Allegiance (13 page)

I drop down into a squat, bringing my eyes level with hers. “What is it?”

“Monsters,” she says softly. “In the garden.”

“That was a dream,” I tell her. “There are no monsters in your garden.”

She looks carefully at my face. “Are you scared of something?”

I consider. “No.” Nothing she is scared of, anyway. Not dark, not monsters. But something out there has concerned itself with me.

“Who hurt you?”

“What?”

“I heard daddy say it. While you were showering. He said you'd gotten into trouble.”

“It's nothing,” I say. “Don't worry.”

Her face is serious. “I know there are bad men, too.”

“Not here,” I say. “All the bad men are very far away. You don't need to worry about any of that.”

She frowns, unconvinced. “My brothers are fighting them. We talked about it in school.”

I stand up, claiming the authority of height. The world is safer than she knows, with her fears of monsters in the dark. Safer, and more wicked, and senselessly cruel.

“Listen, JoJo. Anytime you're worried there are bad men around, you just sneeze. And if anyone's there, you'll know because they'll say, ‘Bless you.' ”

“Why will they say that?”

“It's the rules.” I reach down to ruffle her hair, feel her forehead warm and smooth. “Everyone has to follow the rules.”

BLACK IS IN
earlier than usual the next morning, whistling “London Bridge” and tossing his hat on the coatrack with a jaunty flick of the wrist. “Hey there, Cash,” he says. “How's your face?”

“I'm all right, Judge.”

“Good.” He steps to my desk and seats himself on the corner. “Thought I should tell you, I've changed my mind about the Witness case.”

“What?”

“The flag salute. We had that issue a couple of years ago. I was for it the first time, but I've changed my mind.”

“Why's that?”

He raises his hand in a stiff-armed salute. “Doesn't look good, does it? Little children. Other people make them do that, not us.”

I nod. The meaning of Gressman's gesture is becoming clearer.

“Felix wrote that one,” Black continues. “Wanted to show how much he loved America, press for unity with war on the horizon. But all it did was turn people against the Witnesses. We have law to protect us from our best instincts as well as our worst.” He pauses for a moment. “You don't want to forget the people in these cases. They taught you to read cases for the law, didn't they?”

I nod. Cases are like stories, and before Columbia I read some in the leather-bound books of Judge Skinner's library and marveled at them. And
then I learned that the people and the happenings in a case are just a pool of muddy water where the law swims like an elusive fish, which glints as it turns and vanishes again. At Columbia they taught us to seine that pond, to let the water slip away and hold only the bright fish in our minds.

“Felix came out with all those things about living by symbols and honoring the flag,” Black says, “and everyone thought he meant the Witnesses didn't love their country. It drew a line and put them on the other side.”

“So now you're voting the other way?”

“Douglas, too. Murphy. And I expect Jackson. The Witnesses are going to win this time.” Black rises to his feet. “There's real people in these cases,” he says. “And you should never forget that. They like tapioca, and they can't stand onions, and they wake in a dark night and don't know where they are or why. You don't want to stop seeing their faces.”

“Yes, Judge.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

He leans down closer to me. A lock of hair falls across his forehead, still damp from the shower. “I want to thank you for last night. Taking care of JoJo”

“Of course, Judge.”

“And Josephine.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You were right.”

• • • • 

When Black has gone, I walk over to Murphy's chambers. Gressman sits among a pile of papers, wearing a distracted air.

“How did you do it?”

He looks up, startled. “What?”

“Black just told me he's switching in the Pledge of Allegiance case. Showed me the salute like you did.”

“Oh,” says Gressman. “That.” He nods. “It's what he wanted to do anyway. He just hadn't realized it yet.”

“How so?”

“Black wants to be one of the good guys. I just showed him how.”

“And Frankfurter doesn't?”

“Of course he does. The problem is he's already sure he is. So you can't reach him.” Gressman waves his hands over the papers. “Anyway, good thing you came by. I wanted to see you. Had a brain wave.”

