Hawkin sat back in his chair and looked at the older man, who nodded his head in appreciation and sat back in his own chair, his long fingers finding one another and intertwining across the front of his ill-fitting jail clothes. Somehow, for some reason, life was slowly leaking back into his mobile face, and as animation returned, the years faded.
“Tell me about Berkeley,” Hawkin began. There was no apparent surprise on the fool’s part at this unexpected question, just the customary moment for thought.
“We shall establish a school of the Lord’s service,” he said, “in which we hope to bring no harsh or burdensome thing.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Hawkin flatly. Sawyer merely twitched a skeptical eyebrow and said nothing. Hawkin’s practiced glare was no match for the older man’s implacable serenity, either, and it was Hawkin who broke the long silence.
“Are you saying you find it restful there?”
“Oh Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in Thy mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.”
This heartfelt prayer, simply recited by a man who so obviously knew what it was to be tired, gathered up the ugly little room and gave pause to the proceedings. Kate thought, This is why he is so curiously impressive, this man: When he says a thing, he means it down to his bones. Hawkin thought, This man is going to be hell before a jury: They’ll be eating out of his hand. He cleared his throat and pushed down the craving for a cigarette.
“So, you go to Berkeley for a rest. Do you go there regularly?”
There was no answer to this, only patient silence, as if Sawyer had heard nothing and was waiting for Hawkin to ask him the next question.
“Do you have a regular schedule?”
Silence.
“You spend time in San Francisco, too, don’t you? In Golden Gate Park? With the homeless? Why won’t you answer me?”
“Not every question deserves an answer,” he replied repressively. It was one of the few times Kate had heard him repeat himself.
“So you think you can choose what questions you answer and which you won’t. Mr. Sawyer, you have been arrested for the murder of a man in Golden Gate Park. At the moment, the charge is murder in the first degree. That means we believe it was premeditated, that you planned to kill him and did so. If you are convicted of that crime, you will go to prison for a long time. You will grow old in prison, and you will very probably die there, in a room considerably smaller and less comfortable than this one. Do you understand that?” He did not wait for an answer other than the one in Sawyer’s eyes.
“One of the purposes of this interview is to determine whether a lesser charge may be justified. Second-degree murder, even manslaughter, and you might sleep under the trees again before you die. Do you understand what I am saying, Mr. Sawyer? I think you do.
“Now, I don’t know if you planned on killing the man known as John or not. I can’t know that until you tell me what happened. And you can’t tell me until you drop this little game of yours, because the answers aren’t in William Shakespeare or the Bible,- they’re in your head. Let’s get rid of these word games—now, before they get you in real trouble. Just talk in simple English, and tell me what happened.”
There was no doubt that Hawkin’s speech had made an impression on the man, though whether it was the threat or the appeal was not clear. He had sat up straight, his hands grasping his knees, now his eyes closed, he raised his face to the overhead light, and his right hand came up to curl into the hollow of his neck, as if grasping his nonexistent staff. For three or four long, silent minutes he stayed like that, struggling with some unknowable dilemma. When he moved, his hand came up to rub across his eyes and down to pinch his lower lip, then dropped back onto his lap. He opened his eyes first on Kate, then on Hawkin. His expression was apologetic, but without the faintest degree of fear or uncertainty.
“Truth,” he began, “is the cry of all, but the game of the few. There is nothing to prevent you from telling the truth, if you do it with a smile.” He gave them the smile and sat forward on the edge of his chair to gather their attention to him, as if his next words would not have done solely themselves. “Dread death. Dry death. Immortal death. Death on his pale horse.” He paused and held out the long, thin fingers of his right hand. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No. Your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain. A fugitive and a vagabond shall you be on the earth.” He paused to let them think about this, his eyes going from one face to the other. He drew back his hand and commented in a quiet voice that made the thought parenthetical but intensely personaclass="underline" “Death is not the worst. Rather, to wish for death in vain, and not to gain it.” After a moment, he sat forward again and held out his left hand, cupped slightly as if to guide in another strand of thought. Putting a definite stress on the misplaced names, he said, “Then David made a covenant with Jonathan, because he loved him as he loved his own soul. And David stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to Jonathan. And then he shall go out to the altar which is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He shall go no more to his house. He shall bear all their iniquities with him into a solitary land. I have been a stranger in a strange land. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. I met a fool in the forest, a motley fool. A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one. Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly.” He stopped, saw that he had lost them, and pursed his lips in thought. Then, with an air of returning to kindergarten basics, he began again. “The wisdom of this world is folly with God. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise now, let him become a fool so he may become wise. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly clothed and buffeted and homeless. We have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things. We are fools for Christ’s sake.”
“So you’re saying you do this as some kind of religious exercise?” Hawkin asked bluntly. Kate couldn’t decide if he was acting stupid to draw Sawyer out or because he was irritated.
“I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance.”
“Then I guess I must be burning in sin,” snapped Hawkin, “because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Sawyer sat back again with his fingers across his stomach and eyed Hawkin for some time, his head to one side, before making the stern pronouncement, “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Kate glanced at him sharply and saw a sparkle of mischief in the back of his eyes. He looked sideways at her and lowered one eyelid a fraction. Hawkin did not see the gesture, but he was staring at the man with suspicion.
“What does that mean?” he demanded.
“He who blesses his neighbor in a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.”
“Look, Mr. Sawyer—”
“Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.”
“Mr. Sawyer—”
“He who walks with wise men becomes wise, but the companion of fools will come to harm.”
Hawkin stood up abruptly, his face dark. “All right, take him back to the cells—” he began, but he was drowned out by Sawyer’s sudden loud stream of words.