"What?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"It was."
"Oh, it was an anniversary, I see. You remember now that it—"
"It was the anniversary of the… the death of our marriage," Ebie said, "the death he wrote about in his novel. He… he labeled his division the 105th as… as another one of his little jokes, a reminder that I had written my letter on the… the 5th of October… the letter that… that told what… what…"
"I think you have answered the question," Brackman said. He seemed suddenly alarmed. He turned from her swiftly and said, "Your Honor, I have no further—"
"I would like to hear the witness," McIntyre said.
"Your Honor…"
"You interrupted the witness before she had concluded her answer, and I would like to hear the rest of that answer now," McIntyre said. "Go on, Mrs. Driscoll."
"Yes," she said and nodded, but remained silent. She kept watching Driscoll, who would not turn to meet her gaze. The courtroom was silent.
"Mrs. Driscoll?"
"I wrote the letter because I loved him," she said. "I wrote it to explain."
She fell silent again. Driscoll did not look at her.
"I wrote and asked him to understand that I was… that I was telling him only because I loved him and… didn't want a lie between us for the rest of our lives. I asked him to understand."
Her hands were working nervously in her lap now, where only McIntyre could see them. She kept staring intently at her husband, but still he would not look at her. She shook her head as though sorry she had come this far, and then gave a small weary shrug, as though knowing she was committed and would have to go further. Her eyes were suddenly wet. She closed them immediately, and then lowered her head so that the judge would not see her tears. She did not raise her head again until she began speaking once more, and then she did so only to look at her husband. She cried soundlessly while she talked. The tears streamed down her face, but she did not wipe at them. She talked quietly and steadily, and she did not take her eyes from her husband, who never looked at her once during her long unbroken speech.
"I wrote to him because I had to tell him. We had been married that April, you see, and this was only September, the end of September. The truth was terrible, I know that now, I knew it then, I knew it was terrible but… in his book he described it as a plot to murder him, a theft of his life, his manhood, and it was never any of those things, never anything planned or schemed, only something that… one night… happened. He might have been able to understand, Dris might have, if only… but we had said 'forever' just that April, you see, and then he was gone in June, and this was… So how could it seem any less awful than it was, how could he believe I hadn't wanted it or expected it? I don't know, I don't know. We… were, I was upstairs in his apartment, I shouldn't have been there, I know it, I shouldn't have gone up when he asked me to. But I was lonely, Dris was gone, and he seemed so troubled, so in need. We talked, we… no, nothing explains it, nothing can explain it. It happened. Maybe I wanted it to happen, maybe Dris was right about that, I don't know. But it happened. I was twenty-two years old, and my husband was fighting a war in Korea, and I… I went to bed with Peter Malcom.
"I didn't love him, but I went to bed with him. So simple. So very simple. At first I thought I could live with the idea, forget what I'd done, forget I'd given myself to him. I'd always believed, you see, I'd been taught to believe it wasn't shameful to… to love someone. But this wasn't love, no. I couldn't deceive myself into thinking this was anything like love, the only man I ever loved was in Korea. I… I continued to write to him, I had to keep writing, my letters to him were the same for almost a week, lie after lie after lie, and then… then I couldn't bear it any longer, I knew I had to tell him the truth or allow the lies to destroy our marriage. Instead it was the truth that destroyed it.
"So… so you see the ten and the five are the date on that letter, October 5th was when I wrote it, and the man in my husband's book is Peter Malcom who… who made love to me… and… and… and I… the nurse in the book is only me, and the… the lieutenant is my husband, who… who testified in this courtroom yesterday that their love and their future are lost because of a single thoughtless act — isn't that what he said here yesterday? — their love is ruined because of a deception that… that causes a man to get killed. That's… I don't think that's Mr. Constantine's play. I don't think even Mr. Constantine can believe that's his play. My husband's book, you see, is about… about us, you see. That's what his book is about. And… I… I don't think I have anything else to say."
The courtroom was silent.
"Mr. Brackman, do you have any further questions?"
"No questions, your Honor," Brackman said.
Again, there was silence.
"Very well, thank you, Mrs. Driscoll."
Ebie rose, and wiped at her eyes. She looked down when she approached the steps, and then swiftly walked to the jury box. Her husband did not turn toward her as she sat.
"Mr. Brackman," McIntyre said, "I'll allow you to change or add to your summation now if you wish. Or, if you feel you need time for preparation in light of this additional testimony, we can set a date and hear your final argument then."
"I have nothing to add to what I have already said, your Honor."
"Very well. Does anyone have anything further to say?"
"If your Honor please," Willow said, "my opponent has suggested that Mr. Driscoll was attempting to mislead this Court. I have no comment to make on that except that I hope in the light of this subsequent testimony, you will take into consideration the personal elements involved. Thank you, your Honor."
"Anything else, gentlemen?" McIntyre asked. "Very well. I'd like to congratulate you on a good trial and argument. I want you to know that despite whatever moments of levity there were during the trial and in some of our discussions, I nonetheless consider this a most serious matter, and not only because of the large sums of money involved. So it's my intention now to reserve decision on the motions and on the entire case until such time as I can render the opinion a case of such gravity warrants. Thank you, gentlemen. I enjoyed it."
The judge rose.
Everyone in the courtroom rose when he did, and then watched in silence as he came from behind the bench. He walked to the door on his right, nodded briefly as it was opened for him, and then went into his chambers.
The door closed gently behind him.
The courtroom was silent.
There was — Arthur and Driscoll felt it simultaneously and with the same intensity — a sense of incompleteness. They both knew, and had known all along, that there would be no decision on the day the trial ended, and perhaps not for weeks afterward. But whereas this sense of an ending delayed, a final result postponed, was something both men had experienced before and knew intimately, they could not accept it here, not in the context of an apparatus as structured and as well ordered as the law. They sat in pained silence as though willing the judge to reappear, refusing to accept the knowledge that there would be no decision this day, there would be no victor and no vanquished. Instead, there would be only the same interminable wait that accompanied the production of a play or the publication of a book, the same frustrating delay between completion and inalterable exposure.
The judge did not return.
The door to his chambers remained sealed.
The writers stared at the closed door, each slowly yielding to a rising sense of doubt. No matter what Driscoll's wife had been induced to say, Arthur still knew without question that his play had been stolen; and Driscoll knew with equal certainty that he had not stolen it. But what were their respective opinions worth without the corroborating opinion of the judge? In spiraling anxiety, Arthur realized that if the judge decreed his play had not been copied, then the time and energy put into it had been lost, the play was valueless, the play was nothing. And Driscoll similarly realized that if the judge decided against him, then whatever he had said in his novel would mean nothing, he would be stripped of ownership, the book might just as well never have been written.