“About the Witnesses?”

“No, the guys who beat you up. I know what's going on.”

I look at him skeptically. He has on yesterday's suit, and among the papers I see a ceramic mug. I sniff the air. “Is that coffee?”

“Who's asking?”

“I am. Where'd you get it?”

“The thing about this rationing, Cash,” Gressman says. “It's not about the coffee,
per se
. There's a shortage of cargo space from South America, that's all. The boats are all full of oil and rubber.”

“So?”

“So this was trucked from Mexico. It's not subject to rationing.”

“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”

“Well, that's what the man said.”

“What man?”

Gressman hesitates for a second. “As I was saying, I've figured something out.”

I am undeterred. “It looks to me like you've got enough to share.”

“I need it, Cash. I draft opinions.”

“You're not drafting any now,” I say, taking a step closer. “Don't think I won't knock you around if I have to.”

“Look, it's not easy to get. I think they have some trouble at the border.”

“I bet they do.”

“It's just for when I'm up all night. And I've been drinking it for years. You'd do much better getting used to not having it. Or try chicory.”

I take another step toward him. A desk drawer is half open. “You've got a can in there?”

“Come on, Cash. Like you said, I'm helping you.” I pause. What he says is true. “And I really have figured something out.”

I decide to give him a break. “Okay, spill.”

Gressman takes a deep breath. “It's Frankfurter.”

“What?” I shake my head in disgust. “Hand over the coffee.”

“No, listen to me. I stayed here all last night and read through Murphy's conference notes. Even he notices, almost, in that half-conscious way of his. Something's pushing people. Even Murphy a couple of years before I got here, he voted funny in a couple of cases.”

“Funny because he agreed with Frankfurter instead of you? You're nuts. Every Justice tries to influence the other ones.”

“That's not what I mean. Yes, of course Felix yammers on in the constitutional cases. I'm not talking about them. I mean the ones where the money is. The business cases, like I told you before. Sometimes they come out wrong, but mostly it's just that the Court is hearing them when it shouldn't. They're granting cert petitions that should be denied.”

“And Frankfurter's making them?”

“Not directly. That's the genius of it. It's the clerks. It can't be anything else. Felix is there in conference giving his lectures on constitutional law, but underneath the clerks are making recommendations to grant the business cases, and they're slipping by.”

“But if it's the clerks, what does that have to do with Frankfurter?”

“You know how he is with the clerks. And who else could be influencing them?”

I am silent a moment. It is true that Frankfurter talks to the clerks of other Justices, certainly more than any other of the Brethren. And it is true that the recommendations of clerks carry weight on cert petitions, perhaps more than anywhere else. But still . . . “I don't buy it,” I say. “He talks to me plenty, and he's never said a word about cert petitions. Not the business cases, anyway.”

“Well, maybe he really likes you,” Gressman says. “That's good. We can use it.”

“But why would he be doing it?”

“He knows how the cases will come out. He can tell other people. Some bureaucrat somewhere, some businessman. Someone who could be useful. They trade the stock ahead of the decision.”

“What does that do for him?

“It lets him control them afterward. He wants to be the puppet master. That's how he thinks of himself. He says all these things about how judges must avoid any extrajudicial considerations, but he's in it up to his neck.”

There is a flaw in his logic. I step to the desk. “Gene, you've forgotten why we started with all this.”

“I have?”

I pick up his mug. There is about half a cup left. “You have. What does Frankfurter have to do with the Agriculture men?”

A troubled expression comes over Gressman's face. I can see the coffee has driven him fast along a narrow track. “Happy Hot Dogs,” he says. “I'm sure he's got former students there.”

“Yes, but why would he have me followed? He knows how the cases are coming out. Even if everything you say is true, it makes no sense.”

Gressman opens his mouth. Defeat looms on two fronts, and he cannot decide where he should resist. Finally he chooses. “He's still up to something. I know it. The grants are all wrong.”

