in the dark, just the two of us, falling down a bottomless black hole. ‘What would happen then?’
” ‘He’d come back.’
” ‘And then?’
” ‘And then he’d sit on the edge of the bed and tell me that he knew I really wanted to, and that it was all right because a lot of people did the same thing; and he’d tell me that he really loved me and that there was nothing to worry about because it was always going to be our secret. And he’d tell me that he’d never do anything I didn’t want him to.’
” ‘And then?’
” ‘And then I’d do what he wanted.’
” ‘But only after he made you believe it was really what you wanted?’
” ‘Yes.’
” ‘You thought it was wrong?’
“With a gesture almost identical to the one her mother had used, she bit her lip and nodded. ‘Yes.’
” ‘But he told you it was all right?’
“Again she nodded. ‘Yes.’
“It was in some ways worse than murder, worse than what we normally think of as rape. He never took her by force; he did something far worse. He made her the accomplice of her own destruction. He made her think herself guilty of her own defile-ment. He taught her pleasure. That is how he stole her innocence.
He made her want what she believed only he could give her. He corrupted her, his own flesh and blood, and so far as I could tell, never gave it a second thought. All the therapy in the world was not going to change it. Everyone in that family was seeing a psychologist-two of them testified at the trial-but they knew nothing about what had really happened to that girl. They droned on forever about ‘dysfunctional relationships,’ and they described the coping mechanisms by which everyone could eventually learn how to adjust to what had happened, but they had nothing to say about the human soul or the evil of incest. Not one word.
There was madness in all of this; madness in what the father had done; madness in what these self-proclaimed experts in human behavior had done or rather failed to do. I am not a religious man, but I tell you without hesitation that you will find more wisdom in the book of Genesis than in all their scholarly texts.
The girl had been forced to eat of the tree of knowledge by her own father, forced to leave the Garden of Eden and the unquestioning innocence of childhood. Even worse, she was made to believe that it was her fault, that she was the one who had committed the original sin.
“She certainly believed that her knowledge of what her father really was made her responsible for what happened to her brother.
” ‘Did your father ever do or say anything that made you think he might do something to Gerald?’
” ‘He told me that sometimes he’d find himself getting aroused.’
” ‘By Gerald?’
” ‘Yes.’
” ‘And do you remember what you said to him about that?’
” ‘I told him if he ever did anything to Gerald, I’d tell mother what he’d been doing with me. He promised he never would.’
” ‘Did you believe him?’
“She did not answer, not directly. ‘I tried to take care of Gerald. I spent a lot of time with him. I took him places, even when my friends didn’t want to have a little kid along. I let him know every way I could that he could talk to me about anything he wanted, that I wasn’t just his sister, but his best friend. I told him that parents didn’t always understand what kids were going through.’
” ‘Did Gerald ever say anything that made you think he was doing what he now says he was doing with his mother?’
” ‘No, of course not. He told me everything, and he never said anything like this until…’
” ‘Until?’
“She rubbed the corner of her eye, and then, grasping the arms of the chair, sat straight up, her mouth pressed into a rigid straight line. ‘Until he went to live with my father.’ With a thin, bitter smile, she added, ‘My father is very good at seducing children and getting them to believe whatever he wants them to believe.’
Her eyes moved to her mother, sitting in the chair next to mine, as if she wanted to make sure she was all right. It was the look of a parent checking on a child.
“Goldman was no fool. Most of his cross-examination was short, to the point, and done with a show of reluctance.
” ‘After all the terrible things that have happened, it must be good to know you can count on your mother’s support.’
“She was too smart. She did not say anything. She watched him, waiting for a question.
“Goldman flashed an ingratiating smile. ‘You know what it’s like, don’t you? Not being able to tell anyone, even your own mother, about something that has been done to you?’
“He should have known better, but despite everything he had heard, he still thought he was dealing with someone too young, too inexperienced, to know that questions often have meanings beyond the things they ask.
” ‘I couldn’t tell my mother,’ she replied, fixing him with a withering stare, ‘because it would have hurt her beyond anything anyone could have done. But Gerald could have told me-would have told me-because why would he think it would hurt me?’
“Goldman did not take his eyes off her, but his whole body tensed as he felt himself come under the watchful scrutiny of everyone in the courtroom. He tried to bury her answer beneath another question, but she was too quick for him.
” ‘I watched out for him. Gerald knew I wouldn’t let anything happen to him. And nothing did-not until they let him go live with my father!’
“Goldman’s face was screwed up tighter than a drum. ‘You’d lie to protect your mother, wouldn’t you?’
“It’s the question that never works, and I’ve heard it a thousand times.
” ‘I don’t have to,’ Amy calmly answered.”
I stopped and looked around at the three men gathered at the table with me. Harper, who had been staring into his empty glass, glanced up. Micronitis tapped the crystal of his watch to remind Asa that they were already late. The old man paid no attention.
He took his hands, which had been folded together under his chin, and spread them open, large, soft, and pink, like the smooth surface of a baby’s belly.
“What happened then?” he asked in a quiet, sympathetic voice.
Micronitis pulled his sleeve down over his watch and sank back into his chair.
I could see it in my mind, feel it in my soul, all the pulse-pounding, heart-stopping rhetoric I threw at that jury of strangers, all those years ago, when I stopped doing the things that were expected and started doing what something deep inside my own conscience told me to do.
“I quoted Euripides,” I said out loud, surprised when I heard myself say it. “During closing.”
Micronitis blinked and then moved forward, resting his elbows on the table. The sullen worried look on his face was replaced with an expression of immediate interest.
“What was the quote?” he asked, an eager, expectant smile on his small, pinched mouth.
I remembered not only the quote, but whole sections of a closing argument that had taken nearly two hours. I had worked on it for days, written it out longhand, written it and rewritten it, read it over so often that it echoed in my brain when I tried to sleep; I read it and rehearsed it so many times that it lost all familiarity and began to seem like something I had never seen before. I was certain I would not remember a word of it when I stood up to give it, and determined that even if that happened I would not read anything from the written page, not in front of a jury and a crowded courtroom. No, this had to appear sponta-neous, something I believed in so much that the words came of their own accord. In a real sense, they did. When I began to talk to that jury I forgot all about what I had written, rehearsed, and tried to remember. I forgot it all, and did not forget a word. I had learned it so well that it had become a part of me, something that had gone deeper than my conscious mind. It now had all the force of passion.