“Maybe. But he's not following me.” I drain the mug. It is dark, strong, and sweet. “You need to think a little harder.”

But I get no more theories from Gene Gressman in the days that follow. He is working on the cases. He is championing the rights of the Witnesses; he is honing his arguments for the Japanese. I try to follow his example, submerging myself in work. Perhaps he was right: no one wants to hurt me. There's a logic to what he says. Whoever they are, they had their chance and didn't take it. And now they seem to be gone. No one is following me. The days turn cold and dwindle to dusk. Our marines hold Guadalcanal; Rommel's lines break at El Alamein.

It is good news, all of it. And if the men who followed me have lost interest, that does not mean I must. Gene Gressman and I can piece this together somehow; we can unravel the mystery. Later. Right now I am not thinking of Pacific isles or the deserts of Egypt; I am not thinking of men behind me on the street or children raising arms to their flag. I am thinking of the winter dance at Merion, the holiday lights in Rittenhouse Square. It is Christmas, and I am going home.

THE CLUBHOUSE GLOWS
in the winter light. The setting sun touches the bricks with rose and gold; it warms the two flags flying near the gate. Suzanne and I pick our way through shiny black cars to the door. The older members have dined downstairs on filets, which the club must have moved heaven and earth to obtain. The younger set is arriving for drinks and dancing, neither of which is rationed.

We can hear the band as we ascend the stairs to the ballroom, the slow lilting tones of a woman singing of a carousel, a chestnut tree. “I'll Be Seeing You.” The dance floor is crowded, uniforms jostling against evening wear. Some people just have them made, the rumor goes. Not Billy Fitch, though. His face moves past us, pale and serious, close-cropped hair above shadowed eyes. John Hall couldn't leave Washington; some urgent business detains him. I make a point of mentioning this to Suzanne, but she shrugs impatiently, brushing a wave of hair off her forehead.

I steer her across the floor, then to the bar as the music fades. We still move well together. The bartender's Victory Suit makes me conscious of the width of my lapels, my now-forbidden vest.

On the balcony there is a briskness and clarity to the air. Beyond the great lawn a dying fire grips the trees where crows gather. I feel I can see farther, as though the cold hones me. As I told Josephine, I still live on the academic
calendar and my seasons are backward, the smoky scent in the night a promise of renewal.

Suzanne clutches her shoulders, bare in a white silk gown. I drape my jacket over her. “It's been a really busy couple of months,” I say. It is in the nature of an apology. The press of work has kept me confined to Washington. The fall dance has come and gone at Merion, and the colors from the leaves, and John Hall has been about while I draft my memos in the marble tomb of the Supreme Court. But now I am here and he is not. “We're working on the Pledge of Allegiance case.”

“Is it really appropriate for you to say ‘we' when you're just a clerk?”

I am taken aback. “Well, I'm part of it. I help Justice Black decide.”

Suzanne drinks off her champagne. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I'm in a mood.”

I put my hands on her hips, under the jacket. “We don't have to talk about the Court.” The blond wave has fallen across her face again. Lots of girls are trying the style, but she really does look like Veronica Lake. I bend and kiss her cheek. “We don't have to talk at all.”

She wriggles in my arms. “Not here. My brother's right inside.” I turn and see Bob's head moving through the crowd. He isn't in uniform. I guide Suzanne around the edge of the room, out down the stairs. From the driveway, a path leads through the bushes to the flagpole. It stands in a small clearing, a seat ringing its base. It is getting too dark to read the inscription on the square pediment, but I know what is written there. Nineteen names in alphabetical order, Lovell Barlow to Emanuel Wilson, and on the fourth panel one line,
They Died for Their Flag
. That is what the Great War cost Merion.

I lean into Suzanne, pressing her back against the pole. I want to join my body to hers, to weld us together beyond the power of any war to separate. She kisses me. I put a hand under her dress and she slips her head away. “No,” she says. I lower my head and kiss her neck, her shoulder. “You think it will make me yours,” she says. “But that's not what it does.”